Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  A rehearsed reading is a way of showing the play to the money men or a theatre producer or, as was the case with Calendar Girls, so that Tim could listen to his play, with the producers – David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers – and see what state it was in, and what, if anything, needed to be done to improve it.

  My agent told me they wanted me to read the role of Chris, which was the part played by Helen Mirren in the film. I had expected them to ask me to read Annie, the role played by Julie Walters, because that is always the way I am seen – Mrs Nice Mum – so I was thrilled to get the chance to play the lead, and also the slightly edgier character. I spent hours going through the script and getting things straight in my head. I had a feeling that if I did this reading right it could mean a chance for me to do the play.

  The day before the reading my agent rang, and said would I mind changing roles and playing Annie, as the producers felt that would be a better role for me. I was so upset, and rang Michael.

  ‘Tell them to fuck off,’ came his response.

  ‘I can’t, Michael. They’ll stop me playing the other part and then I’ll have lost the chance of doing the play.’

  ‘No, you won’t, Lynda. Be strong. Don’t keep taking shit all your life.’

  Well, what could I say to that? So I said, no, I wanted to do the part for which I had prepared. ‘Fine,’ came the response. A victory!

  We all assembled in a room in Waterloo. Barbara Flynn was going to play Annie to my Chris which, I have to say, would normally have been the other way round.

  As we did the reading it was obvious that I was one of the few actresses there who had really worked on the script beforehand. It was interesting because part of Chris’s character is that she is bossy and gets all the other women organised. During the reading I was doing that in spades in order to keep the energy up for the sake of the play, as some of the actresses were losing their places in the script and fluffing their lines through lack of knowing it.

  After the reading Tim Firth came and thanked me for all my hard work, and lovely David Pugh was also very complimentary. David told me later that, based on my performance that day, they decided they wanted me, no matter what, and realised it would have been a terrible mistake for me not to have had the chance to show them what I could do with the role of Chris. At the time, though, nothing happened and I heard no more about it until, just as I was getting into my real-life role as Bride to Be, David Pugh rang and offered me the role. We were going to open in Chichester in September. What a wedding present!

  We started rehearsing in London in July. The first day is always scary: you sit around thinking everyone is wondering why you got the part. I knew some of the other actresses a bit, and I knew Patricia Hodge from way back when we did Waterloo Bridge Handicap. Our director was Hamish McColl, who did The Play What I Wrote, amongst other things. He is a really lovely man but if I have one criticism, it is that he should have put his foot down from the beginning, because with all those egos it was a nightmare sometimes, in rehearsal. Everybody knew best! However, I think that, bearing in mind the world expects conflict from a group of women, we did remarkably well over the next year to never have a real falling out!

  WHEN WE OPENED at Chichester we were barely ready. For one thing the set had been built for the tour and not for the theatre here, which was on three sides. Almost like being in the round. It made life very awkward at certain points in the play, especially the scene where we all had to strip off. Everything had to be choreographed with great care. In a way it was the making of the piece because the audience were just waiting for a carefully placed bun to drop, or blanket to fall away. In the film it would have been so much easier because the camera could just focus on a certain part of the anatomy but, live on stage, we were all very vulnerable.

  In one scene I had to turn upstage and stand at the top of a hill and take my bra off. I then had to turn round with my hands covering my breasts to show the other ladies that they could take their clothes off without actually showing anything. I had to turn again, keeping my back to the audience, and look out across the dales. You then heard a car horn toot and next the sound of a car crashing, obviously because the driver had been distracted by my bosom. Well, that was all fine and dandy when we were in a normal theatre on tour because the audience is in front of the stage. At Chichester, however, with the audience on three sides, they got a very good view of my tits! Word got out that the view was very ‘unrestricted’ and, unlike normal where the seats with a restricted view cost less, I wanted the theatre to charge more!

  During the early days we were performing, we kept changing things all the time which made everything difficult to remember. The play also had many quick costume changes as well. One night, I ran off to get changed, forgetting I had another scene to do first. Suddenly, just as I had removed my bra I heard my cue. There was no time to get dressed again so I stood in the wings completely naked, except for a G-string, and called out to Pat Hodge who was onstage waiting for me: ‘Annie, you had better come out here a minute!’ It was the only way I could think of letting her know I would not be coming on again. She responded with, ‘Are you all right, Chris?’ She was worried there had been an accident.

  ‘Yes, but you must come out here,’ I replied. She did, she saw, she understood, and we continued the play. It was hysterical and very scary at the same time!

  It was ridiculous that the press made such a fuss about actresses taking their clothes off on stage. There was nothing to see out front; but if you had been a fly on the wall in the changing room, you would have been shocked by the goings on! Nudity in abundance and panic, usually. It was like a bad day at the Harrods’ sale, only in the nude.

  *

  WHAT WAS GREAT for me on the tour was that Michael came with me, so I had a companion, driver and lover all rolled into one. It made the whole process so much more pleasant. When I was younger, touring was great fun because I never knew where I was staying and most of the time I didn’t care. But as you get older you need your creature comforts.

