SIXTY SECONDS
THE MIRANDA ACTRESS, 74, TALKS SCENE-STEALING DOGS, TEST CRICKET AND HER ROLE ON ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL
You’re in All Creatures Great And Small from tomorrow. Why has this revival worked so well?
It’s been treated with such respect, telling the stories in a slightly different way but keeping the principles – the characters work so wonderfully together. We’re so uncertain in our lives that things are moving almost too fast. It’s important to put the brakes on and say, ‘Just a minute, this is actually what matters in life – human interaction.’
What were the challenges of stepping into Dame Diana Rigg’s role as Mrs Pumphrey?
I had a very eloquent letter from the producer saying they had considered losing the character altogether but she’s so beloved, an English eccentric, that they decided to continue with her. If you’re playing Hamlet and thought about the number of people who’ve gone before, you wouldn’t even get off the first rung, so you just have to go in and do what you think is right.
Mrs Pumphrey adores Tricki Woo. How was Derek the Pekingese to work with? Wonderful, the most benign dog I’ve ever come across. I’m so lucky. He loves being cuddled and loves humans. He’s got an extraordinary purr that’s halfway between a nostril snort and a cat’s purr but it’s incredibly loud. When he got really comfortable, we sometimes had to take him out of the scene because we couldn’t get through the dialogue.
Did you mind him stealing your scenes?
Not at all. Tricki Woo is her life so Mrs Pumphrey would want it that way!
The adage is never to work with children or animals. Have you had any memorable encounters with either in your work?
I did a TV series with Wendy Craig called Nanny, playing this mother with six children, and they were divine, like the Von Trapps. As for animals, Derek will always be the crowning glory. But I did a film last year with a Yorkie who had terrific attachment problems so it was always trying to get out of my arms.
Mrs Pumphrey spends time at the cricket. Are you a fan?
Massively. My son came home after being introduced to it so I learnt it from the ground up. When the writer knew that, he bumped it up a bit – she’s away for much of the third episode at a Test match and hosts a match later in the series. I loved the aesthetic of that, the tea tent and the pavilion.
Did you watch the Hundred?
A bit, but Test matches are the thing because they can turn on a sixpence. It can be so boring then suddenly change in an instant and that’s what’s so wonderful. We watched Ben Stokes do his unbelievable innings in the Ashes [in 2019] on a laptop in Italy. You could hardly breathe, it was so exciting. There were about five of us crowded round at a friend’s house and we erupted when we won.
What do you do when you’re not working?
I seem to have a pretty busy life, although the last year has tested all of us. I accepted things weren’t going to happen for a long time and there was nothing we could do about it other than honour what it was and find a way through it. I kept as fit as
I could, read books I normally wouldn’t have time to read, watched TV I normally wouldn’t have done.
As Miranda’s mum, are you still asked to say ‘such fun’ these days?
Not as much as I was! It’s always that thing when people say, ‘Go on, say it!’ But out of context it’s not going to work. I never, ever mind, though. It’s wonderful when people come up to you and have the courage to say what they feel about something because it’s always well-intentioned. They’re your audience and without them we don’t have a job.
He’s got an extraordinary purr that’s halfway between a nostril snort and a cat’s purr
You’re touring with Nigel Havers in the Noël Coward play Private Lives next month.
Yes. I’m in my seventies so when it came along, I went, ‘Come on, pull the other one’. Once I’d read it, I realised that actually it’s about two people who can’t live together and can’t live without each other. So many lines have been rubbed out over the last 18 months that to actually be able to go out there and say, as two people in our seventies, we still have the ability to love and hate and argue and fight and joke and be funny, is really important – to be a spokesperson for our age group.
What else is coming up for you?
I’ve been filming Murder In Provence, a murder mystery series for ITV and BritBox set in the south of France. It sounds lovely, except I don’t get to go to Provence. The interiors are all being shot in Oxfordshire.
Will you be lobbying for some exterior scenes in series two?
If they’ll have me back, I will. Come on guys, you owe me…
All Creatures Great And Small airs on Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 5