Kay’s Soap Dish
Liz is many things but an escort isn’t one of them!
You can’t keep a good Liz down – no matter how hard Jenny (and the world) tries. Next week, Jenny’s paranoia reaches epic proportions when her stalker app tells her that Liz and Johnny are together. Obviously, what it doesn’t tell her is that Johnny is consoling Liz after she finds out that Jim and Hannah are being detained for questioning. Jenny goes predictably nutso, accidentally giving herself a black eye in the process, and later decides to get one over on Liz by signing her up as an escort. What a cow. Beverley Callard, the legend behind the Lycra, reveals all...
Is there a chance Jim could come back?
Yes. I don’t know how Liz could forgive what he did, but there is this chemistry there. Maybe he will somehow get the money to give back to her, and then it will begin again.
In Liz’s head, how are things with Jenny?
Liz and Johnny slept together once, and after that, she knew it was a mistake. She’s got a great fondness for him because they go back so many years. But Liz has never been involved with a married person before and she beats herself up about that. Jenny isn’t her favourite person and never will be, but she feels guilty about it. And I think she truly believes Jenny has forgiven her.
Does she want to be with Johnny?
No. Liz loves the fact Jim is hot-headed. He acts with his fists and pays the price afterwards. I think she would prefer that to someone who is a little bit sly and manipulative, and I think she’s lost respect for Johnny in that way.
What can you tell us about the escort storyline?
W hen I read those scripts, I thought, “Why on Earth would they think that?” [Laughs.]
So, a guy just turns up…
Yeah, Liz gets this weird text and she just thinks it’s someone she knows. So, she goes home and this guy is there – and he’s quite young and fit. I was thinking I’d say yes, actually!
Maybe he was into Lycra?
[Laughs.] Yes, well, you’d have to be a bit, wouldn’t you?
How does she react?
She’s horrified and, at first, just thinks it’s some kind of joke. Then, once she talks to him and he verges on the aggressive side, she’s really upset. She’s convinced Hannah’s doing it.
This week, Liz amusingly gets caught out by Eileen when she lies about being sick to spend time with Mike. Was that fun?
It’s hysterical, because Liz’s foot is sticking out. They found this pair of red and black leopard-print shoes and I’m wearing a pair of enormous fishnet tights. So, you just see this leg sticking out from under the table, but in reality I’ve got this hideous Lycra dress on, plus a hideous check shirt covering me, because I felt so embarrassed. I’m under this table sticking my leg out going, “Can I come out now? Are we going for another take?” And I’m sure Sue [Cleaver, who plays Eileen] kept f**king it up on purpose, just so I had to stay under the table for a bit longer!
‘Liz loves that Jim is hot-headed’
You couldn’t accuse this new three-part drama of lacking incident – the opening episode alone has enough going on to sustain a whole series. It’s adapted from Andrea Levy’s bestselling 2010 novel, Small Island, which was written in the form of a memoir by a fictional elderly woman looking back on her traumatic life during the latter years of slavery in Britishruled 19th-century Jamaica. This TV version, written by Sarah Williams – who also adapted Small Island for the BBC – stars Tamara Lawrance as July, a slave living on the Amity sugar-cane plantation, who is owned by a particularly loathsome, spoilt mistress called Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell). Via flashbacks, we see the horrendous way in which July was snatched as a young girl from the grasp of her mother, field slave Kitty (Sharon Duncan-brewster), by Caroline’s brother John Howarth (Leo Bill), and forced to become Caroline’s maid, tending to her every need in her mansion on the plantation. But, when she reaches adulthood, July is caught up in huge turmoil, with slave rebellions taking place nearby and the romantic temptation of a handsome, flirtatious fellow slave. The series is stripped over three consecutive nights, and the emotional roller coaster of a narrative will have you gripped from the off. Look out for key roles for Sir Lenny Henry and Jack Lowden (Dunkirk), too. There’s also an Imagine… documentary about Andrea Levy airing on Wednesday night on BBC1 at 10.45pm.