{"id":35781,"date":"2023-08-12T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T07:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1871376"},"modified":"2023-08-13T00:31:29","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T22:31:29","slug":"anne-reid-i-get-much-better-roles-now-but-its-a-bit-late","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/anne-reid-i-get-much-better-roles-now-but-its-a-bit-late\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Reid: \u201cI get much better roles now, but it\u2019s a bit late\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The award-winning actress on a career as a “jobbing actor”, why she doesn’t want to say goodbye to Sanditon and what the future holds. <\/p>

By Robin Parker\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 12 August 2023 at 07:00 AM<\/p>

\n\n

This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

For most actors, to be commanding plum roles in primetime dramas nearly 70 years after their TV debut might feel valedictory. But Anne Reid isn\u2019t most actors.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say to me, \u2018You\u2019ve had a wonderful career,\u2019 but I don\u2019t think I have,\u201d the 88-year-old star of Last Tango in Halifax, Sanditon<\/a> and BBC One\u2019s recent The Sixth Commandment<\/a> confides with characteristic frankness.<\/p>\n

Granted, the string of secretaries and brides-to-be she played in the likes of The Benny Hill Show and Hancock\u2019s Half Hour might not have felt like the most fulfilling of roles; such were the breaks for many young women in the late 1950s.<\/p>\n

But surely she felt she\u2019d arrived when she landed the part of Coronation Street<\/a>\u2019s Valerie Tatlock (later Barlow) and became a mainstay of \u201960s TV, before being killed off a decade later?<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but there was a hangover afterwards \u2013 people think you\u2019re a bit downmarket for doing Corrie,\u201d she reflects. \u201cI get much better roles now, but it\u2019s a bit late.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have loved to have done some Alan Ayckbourn or No\u00ebl Coward, but I didn\u2019t fight for it. If I lived again, I would. I didn\u2019t have the confidence \u2013 but now I do!\u201d<\/p>\n

At an age when most of us might think about retiring, Reid was just getting started. Playing Jean in Victoria Wood\u2019s BBC sitcom dinnerladies in the late 1990s was, she says, the turning point.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople realised I could do comedy and Vic got huge viewing figures for everything she did.\u201d Reid also realised the on-screen appeal of difficult people. \u201cThe audience really loves somebody who chucks their weight around, as long as it\u2019s done with humour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is, as it turns out, a fitting description of Lady Denham, the matriarch of Sanditon, the unfinished Jane Austen novel that was turned into an ITV drama series in 2019, which returns this week for a third and final run on ITVX. The wealthy widow is, Reid says, one of her favourite parts.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s charming and good fun \u2013 but don\u2019t cross her.\u201d She pauses. \u201cA bit like me, I\u2019ve always wanted to boss people about, it\u2019s something I\u2019m good at!\u201d she laughs.<\/p>

Reid said yes to the part \u201cin about 10 seconds\u201d because she wanted to play a woman of elevated station after servile roles in the BBC\u2019s Bleak House and Upstairs, Downstairs.<\/p>\n

The third season goes deeper into Lady Denham\u2019s class roots by introducing a love interest: Rowleigh Pryce, who\u2019s initially unaware that his old flame is now a lady of the manor, risen in status.<\/p>\n

Reid suggested James Bolam for the part \u2013 they\u2019re old friends whose chemistry makes for some mischievous fun. She speaks fondly, too, of co-stars James Fox, Kris Marshall \u2013 \u201cI love to shout at Kris\u201d \u2013 and Kate Ashfield.<\/p>\n

Sanditon is heartland Austen, light-touch family viewing a world away from the racy goings-on of Bridgerton<\/a>, a thought that clearly tickles Reid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not seen Bridgerton \u2013 I wonder what Austen would have thought of it?\u201d she muses. \u201cHer work still feels fresh,\u201d she adds. \u201cWe can identify with the characters, she writes them so beautifully, with humour, and you realise that people don\u2019t actually change a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a romantic as well \u2013 Pride and Prejudice is one of the most romantic things you could possibly read. Emma Thompson\u2019s Sense and Sensibility was beautiful, too \u2013 you can\u2019t go wrong with Austen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n