NO WONDER THE BIRDS ARE SO CHIRPY!

They got to fly off to the sun for their first ITV Christmas special. Here they open their diary from the set – and tell why Anton Du Beke popped in to see them...

Tracey, Sharon and Dorien find themselves in Morocco for the Birds Of A Feather Christmas special, where Tracey’s son Travis has disappeared on his gap year. It’s not long before they bump into Dorien’s ex Vince, played by Martin Kemp, and find themselves embroiled in a gangland plot.

Here Linda Robson, Pauline Quirke and Lesley Joseph, who play Tracey, Sharon and Dorien, open their diaries from their trip to Malta, which doubles for Morocco in the show...

MONDAY

Linda: It’s a 4.30am start for the three of us this morning as we begin filming in Malta. Pauline and I are staying in the same hotel as the crew, while Lesley’s in a different one. She needs longer in the make-up chair so her hotel’s nearer the set!

Lesley: Getting ready as Dorien does take time – the hair and make- up alone take over an hour – but once I have the heels and my short dress on I really do feel like her. I even walk differently! It’s such a beautiful location and in fact, as soon as we arrived last night, my make-up girl and I went straight to the beach and had a few champagne cocktails. Just a couple though – it doesn’t take much for me to get tiddly as I’m quite small!

Pauline: Today’s scenes are out on a boat, showing us arriving in Morocco.

Lesley: The ferry we’re using to f i lm on only takes about 15 minutes on its journey, though, so we have to make the trip about ten times to get the shots right! What makes it more difficult is there are English tourists on board and we’re trying not to give the plot away. Thankfully there’s no seasickness.

TUESDAY

Lesley: We’re all up early again.

I’m in the middle of appearing on Strictly Come Dancing at the moment and my professional partner Anton Du Beke has flown over to rehearse with me. It’s all right for him as he gets to sunbathe around the pool all day while I’m filming.

Pauline: Today we’re wandering around a souk market trying to find Tracey’s son Travis.

Lesley: We get so excited when we see the souk as we all love shopping, so we make plans to go shopping this evening – only to discover it’s our own fictional set! They’ve brought everything over from Shepherd’s Bush market in London to create it. We can’t stop laughing.

Pauline: It’s so nice to have my son Charlie on the set with us playing Travis and my husband Steve working as executive producer. Charlie fits in so well. The girls adore him and he adores them.

Lesley with Martin Kemp and (main picture) with Linda and Pauline Lesley: He’s got three mums on set! Linda: When we finish filming in the souk about 5.30pm today Lesley performs her Strictly dance with Anton by the fountain at the hotel – only silly me only goes and drops my handbag in the fountain. I can’t believe it. It’s full of water now. Thankfully I took my phone out but everything else is completely soaked. What an idiot! But it’s great watching Lesley dance. We all really like Anton a lot, but no, he definitely can’t persuade Pauline and me to follow in Lesley’s footsteps next year.

WEDNESDAY

Lesley: We’re filming scenes in an old Mercedes in the middle of the desert today, and it’s very, very hot. In the plot we’ve run out of petrol, so I go off to find some while Pauline and Linda’s characters are stuck in the car. Linda: Gosh, it real ly is so bloody hot today! And we’re not al lowed to open the windows because of continuity. There’s quite a lot of fast driving too with no seat belts, it’s very scary.

Pauline: It’s a bit of excitement in our lives! We must have been going about 70 miles an hour on a desert road. Lesley: Can you imagine us three on Top Gear? We had other filming issues today because Dorien’s supposed to end up riding a camel. Only the one in Malta is so badly behaved we don’t even get to meet him. A decision is made to film those scenes back in England.

THURSDAY

Lesley: The week’s gone by so quickly, and everyone’s been brilliant. Martin Kemp has been a joy to work with. He’s such a wonderful person and out here in Malta everyone knows him from Spandau Ballet, but he never says no to a photograph with a fan. Today we’re filming on the airport runway – without giving too much away we’ve had a run-in with some robbers so we’re trying to hire a plane to make our escape.

Linda: It’s a great day out at the airport, full of excitement. We’re all really tired but we decide to go out for a meal together as it’s our last night. Pauline and I discover we’ve got mosquito bites on the same side of our face. In fact I’ve been bitten all over. I’ve got about 20 mosquito bites.

Pauline: Me too, but what fun we’ve all had.

Lesley: I love working with everyone so much, but we have our own little ways. On set you’ll often find we stand in the same order. As you’re looking at us, I’m usually on the left, Pauline’s in the middle and Linda’s on the right. We feel a bit funny if we don’t stand in this order. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved in Malta. It’s our best ever Christmas special.

Birds Of A Feather airs on Christmas Eve at 8pm on ITV.