  The original agreement had meant we toured until Christmas and then went into the West End. Christmas arrived but there was no theatre free, so we had to do another eight weeks which brought the total to twenty-two weeks. Had I known that at the beginning I might not have agreed as through all these weeks I was also trying to fit in Loose Women as I did not want to lose my slot.

  We finally hit the Noel Coward Theatre, St Martin’s Lane on 20th April, 2009.

  It is such a wonderful feeling arriving at the stage door with all your gear and setting up home. Because that’s what it really is like, making a home in the theatre. Sometimes it can be for only a few weeks, even a few days, but an actor’s dressing room is a sacred place.

  The Noel Coward is a beautiful theatre and Cameron Mackintosh had had it all recently refurbished so it was shiny and bright. I had waited forty years for the moment I walked into the number one dressing room and put down my make-up on the dressing table. As I came through the stage door there were some building workers opposite and they all cheered me and raised their hard hats. I did feel like a star.

  During the run I gained the added bonus of a small mouse. Theatres are notorious places for mice and often there is a resident cat to deal with the problem. This mouse got very brave during our run and would often pop out to say ‘Hi’. I bumped into Sir Cameron Mackintosh one evening in Sheekey’s restaurant and thanked him for my lovely dressing room, adding that I shared it with a mouse. The next day a huge Fortnum & Mason hamper was delivered to my door, full of the most delicious cheeses. The note said: ‘Dear Lynda, Something for you and your little friend to enjoy!’

  When our company arrived, the play running at Wyndham’s Theatre, opposite, was Madame de Sade, starring Dame Judi Dench. The stage doors of the two theatres are directly opposite each other, across a passage that runs between St Martin’s Lane and Charing Cross Road. Judi has a wicked sense of humour, and she and the cast sent us a good-luck card saying: ‘Welcome to
vagina alley.’

  It was, indeed, a female-dominated alley through the next three months! Then Jude Law arrived with Hamlet and we welcomed him in much the same way. I don’t think we got a reply! It always made me smile because after the shows, our stage door was surrounded by women of a certain age, and opposite waiting for Jude Law were girls of a certain age. But we held our own, I am proud to say.

  All through our run in the West End and when we were on tour, our audiences were just fantastic. So many wonderful women. The discussions that rage about ageism are all pertinent, but I still say that so much of it, in television, has been created by the advertising giants. They only want to attract youth because they think that is where the money is. I would like to point out that the money is with the grey pound – their mothers! If you run advertising campaigns that ignore that fact, you do so at your peril. My sons need me to buy that car or those trainers. We were playing to eight to ten thousand women a week on tour, and that represents a lot of money.

  It was also inspiring to listen to all the stories, and all the heartbreak, that so many folk have had to deal with in life. Cancer is insidious. I had a line in Calendar Girls that said: ‘If it means the end of this shitty, sly, conniving, cheating, silent bloody disease, that cancer is…’ Silent bloody disease is exactly what it is, and so many millions of people have to deal with it every day. We used to have standing ovations at the curtain call and it never ceased to amaze and move me. I felt very honoured to be part of such a strong body of society. Invisible they may be to the kind of media that deals in dreams and unreality, but we women are the silent movers and shakers, and should stand up and take a bow.

  The producer wanted us all to leave the show at the end of July. It was like the end of a love affair. Very poignant and emotional. In a strange way, during this run, I had been less emotionally involved than I used to be, because I had Michael in my life. When things were so bad at home my work was my salvation, a place to go to get away and forget my troubles. Now, however, I have a beautiful life and I can enjoy my husband and my family, and have my work as an added bonus. So when I left Calendar Girls it was sad, but I was looking forward to the next chapter. And just before the end of July I found out exactly what I would be doing for the next few months. Dancing!

  I FINISHED CALENDAR GIRLS on 25th July, 2009. My plan was then to spend a month in Spain and finish writing my book, but this had all changed after I was summoned to the BBC to meet the producers of Strictly Come Dancing.

  I had always vowed I would never do a reality programme but everyone kept telling me Strictly was different. I had a long talk with the makers of the programme and thought it might be fun as it’s not like those shows that set out to make fools of the contestants. And it’s all about learning to dance, they said!

  I went home and talked to Michael and Jean, who was thrilled as she was a fan. ‘Do it!’ they cried. I didn’t hear anything from the show, though, so decided that was the end of that and prepared to go to Spain. But then, two weeks before I left, the call came through that they wanted me.

  My initial reaction was a bit mixed, but everyone else was so pleased for me that I was swept along by their enthusiasm. It also meant I would have to come back from Spain for a costume fitting, and cut short my month away to two and a half weeks.

  But it was worth it! On my return to England, the first port of call was the costume department. Sue Judd, the programme’s costume designer, was there and we went through several dresses. It was so bizarre, sitting in a room surrounded by sequins and tulle and talking about waltzes and the cha cha cha. I had no idea what was involved. They showed me dress after dress and I just nodded. I was given two pairs of flesh-coloured satin dancing shoes to practise in. One pair was strappy for Latin dancing and one pair was for ballroom. Both pairs had three-inch heels. I was told to wear them in and make them comfortable. But I was not going to walk round the villa in them, no matter how keen I might be! So I left them in my bedroom in London and flew back to Spain.

