EastEnders
I was in rehearsals for a show called Dragula when my agent called and said EastEnders would like to see me. If I am up for a drag part I tend to go in makeup so I drove up to the BBC for the meeting. I arrived, read through the script, discussed what songs they wanted and left quite excited. A few days went by and my agent rang to say I had been penciled in for the part, and that was the last I heard. Meanwhile, Dragula opened in Islington and I remember saying to someone I would have loved to have done EastEnders, but there you go, you can’t win them all.
One morning, Tamzin came in to my room and said "I think you’d better get up - I have got EastEnders wardrobe on the phone and she wants to discuss what you are going to wear". When I told her that I didn’t now that I had the part she said, "welcome aboard!" Fortunately, the filming was scheduled for a Monday which was our day off in the theatre.
On the Sunday night before, we stayed in London as it was an early call and set off early next morning to the studios at Elstree in Borehamwood. I was getting a bit nervous at this point when my mobile rang - it was EastEnders canceling the filming as one of the actors had had a car crash and another was ill. Talk about deflated! So we thought sod it and drove home and had a drink in our local. Whilst sitting having a nice glass of wine the agent rang to say EastEnders would like to rebook me for the following day. Of course I was pleased, but was a bit worried as I had an evening performance of Dragula. Ah well,I thought, this is show business!
We arrived at the studios on the Tuesday morning which was rather strange as when you drive through to the car park you pass all of the sets all folded up with labels like 'Pauline’s House' etc. It looked like any other workplace though and you almost felt like no matter who you were you would have to clock in and out again.
My dressing room was shared by (although they weren’t filming that day) Minty and Andy as there is such a quick turnaround on this show. The episode I was filming for was Kat’s hen night so I did my own make up but they wanted me to wear a wig similar to the Slater sister that you don’t see often and she wore a wig for the programme. I went to wardrobe to have the wig fitted and when I returned to the dressing room to show Tamzin she said "there is no way you are going on television wearing that - you look like Maureen from Driving School! Luckily, we had a spare wig in the car and I was allowed to wear that.
It was quite bizarre in the green room watching the actors you know so well rehearsing, knowing you were going to join them in a minute. And then the moment came where I had to walk through the famous doors of the Queen Vic. I must say everybody on set made me feel very welcome and Shane Ritchie having done cabaret himself started to banter with me which was fab. In the scene all the Slater sisters and Big Mo were supposed to be there, but Kacey Ainsworth who played Little Mo was ill so they only filmed her from the back as she had a stand in. It amazed me how they could be sitting around chatting about all sorts and as soon as the director shouted "Action!", they immediately became their characters and I literally felt like a drag queen who had been booked to do a gig in the Queen Vic. Jessie Wallace in the script had to say that I wasn’t very pretty and as soon as the cameras stopped filming she mouthed "sorry!" I was fairly relaxed and we broke for lunch.
Having gained more confidence with each passing hour, I was chatting away heading back to the set when I slipped and fell down the stairs, passing out briefly. I came round to Hannah Waterman offering me a silk cut. I wasn’t allowed back to filming until I was seen by a paramedic which took quite a time as she had to bandage me up. When I returned to the set and was getting to the end of my scenes, I suddenly remembered I had a show to do in the evening and time was getting on. I told this to Adam Woodyatt who plays Ian and just like his character he told the director that I should be allowed to go (he also said that I should charge them for the use of my dress etc but I wasn’t bothered). I had to say my goodbyes, they all thanked me and said it was a fun day and I kissed them all goodbye (not the men!) and headed off to Islington. This was before Tom Toms so we got totally lost and eventually that night Dragula went up 30 minutes late and I had bandages covering both legs.
But I had just been in EastEnders……duff…duff….duff…End of episode!
Entry written: Friday, February 23, 2007