Patricia Routledge Interview on Parkinson - 30 January 1998

first not so much an actress more an institution she made an early television appearance in coronation street in the distant days of black and white and scenery that wobbled since then she starred in the west end and broadway she's performed in parts written by william shakespeare and richard rogers alan bennett and stephen sondheim on television she created the nation's favorite battle axe a frightful hyacinth bouquet last year you voted her the nation's favorite actress at the bbc's 60th anniversary celebration she just finished the last in a series of hetty weinstrop investigates she's of course patricia routledge [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] they were saying out there at last a woman on the shoulder yeah we've had some criticism about not having have you indeed i'm delighted that you're the first actually not the token woman how dare i even think about it in your company you just sort of finished i said the the hetty wayne throbs is and that had a particular resonance with you didn't it playing the part of of that person yes it did it began its life with my reading the original novel missing persons by david cook who was an actor writer and i read it for book at bedtime and enjoyed it very much and then we did a two-hour adaptation of the novel for yorkshire television and there was a lot of talk about turning it into episodic treatment and finally the bbc took it up what was it about it though that appealed to you the spirit of the woman in what sense a woman in her late 60s in the novel and she finds herself at the end of her life and responds to whatever talent she's got with gumption and intelligence and builds a business and helps people and why did you find this particularly appealing this kind of person flying the flag for the senior citizen yes i think so are you sick of being casted it's always it now he's not you're not middle aged middle youth now isn't it middle views middle youth it's an adventure younger than springtime i always consider myself so you're not gonna look quietly are you not at all no my father didn't didn't he no no he had a great sense of adventure at the age of 85. and i intend to uh carry the battle you also you understand you know the marvelous of uh it wasn't a theatrical family in the sense it wasn't on stage he was theatrical in the sense of having larger than the life character isn't it because you also had a if i'm reading my research right an octogenarian auntie who used to clean her windows at 84. well during the war you couldn't get window cleaners they'd all gone to the front and aunt annie it was quite a character decided she wasn't going to have dirty windows so she hired a ladder at the age of 84 got up and cleaned her windows curiously enough she fell off the ladder and had five stitches in their head later later much later at the tender age of 94 she had a lunch one day she washed up she tied it up she lay down on the sofa and went to a great reward what about that and she never had cleaner windows again [Laughter] but they're going back on this thing about about about being older um yourself as an actress did you you find that what you like about being older is the certainty of knowing what you're doing and the terror of knowing a little more about it than i did at the beginning of my working life if you know more about it i think you it becomes more difficult to do but the great joy is that um i've had just a nice steady climb you've had an extraordinary career actually i mean it's been i mean it's when you read about it the the problem with television is that it promotes you in a certain area so that people believe that's all that you ever are and all you ever did uh and then you look back in your your history it's quite remark for instance i did not know and i've been a fan of yours for years that you're in coronation street yes i was i did three episodes mrs snape built a cafe for me gadget coffee machine milkshake machine and everything and i thought i was just a character for the two weeks of the time and the designer came to me and he said you're happy in this set and i said oh yes i'd be alright for a fortnight he said you don't think i built this just for a fortnight anyway they got the value out of the set i didn't go back i got on with other things and my father kept writing to me saying they've been into your cafe you're having your feet done and then finally six months later he said you've gone to newcastle they've sold your cafe and that was the end of it you're right that was the end of that we found it the clip yeah or are we going to see it just just one night so it's high heels 19 well look at this sexy little minks you are ready for the drink then i'll have a cup of tea if you don't mind and wait in the water boiling we'll be a minute if you don't mind waiting for this morning i've been there and you can't make them living on cups of tea no matter what some folks think well i better have a couple of them cheese pound cakes then i wasn't trying to suggest anything i should hope not you a marriage woman at all yeah two cheese i'll wait for me to if you don't mind i'd chop my pipes if i tried to down them dry you work on your own account no but for sure it says didn't marine tell you tell you the truth i just told her we wanted a diploma and she rang up oh well if you ever want us again telephone numbers two seven seven eight you know ask for joe joe makins i'll write it down of course i could always do it for your private like you know to be cheaper for you and all how do i get told over here i'm very ticklish under the arms but apart you'll see it could still be there very head is absolutely yeah only see where he had his stuff for 1962. having a frisk there with a plumber it's interesting that you see there you are young actress there coronation street uh offered the the chance of a long-term uh relationship with that that's uh that serious and you decided no it's nice i'm off i'm doing something else i mean that took a deal of bravery in a sense well i just knew inside i knew that i needed to have other adventures you did as an actor yes yes you said you said something interesting once you said that in fact you were all certain that you never really find your career satisfying or find your your maturity until you're 40. i always felt that did you because i was always playing older people yes and if i played anybody over 45 my hands shook and the voice not very old anybody over 45. you played also too some marvelous i hope you don't mind the description but grotesques from mrs muller prop to say to to highest interest but she is a grateful she's a grotesque comedy is grotesque i think it can be yes i mean was comedy an important part in making you decide