MARION SAUVEBOIS talks to octogenarian actress Anne Reid about her new role in cabaret show

IT is fair to say actors and journalists have not historically made the best of bedfellows.

Most celebrities would sooner hand over their birth certificates or sell their soul to reality TV than fraternise with the big bad hack.

But not Anne Reid. Descended from a proud family of newshounds, she has a soft spot for the humble scribe.

“My grandfather had a column in the Bolton Evening News about cycling at the turn of the 20th century, my father was a foreign correspondent in the Middle East for the Daily Telegraph, my brother had a column on the Daily Mail, my other brother was on an Canadian newspaper and my uncle was on the Evening News and my husband was on the Guardian.” And breathe.

“A lot of actors are terrified of speaking to journalists. I don’t know why unless they’ve murdered someone in the past, but journalists don’t alarm me,” she chuckles good-heartedly.

“If you can find any scandals in my life I’d be happy to find out about that.”

Despite her lineage, she never felt the lure of the newsroom. She had much loftier aspirations to become a dancer, and later to work in musical theatre.

Neither was to be though and instead she enrolled at RADA to study acting.

“Acting really happened by accident,” she admits. “I had quite a strong North Eastern accent when I was a child. I was given elocution lessons in boarding school. I had to learn pieces of plays and my teacher wrote to my parents and said I think she should be an actress. I wanted to be a ballet dancer but I was clearly the wrong shape for that. I was always slightly overweight, no-one could have lifted me.

“I would have liked to go into musical comedies but life went in another direction.

They didn’t do musicals at RADA when I went there. I wish I had gone somewhere that did music because I was much more passionate about that than acting.”

All the same, she has enjoyed a prolific career starring in television behemoths like Dinnerladies and Last Tango in Halifax as well as cult movie Hot Fuzz and The Mother opposite Daniel Craig.

But despite her critically acclaimed TV work, Anne could never quite shake off the feeling she had got lost along the way and needed to give musical theatre a fair shot. In 2005, she appeared in the musical Out of This World in Chichester. “I was very nervous,” she confesses. “I wish I could do it now, I would be much better.”

She went on to hone her skills in a production of Into the Wood At the Royal Opera House. Loath to live with regret, she took her courage in both hands and finally penned a cabaret show, weaving choice snippets of her life and career and musical interludes featuring classic ballads and lesser known numbers echoing her mood and reflecting her journey.

Initially cautious, she dipped her toes slowly, performing to a small audience for the first time while on holiday in the South of France.

Their reception was enough for her to take her musical ambitions to the next level at long last.

Since her tentative introduction as a cabaret singer she has entertained crowds in New York, London and has now embarked on a UK tour of I Love To Sing.

“I don’t have a wonderful voice,” the 80-yearold hastens to point out. “But it’s not about singing. Cabaret is about communication. It’s not about giving a big performance. It should be informal, moving, interesting and funny.”

She has pulled out the big guns for her stage return by enlisting Tony Award-nominated musical director Jason Carr.

The tour over, she will return to set to film the next instalment of her hit show Last Tango In Halifax – though she suspects from the shooting schedule that instead of a muchanticipated new series it is likely to be a twohour Christmas special.

When she signed on to play Celia – a septuagenarian who reconnects with her childhood sweetheart Alan on Facebook – opposite Derek Jacobi in the romantic drama, she never imagined it would turn into a national phenomenon.

“It’s terribly popular but we had no idea,” she exclaims. “Sally Wainwright is brilliant at writing a good story and it’s a great story.”

While many actresses of her generation are gladly retiring from the limelight, Anne’s career is undergoing a renaissance. And there is no question of letting opportunities pass her by sitting at home.

“As long as I’m healthy, it’s very important for me to work. I couldn’t just do nothing. I’d go mad.”

  • Anne Reid will perform I Love To Sing at the Wyvern on May 10. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524481