BBC show to explore different side to ‘Babs’

Dame Barbara. FANS will see a different side to ex-EastEnders actress Dame Barbara Windsor in a BBC biopic to celebrate her 80th birthday.

The former Carry On star said she had been kept in the dark over the 90-minute special but expected the writers to reveal untold parts of her life story.

Speaking at a lunch she was hosting for disabled and disadvantaged charity Variety, the actress said: “You have a ‘ this is me Barbara Windsor’ and everyone thinks that’s who it is. But the makers have got through to the other part of me and so I’m very thrilled the BBC are doing it.”

Titled Babs, the biopic will centre on the Londoner’s lonely childhood, complicated relationship with her father and her doomed marriage to Ronnie Knight.

It will also depict how she became the blonde bombshell in the Carry On films.

Asked if she knew who was playing her in the biopic, Dame Barbara, who left the long- running BBC One soap earlier this year, said: “My god, you’re kidding. I keep phoning up and saying when can I come and see who’s playing me. Who’s playing my dad. Who’s playing my husband.

“All I know is they’re doing auditions as we speak.

“I’ve seen the beautiful pictures of it and I mustn’t get too close to it and say ‘oh no I wouldn’t do this’ or ‘I wouldn’t do that’.

“I think it’ll be a bit different.”

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