deciding your mind about becoming an actress i think it was the start of my love affair with theater and entertainment because i was born in birkenhead where there was one of the most wonderful music halls and one of the most important meetings of the week was the family court of honor discussing the bill at the argyle music off the previous week and my father allowed them my father was a high-class gentleman's outfitter and he allowed them to hang their bill on his side wall next to the hat window and for that privilege he was given two complimentary tickets for the first house on a monday night so that was the that's what sets your ambition going was it and um we had a wonderful joke book and i used to make up concerts for new year's eve and do them with my brother in front of my parents and sell chocolates in the interval and so on i like the way that these follow this high class gents outfitters yes not not the normal the high class well you were always high class in the north you must know this exactly so you were a high-class millionaire or a high-class confessioner that's right perfectionist that's right exactly now talking about the north you this you've always remained very very close to your northern rocks and it's informed your work not just so much in the parts you play in the way you play them but certainly in the in the writers who have accommodated you and i think in particular now the relationship you've had professionally with alan bennett uh when one thinks of the talking head series i mean it's it's a remarkable uh moment in in television when we saw those i'm on the stage too what is it about bennett that you find so so seductive the observation the fact that his work is microcosmic he sees a world in a grain of sand the sympathy the humanity i know those women i mean it's in one's bloodstream almost there but for the grace of god you know one could be one of those lonely tragic spinsters tragic spinsters uh a lone person fighting bureaucracy the rhythm of his writing the comedy are you i mean you've done so much with him i mean does he find it easy to write for you i think he does now he's written another series of talking heads six and he sent a little note with my monologue saying i'm sorry if you find there are echoes but i can hear your voice right um so obviously when you do get to know a performer as a writer you you do write easily for them yes now you mentioned there that you can you can see you can identify very easily with some of the people that he writes about uh i don't mean to be impertinent when i ask you this question but but you never married no i didn't do that you didn't all of a sudden you you turn around and you think oh i didn't do that but that was but i remember what really i've done it but i didn't yeah but i wondered why was that because of the job itself because one i remember interviewing david evans once and and she said to me that that i was married to the theater well in a sense i suppose i understand that but it wasn't it's never been a conscious decision no um i've been on the brink but i would want to have done it all really properly and done the being mother to her family properly yes but when you're on on the brink i mean what stopped you was it the theater the choice the thought you might have to make a choice one day no they weren't quite exciting enough i don't think that's as an alternative that's a wonderful alan bennett lying about quite excited you know isn't it yes it is do you find yourself like like bennett i remember was wonderful tv documentary benny where he simply sat in the corner of a hotel room observing in harrogate i think oh i remember that and at one minute past 11 when that program was over i rang him and said you don't need us anymore not anymore he needs just the real people the real thing do you ever find yourself doing that and i mean being a part of being an actress observing people watching well it's more absorbing people all the time you see when i was little you uh you spoke when you were spoken to if you were with grown-ups when you sat at a table for a family meal you didn't you know put your aura in at all so i listened a lot and absorbed a lot and i think it's without being conscious it's become a habit really have you found do you find being an actress satisfying in the sense yes very fulfilling very and when i kicked against it before i took the plunge i was at university and i realized that at the end of every term when i was involved in a play i was really using every part of my imagination my brain and i just found pretending to be somebody else absolutely fascinating when you when you when you found hyacinth bouquet mr the the the extraordinary mrs bucket yes yes where did she come from well she left from the page to start with good comedy writing has rhythm and imagery and you can see quite clearly what is the stuff of a character if it's really well written um she leapt from the page and i thought well i wonder if i can knit her up you know and i always think that getting getting um getting a performance together to me seems like starting on a long walk say on one of those open roads in wiltshire and you start on this walk and there in the distance there is a tiny speck of a character a person that you have an idea of in your imagination and bit by bit if the rehearsals are good you come closer to each other and if you manage to meet up link arms and go off in the same direction then you're in business that's how i see it somehow that was the best exposition back to you i've ever heard because normally you'd never ask that question why is acting because you get a boring answer well i've been trying to find out what acting is for years or get a definition and it sounds a bit high falutin this but i think acting is the physicalization of the imagination you can have all these little ideas in here and see people and understand the way they behave but if you can then if the word becomes flesh in a way then then you are illuminating part of life for other people hopefully [Music] are you a football fan um i'm not very good at it i'm not doing it i've not tried doing it um i am proud to say that tranmere rovers is our local team and that they beat sunderland last saturday and that uncle george routledge was on the board and i believe that one of our ancestors uh was a founder member of the team he has a lot sir very well done well i mean well then we will bring mr lineker in just a moment for a moment pat raffles thank you very much you

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Keywords: patricia routledge, dame patricia routledge, patricia routledge interview, michael parkinson, parkinson, parkinson 1998

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Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021