IT’S NICE TO BE GIVING THE ORDERS FOR A CHANGE

Anne Reid has starred in many dramas over the years – but she’s finally made it upstairs in Sanditon

had such a very clear description of any character I’ve played; Jane Austen does a couple of pages on Lady Denham,” the actress details gleefully.

“She’s not terribly bright I don’t think, but she’s very instinctive and she was born quite well off, which is strange really.

“Jane Austen is very, very clever and she says that she’s very nice and very affable and very pleasant, but she has moments of real meanness. But we know people like that don’t we? Those who run away when the bill comes. And that’s what she’s like.”

She adds with a chuckle: “It’s so unlike me, I can’t begin to tell you. I spend money like it’s going out of fashion – I’ll end up in a cardboard box!”

Having starred in other period dramas in the past, with Sanditon, “the glorious thing is I’m upstairs” she explains.

“I always want to be upstairs – what is it about my face that I look domesticated?” quips the star, who has one son, Mark (her husband, Peter Eckersley, died from cancer in 1981, aged 45).

“I’m the least domesticated person you could ever meet!”

“And you just keep your fingers crossed in this business, you can never predict how something will go, ever. We had no idea Last Tango would take off. A story of two old people falling in love?”

On the topic of Last Tango In Halifax, the Sally Wainwright drama, which last aired on BBC1 in 2016, will be returning to our screens next year.

“We’ve got to make it good because expectations are so high,” says Anne.

“I can’t believe it’s really going to happen.”

■ Sanditon starts on ITV on Sunday, at 9pm.

Anne Reid as Lady Denham

ANNE Reid has some simple advice for up-andcoming actors: Don’t sit at home waiting for a leading part. It’s a rule the Newcastleborn star, 84, has followed throughout her six-decade career. “I’ve always said to my agent, ‘If it’s interesting, if it’s 10 lines, if it’s something new that I’ve never done before, I’ll do it’,” she elaborates. “And it’s worked, because I’m always saying, don’t sit around thinking, ‘That’s not a big enough part’ – get out there and show what you can do.” This attitude has certainly paved a successful path in showbusiness for Anne, whose first pivotal TV role was in the Sixties, as Valerie Tatlock in Coronation Street. She’s gone on to star in some of our most beloved shows (Dinnerladies, Last Tango In Halifax), in several films, such as The Mother, as well as plenty of theatre. And she’s not about to slow down either, it seems. Already this year we saw her in Russell T Davies’ hit series, Years And Years, while next up is ITV costume drama Sanditon. It’s inspired by the Jane Austen novel of the same name, in which she plays Lady Denham. “The great joy of this is that I don’t think I’ve ever

84-year-old Anne Reid