Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

Really I should have turned it down – there’s that hindsight again. I know I wasn’t a name in London, but the role of understudy was a bit beneath me. The play was The Philanthropist, at the Mayfair Theatre, and I was to play Liz – this weird character who just sits at a party and says nothing. Not a single line so not exactly what I’d been building up to my whole career. My main job, though, was to understudy the lead: Annabel Leventon, who was replacing Jane Asher.

You meet all sorts of characters in theatre. Some you know you’ll be friends with forever. Others you instinctively keep your distance from. Edward de Souza was delightful and we stayed in touch. George Cole, on the other hand, proved an odd fish. He was already a successful film and television actor, a very solid performer, but you knew right from the off that he saw the world a bit differently. He was very insular, as if he had a wall around him. His wife had a second child during the run and I congratulated him. No smile, no thanks. He just said, ‘Well, it’s not nice watching your wife in pain.’ I thought, OK, George, I get the message. Backing off now.

I only planned to be in the show for a few weeks until something better came along but it ended up being six months. Six nights a week, and two afternoons, I’d just sit there, bored and depressed, as the rest of the cast performed. People said I did it very well but still I felt such a fraud. You couldn’t even call it acting. I mean, I may as well have sat in the front row.

Then one Saturday, about eleven in the morning, I got the call I’d been waiting for.

‘Annabel’s sick – you’re taking the lead today.’

God, the look of fear in George Cole’s eyes when I arrived! That put me right off, I can tell you. But we got through it, matinee and evening.

I saw George a few years later when I was doing a radio play in Leeds. Martin Jenkins was directing and I played a prostitute from Liverpool in period setting. As soon as I saw George I bounded over, hand out, and said, ‘Hello, George. Nice to see you again.’

For the second time in my life I saw that look of fear in his eyes.

‘Oh no,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘you never go up to someone and say that.’

It wasn’t a particularly happy job, actually. I really had a handle on my character but Martin wanted me to play it a different way – a completely different way. There’s only so far you can go before you lose the voice of the part and start to sound a bit fake, and so we fell out over that.

George watched this whole argument unfold, then at the end just said, ‘I would have played it your way.’

Now he tells me? So exasperating! But he’d made an effort so I thought that was an invite for a conversation. Wrong. The wall had gone back up. Such a shame as there are so many delicious stories I’m sure he could tell.

Anyway, I made the most of my run at the Mayfair. I saw the sights of London and in the evenings I’d wander over to meet Brian. We’d get the Tube back to Ealing or often Robert Morley would take everyone out for supper. It was a pleasant life, and quite a starry one because of the success of How the Other Half Loves, but professionally I was coasting. When The Philanthropist finally closed I got a few parts up in Leeds on the odd radio play, but the only other sniff in London was a brief job working on a showcase of new work at the Royal Court. I played ‘The Girl’ in Pretty Boy, the first big play from Stephen Poliakoff. That was a weird one – all that work for one night. Poliakoff used to come to rehearsals, sit cross-legged on the floor and click this biro all the time we were working. Very off-putting. Jill Mears was in it as well, who I later worked with on a Who audio. We got on very well and both laughed when one of the other actors, a guy who thought he was a bit grander than the rest of us, said, ‘Don’t worry – I usually try out a lot of different things on opening night.’ We were only doing it for one night!

Ironically, I think my lack of work in London theatre probably shaped my television career. As far as Todd Joseph was concerned, I was a blank canvas, so he began to send me out for all sorts of telly roles. I wasn’t picky at all – I just wanted to work.

The first one he lined up was for a show that had been running almost as long as Coronation Street. Z-Cars was the first police serial to show the real side of bobbies on the beat. It was meant to be everything that Dixon of Dock Green wasn’t. The episodes were two-parters, which meant a decent bit of screen time, but best of all it was set in Merseyside.

Threshold House was where the BBC did all its casting in those days. It was an old building next to the Bush Theatre on Shepherd’s Bush Green and I can still remember the thrill of walking up to the front door and seeing the words ‘Threshold House – BBC Television Service’ above the door. It might have been just another job but look who it was for!

The Beeb don’t use that building anymore, which is a shame because the feeling inside back then was electric. Corridors warrened off all over the place and people kept popping out and shouting across to everyone else. There was an energy – I could sense it even as a visitor – and I really wanted to be a part of it.

I was there to read for a small part for that episode’s director, Derek Martinus, who had just finished working on the first colour Who serial, Spearhead from Space with Jon Pertwee (not that I was aware of this at the time). We chatted for a while and I thought I’d blown my chances when Derek said, ‘I’m not going to give you this part.’

That’s a shame, I thought, but I’ve had a nice day.

Then he pulled out a script and threw it across the table. ‘I’d like you to read for this instead.’

The bugger!

In fact the new part was actually the lead guest for two episodes, which was fantastic. I couldn’t wait to get back and tell Brian – and Todd. On the way out Derek introduced me to Ron Craddock, the show’s producer. I wouldn’t know for a while just how serendipitous that encounter would prove to be.

My character was called Valerie, a sixteen-year-old runaway.

I thought, I’ve played old women – there’s no reason why I can’t go younger.

Annoyingly she was from Northumberland and not Merseyside, so my local advantage was lost. Eager to please, I went down to the BBC Library – it’s not there any more, sadly – and asked if they had any tapes featuring Northumberland accents. They had one – an eighty-year-old talking about her butter-making days. It wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing, so I took it away then listened and copied and listened and practised until I was perfect. It