‘I was sh*t on by birds filming Benidorm’
Sherrie Hewson, 67, on being splattered with bird mess and serenaded by Tony Hadley in Benidorm... We filmed on a place called Seagull Island and, because it was nesting season, the birds were sh***ing all over us. We still had the best time, though, and
Joyce and Monty get married in episode one – what was that like to film? Let’s talk about the “Joyce is a slag” best man speech... In scenes like that, it’s difficult not to laugh, but if you get something wrong or forget your lines, you’re going, “Oh God, the rest of the cast are going to hate me!” Is it hard to keep a straight face working on Benidorm then? Oh yeah, but we do work 14-hour days and we’re always up against massive time limits. So you can’t mess about on set, although we do have a good time. Is there a lot of hanging about? A scene in Neptune’s [bar], where everyone is sat round tables, can take three or four hours to do. It’s the same with the pool [scenes], some cast members can be sitting around the pool for days – not even speaking – because they’re in the background of a shot. Do you enjoy power-dressing as Joyce Temple-savage? Joyce is dressed very powerfully and I love that; it’s very “me” – and the heels make me quite tall. My mother was a model and she used to say, “Always wear big heels because you’ll be taller than somebody else.” They’re impossible to walk in, however, and I do my back in every series. What do you miss about the UK when you’re over there? My daughter and grandchildren. I spend all my wages flying backwards and forwards [from Benidorm to the UK] so I can see them. Filming this latest series, I flew so much I got streptococcus – which is something you get when you fly too much and all the back of your throat swells up. We hear the Benidorm cast now have bodyguards? We have a bodyguard, because when we come out of Neptune’s bar or the pool and we have to get to the next scene, we can’t spend time signing autographs. But it’s not like we’re The Beatles, and some of the fans are amazing. Is there a sense of occasion, with this being the landmark tenth series? When [Tommy] Cannon and [Bobby] Ball came out, I remember them saying, “Oh my God, we’re in the show Benidorm” and they told me how I don’t realise how big it is. It didn’t strike me until he said how absolutely enormous and fantastic the series is. To us, we just think it’s our day job, where we sit around drinking wine. And by that, I mean rosé – so there’s no alcohol in it…