Jean Alexander Interview on Wogan - 22 January 1988

but before all of that a lady who until very recently had never seen the end of this show on mondays and wednesdays just as i never saw the start of hers i think she's probably got the best of the deal mind you she's been busy or busy buddying on mondays and wednesdays for many more years than i have here in fact the question is being asked how will coronation street survive without its favorite daughter hilda ogden please welcome the lady who created her making a rare appearance without the rollers the tv times actress of the year ladies and gentlemen gene alexander [Music] [Applause] [Music] we uh we put the ducks up the wall and all to try to make your feet at home although the audience says the middle one should have its head down a little bit sexy nose down yeah hang on that's right [Music] i suppose they'll say that was rehearsed but it wasn't now anyway you've decided to hang off the pinny and the curlers after 24 years 23 and a half actually yeah but who's counting well we all are because and i'm sure most of the public are because they don't want you to go why did you decide to leave well i've spent over half my working life in the street on the street no i've been saying over half my working life incarnation street and i thought it was time for a change because the press dropped me in it by saying i was retiring so i've had about 200 retirement cards which makes me feel about 197 and um i'd like to thank everybody for them incidentally because i just can't answer all the letters that read far too many yes we just showed you the kind of affection which are held by the british public was it must have been a very difficult decision to leave the street yes it was in a way because it's it changes your way of life you know when you've been scratching around waiting for the next job for most of your life um it was the only sort of secure job in the business really it certainly gave us all a sense of security you're never worried about the the great myth or perhaps shiboleth of of type casting not really because i spent uh about 11 years in weekly rep which is doing a different play every week in the theater and you know how tough acting can be after that absolutely so um i have done other things and hope to do them again do you miss it i mean it's perhaps a little too soon to ask you that do you miss this i'm having a ball actually telling because it's so marvelous not to have to get up at the crack of dawn and go and stand on a drafty station platform and wait for the train and get home late in the dark and in the winter and you know i got tired of that very hard work it was what sort of schedule did you work to understand well we start on monday we started on monday and we did outside filming location filming on monday morning and then we started rehearsals monday afternoon and rehearsed tuesday and wednesday and then we're recording thursday and friday that was two episodes a week so it was pretty fast and you could still be called in on a saturday everything didn't work yes saturday or sunday occasionally yeah can we take you back to i'm not sure of the year was about 1961 was it when you made your very first entrance 64. 64. it started about 61. you joined about three or four years later yes yes right well this was when you made your very first entrance yeah yes the very first entrance of the ogdens uh of number 13 coronation street you're trying to stir up trouble whack yes i am and the objections there yes i'm glad you stopped him he's attacking me this morning but yeah oh not people sorry i love you all right oh you're still right now i'm sorry oh no no we thought we'd pop around and see you at work didn't we stop nice little please isn't it i love lego or what you're having on me oh no no no no oh yes mate because it was me that nearly crippled your wife just now i'm like that you see i'm very rough on the outside but inside i've got a heart of gold me what are you gonna have well uh gin and butter for me well in that case a double scotch okay the name's elder ogden that's our freighter hey frieda well frieda and i have met before [Applause] you were there that was your first efforts without the curlers you and bernard ewins the late bernado has stamped uh hilda grew into one of the great perhaps triumvirate of female characters there was there was uh pat phoenix there was enos sharples and there was you and they're all gone now did you did you think that you'd be playing the part for so long when you like walked into that no i had no idea because we went in after three and a half years the show had been running and uh went in in june 64. and we just thought we might be still there at christmas and if we got six months that would be very good you know for a long-running job never thought to be there for 23 years well as i say hilda appeared there with rather as as you look now quite quite glamorous and and you know youthful and without any curlers in the hair yeah did um who determined that hilda would turn into the kind of character that she did i mean did you play a part in that no not really well well i suppose in a way because the character was originally written as a rather stereotyped character as stan was you know a big fat man and lazy husband and little napping wife well after a few weeks we thought this was going to get a bit boring so we started playing against the script and same words but um trying to give them a bit more character you know rounding it out a bit and when you when you went out to hang up the washing machine you burst into song was that was that something you decided to do off your own well that was the first singing because in the script it just said hilda hanging out the washing and singing so i started