GRAN DESIGNS
ANN MITCHELL MAKES A GUEST APPEARANCE IN POPLAR AS VALERIE’S GRANDMOTHER…
She’s a well-known face in the East End in 2019, and this week Ann Mitchell pops up in Poplar in 1964! Ann – best known to soap fans as Walford’s Cora Cross – is playing Elsie Dyer, Valerie’s gran, in Call The Midwife on Sunday, so Inside TV deemed it essential to get her on the phone for a chat about her new role…
Hi, Ann! What can you tell us about Elsie?
She’s a widow, and she loves her granddaughter very much. She’s seen a lot in the community in Poplar and the East End, she’s lived there all her life, she loves her bingo – she’s a very decent woman.
Were you a fan of the show before landing the role?
Yes, I absolutely love it! I think it’s one of the most radical shows on television – it’s wonderful. The issues that it deals with, and that it explores historically, and the way it’s taken us through the decades has been simply stunning.
Elsie has some boils that need treating – so this isn’t a glamorous role, then?
[Chuckles] No, not at all!
That was very strange for me – they’re called carbuncles, and in fact my grandmother had them and they were a very serious infection back in the day. You went to hospital with them! Elsie’s lucky that they’re caught – she has to be nagged into going to the doctor, like many of that generation.
The role of Elsie was written especially for you – was that a pressure?
Well, it’s funny – it’s a lovely thing, of course, but it can also be an enormous responsibility! There were moments when I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’d better come up to the plate!’
Is there a chance we might see Elsie again sometime?
Strange you should say that – there seems to be a feeling that they’d like to see Elsie again. But I want to come back as a nun! No, I’d love to come back as Elsie if that were at all possible. You never know!