Fans of cult sci-fi classic Blake’s 7 have been waiting patiently for news on a much-mooted reboot for years, but there’s one member of the cast who’s keen to revisit the series – as long as they can play a different character.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Glynis Barber – who got her big break as fearsome warrior Soolin in 1981 – has revealed she’s open to a revival but this time she wants to be a baddie…
“I could be the new Servalan, it’s always interesting to play someone evil,” she said. “I’ve been getting into practice with my new role on Hollyoaks playing a terrifying gangster, which has been great fun!”
Barber has just joined the Channel 4 soap as Norma Crow, an organised crime boss who is being billed as one of the most dangerous characters the village has ever seen – and that’s saying something.
It sounds like a great grounding for taking on Blake’s 7 vivacious villainess, brought memorably to life by the late Jacqueline Pearce who passed away in 2018.
Servalan was the sinister supreme commander of the Terran Federation, who hunted a disparate gang of fugitive rebels (the ‘seven’ of the title), across the galaxy for four seasons from 1978 to 1981.
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Barber has fond recollections of joining Blake’s 7’s Scorpio crew in the final seeason. Although one of the good guys, Soolin was pretty scary herself as her backstory described a tough childhood on dangerous planet Gauda Prime, where she’d learnt to fight dirty to avenge the murder of her parents by intergalactic mercenaries. No wonder the actors needed some light relief while making the show…
“We’d go to the old BBC rehearsal rooms in Acton which looked like a classroom,” she recalls. “Just like you do in school, the cast would be talking and laughing, until the director got angry with a few of us and said: ‘If you two don’t stop giggling I’m going to give you separate seats in the space ship!’ – it was great fun but I was fresh out of drama school and probably didn’t take it seriously enough to be honest.”
In our in-depth interview, Barber also reflects on her other famous characters including Ronnie and Roxy’s manipulative mum Glenda Mitchell in EastEnders and Harriet Makepeace, one half of legendary 1980s crimefighting duo Dempsey and Makepeace, where she met future husband Michael Brandon. Is that a role she’d like to revisit?
“Like Blake’s 7 a remake has been spoken about it for years but never happened. It could be interesting to see how the characters have involved – I am convinced that Sergeant Makepeace is now the head of MI5!”
The full Big RT Interview with Glynis Barber will be available to read from tomorrow (Friday, 29th April) on RadioTimes.com. Her first episode of Hollyoaks also airs tomorrow at 7pm on E4. Blake’s 7 is available to watch now on BritBox.
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