singing um and they obviously all sing a bit more they fell about and screamed with mud so every few weeks they would start writing in hilda singing and i had to pick the songs myself to suit the occasion but then they started writing too many so i'm not doing too many it spoils the game is that the way you sing when you're at home well no i can't sing you see i have no ear at all i can cut it up for a while but when necessary but i can't really because when i was a child i've grown up with a complex about singing because my brother has a very musical ear and if i sang as a child he used to take me by the shoulders and shake me and say stop her mum stopper stop her let's have a go let's sing a little bit of that kick [Music] fish [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] did you have to wear curlers throughout in your own hair yes yes but that was my idea because it's a very good disguise you see um do you get recognized in the street without the curlers i do now yes because i think i've been seen a bit too often as me so but early on people didn't quite know whether it was me or not and i think they hesitated to say was it in case it wasn't and they wouldn't i was insulted because you would be wouldn't you did do you like hillary i mean would you pick hilda as a companion um well for some things perhaps but i think she'd drive me crackers if she lived next door now stan and hilda the ogdens were like fish and chips they were part of the warp and woof of british life and when staff when bernard ewans died must have been very hard for you to carry on yes it was because as i say we never met until we met in the street and we never heard of each other but we got on so well we worked the same way and we used to sit in the rehearsal room and play scrabble and rehearse our lines at the same time he was a great character who was bernard missed him a lot now he'll have given millions a lot of pleasure what sort of memories dear are there any particular members you treasure well i can't i as i say once we've finished with the show on friday i can't remember what i did by saturday you know it's completely wiped out you're ready to start the next week but there's one particular memory which was brought about by being in the street and that was meeting the majestic queen which was absolutely marvelous because in 1977 her jubilee year they put on a show at the palace theatre in manchester with northern artists the halle and people like that and we did a coronation street sketch and i was terrified because i hadn't been on a stage since 1960 and i was in jersey at the time on holiday and i had to fly back on the sunday having learned this 12-minute sketch and i was on all the time other people just came went so i was the sort of anchorman for the whole thing and i had three run-throughs of it with the rest of the cast on monday morning and then we did it about nine o'clock at night in the theater and i was terrified absolutely terrified but all went well and uh we've presented to her majesty afterwards which was really exciting well i mean obviously nobody's irreplaceable in television or anything else but it's hard to imagine the street without you well i don't know it'll go on just to say of course it will yeah but it might be quite the same will you watch it oh yes yes it's more interesting now because i don't know what's going to happen are you do do you watch other soap operas yes some yes yes you don't like the description of soap opera for it do you not really no no because they don't always advertise what do you watch what do you like i like emmerdale farm yeah i believe they live there what about uh what about eastenders i see it occasionally but normally it was on the wrong time for me i was usually coming home on the train do you like eastenders not really sorry because they're the two biggest programs in britain obviously it's imagine that there's a lot of rivalry between coronation street cast and eastenders cast do you think there isn't really no again i think that's press talk you know they're trying to stir up a big fight between the two of us yeah we don't mind they've got their viewers we've got ours so it's all it's real for both of us i think now that you've decided to to to give the show a rest well you're not retiring would you would you go back to it if i must i would quite like to go back for the occasional visit but just for a week or two weeks something because hilda hasn't gone far where has she gone to well this is awful because they said in the scripture he'd gone to a place in derbyshire which is a real village and after i left the village is snowed under with people going to asking where he'll drop to live can you believe but you know you must that that is the way of people i mean they do think they did think hilda was a real person i mean it is only a play after all you know we don't we don't live there but the whole point is to create the illusion of reality well yes and it's nice that um it's nice that it works i think well i'm delighted that you chose this program to come and make perhaps not your valedictory speech because you're going to be around you're going to do a lot of theater i'd like to do some plays on television i think i i don't want to go to theater again no i'm too scared to do that anymore yes it's nice to be able to say stop we'll do that again isn't it yes you count on this program no no but i'm going to ask you i'm going to ask you to stop for just a moment but stay with us ladies and gentlemen gene alexander

Channel: Lewis Pringle

Views: 101,570

Keywords: jean alexander, hilda ogden, corrie, coronation street, coronation street 1988, wogan, wogan 1988, terry wogan

Id: PGwBsQhoI-U

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020