  In a way it was a good job I was closeted away in the villa, because once I had accepted the job I was sworn to secrecy until the BBC announced the line-up at the press call. This is not easy for an actor, let me tell you! We spend half our lives unemployed, trying to pretend we have got work on the horizon when people ask, and suddenly here I was with an amazing job and not able to tell a soul.

  The day of the launch of the show finally arrived and I was driven to a secret location to meet the other contestants and the press. We all met in a hotel in Holborn. There were cameras everywhere, filming everyone’s tiniest reaction and this became the norm for the next two months. I found it very irritating, I have to say.

  All the contestants were nervous. I had a long conversation with Zoe Lucker and Jo Wood about the bits of our bodies we wanted to hide and how difficult that would be with the flimsy dresses we would be wearing, not that that stopped us getting stuck into the coffee and croissants on offer. Then we lined up in a corridor to make our entrance to the press.

  I’ve done some press launches in my time, but nothing prepared me for the sight that awaited us in the ballroom. There were at least ten tables of journalists and it was wall-to-wall with cameras. It was all rather unreal and weird – we were being asked about dance steps and dresses when we had no idea of what was to come.

  The same afternoon we filmed a trailer for the show. It was great fun being given a wonderful dress to wear and fabulous make-up and hairstyling. The men were so funny because most of them had never been near a sequin, let alone wear a shirt covered in them. There was a wonderful moment while we were all sitting around and Ricky Whittle was showing off some spins. Joe Calzaghe was watching him and asked if he had danced before. Ricky tried to play down his dancing expertise but couldn’t help giving us all the moves. It was so obvious he had done this before. Joe told him, ‘If I find out you’ve had training, I’ll knock your block off!’

  Looking round at the celebrities that first day, I could see the different categories we’d fall into even then. The sportsmen and the actresses. The pretty woman and the old person – me! I was determined to fill the role with aplomb. If John Sergeant could do it, so could I. When I told Darren Bennett, my partner, that I was going to provide the humour he was not impressed at all: ‘Not on my watch,’ he said.

  By the end of the day’s filming we had all bonded. I loved Jade Johnson because she had such a wonderful attitude, not to mention the most incredible body and the longest legs in the world. Zoe and Laila were good fun and Ali Bastion was just so lovely and gentle. I knew Ricky Groves a bit because I have known his wife, Hannah Waterman, since she was born, having babysat her on occasions. Her mother Patricia and I were in General Hospital together in the seventies. All the professional dancers were great and the girls, in particular, were gorgeous. Throughout the entire time I was in the show, I never got over feeling inadequate whenever I stood next to the girl dancers. Their bodies were amazing. So tiny, and perfectly formed. Natalie Cassidy and I used to joke about wanting to touch their perfect bottoms, but that really would have set the gossipmongers going. Maybe that is what I should have done to make me look more interesting: when Joe and Kristina were kissing in car parks, I could have been photographed grabbing a dancer’s bum!

  The training began in earnest and it was relentless. Every day, Darren and I met around two o’clock and worked for three hours. I really could not do any longer. Some celebrities worked all day but for me it was just too much to take in.

  The producers had changed the format of the show and so for the first two weeks, we were divided into two groups. One week Group A would dance two nights in a row, doing a ballroom and a Latin dance, while the other group did a group dance all together. Then the following week Group B danced the two dances and A did a group dance.

  To learn one dance as a novice is tough. To learn two is horrendous. Not only are you learning dance steps, but you are also having to learn to dance physically! Every night I would go ho
me and lie in a bath and find new blisters and bruises. Every morning I woke up unable to move for the first few minutes. As the weeks went on I woke up exhausted because it felt as though I had dreamed my dance all night. Certainly I would go through my dance every night before I went to sleep, and first thing when I got up. It took over my entire life. And throughout all this, I was also doing Loose Women twice a week and finishing my book. This meant I sometimes had to get up at four in the morning to write as it was the only spare time I had!

  The studio days were the highlight of the week, and came round wonderfully quickly: hardly had I stepped out of one frock than I was stepping into the next. We were all offered a spray tan every week which added to the overall look and feel of being in the greatest show on earth. And the level of maintenance needed was unknown to me before this – one’s nails had to be painted every week, and in order for the tan to look smooth I had to exfoliate regularly and moisturise every night!

  It was all taken very seriously. When I arrived at the studio on a Saturday, before filming was to take place that evening, someone escorted me to my dressing room, all the while inquiring if I was feeling OK. Obviously I was not feeling great. Nerves would always take over by Friday and I just felt sick all the time.

  I would be left in my dressing room in the bowels of the BBC until someone else came to take me to make-up. This was fun because the make-up was glorious. I had a wonderful make-up girl called Rozelle who was fabulous and very good at her job. I loved the false eyelashes and the glittery eye shadow: I felt like I could hide behind the face a little.

  Once make-up was done, I would be taken to the hair department. This was not quite such a successful experience, because I felt they tried too hard to give me a ‘look’ – less is more I find, but as regards my hairstyles they tended to be rather big and set until I asked if I could look more natural.