Caroline:
Comedy star Caroline Quentin says she can’t wait to perform some ‘crazy dances’ – if her body lets her!
“I hope my knees don’t let me down!”
When Caroline Quentin was announced in the Strictly line-up last week, fans were overjoyed by news that the veteran comedy actress will be making a regular TV comeback, after recent years out of the spotlight. One commented, “Not going to lie, so thrilled with Caroline Quentin – there was a bit of screaming with joy,” while another echoed, “Yay, I’m already voting for Caroline.”
At 60, the Men Behaving Badly star is three years older than former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, 57, who was the final member of the line-up to be announced. And Caroline says she is ecstatic to be on the show, although she admits she is worried about her ageing joints.
She joked, “My knees are 50 years older from my previous dancing days. It’s my knees and my undergarments that are troubling me the most as a notion. I hope my knees don’t let me down and my foundation garments live up to expectation.”
As well as fans being over the moon, Caroline’s friend Amanda Holden – who began her acting career alongside Caroline in the BBC sitcom
Kiss Me Kate – offered her support, saying, “I’ll be rooting for her – she’s a wonderful human being! She was a real inspiration to me when I started out as an actress.”
Caroline rose to fame in the ’90s for her role in Men Behaving Badly alongside Martin Clunes, Leslie Ash and Neil Morrissey, before she starred in detective series Jonathan Creek with
Alan Davies. She reunited with Martin in Doc Martin in 2015, but has taken a back seat from acting in recent years. Caroline – who married Sam Farmer in 2016 after her divorce from comedian Paul Merton in 1998 – has revealed she can’t wait to get back on screen, although it was hard to keep the secret under wraps.
She said, “I do like to talk, so it’s been so hard to be quiet! It’s great I can say it now and I’m going to be there doing all those crazy dances.”