Business is booming for Beacham
Actress Stephanie Beacham injects a touch of glamour into new BBC One retirement comedy Boomers. Being a grandparent is a hoot, but youngsters today have it harder than her generation did, she tells Jeananne Craig
“I’m not a granny, I’m a Glamma,” purrs Stephanie Beacham, bringing some showbiz stardust to a rain-battered catering van on the set of her new comedy, Boomers.
She takes out her iPad and proudly shows off some photos of her 14-year-old grandson, Jude. “That’s what he calls me; I’m a Glamma,” she adds.
And while she’s fresh-faced in most of the snaps with her grandson (“I don’t bother with make-up much”), the 67-year-old star can ramp up the glamour when she needs to, both off and on screen.
She’s played shoulder-padded Sable Colby in hit Eighties series Dynasty, and Ken Barlow’s impeccably turned out love interest Martha in Coronation Street. And now Maureen, her character in Boomers, a BBC One series about three newly-retired couples in ‘Norfolk’s only West-facing resort’, who “isn’t light on the eyelashes”.
“She invented her look in the Sixties and the Eighties and watched Dynasty, and has a little bit more Linda Evans than Joan Collins, if you know what I mean,” says Beacham who, speaking to me from the set today, is sporting generously applied make-up and a white-tipped manicure for the role.
The show features an impeccable cast which includes Alison Steadman, June Whitfield, Paula Wilcox and comedian Russ Abbot, who plays Maureen’s ex-plumber husband John.
For Maureen and John, 60 is the new 40, and Beacham appears to feel the same.
When the phrase ‘older people’ is mentioned, the actress exclaims in mock offence: “What is this ‘older people’ business?
“All of us are centre stage in our own lives, yes? Well, these people are centre stage in their own lives, and in this particular drama,” she continues.
“Normally I would be the granny or often, probably, Stephanie Beacham would be the dowager at the table, ruining everybody’s lives. But this is a friendly set-up, we are friends.”
She’s clearly relishing the chance to play someone as open and straightforward as Maureen.
“I’ve played so many people who slide things in and are so self-conscious, and she’s not,” says the Hertfordshire-born star, before tucking into a lunch of jerk chicken and salad.
“We’ve all got a friend who’s a Maureen. She’s the one that brings two bottles of champagne to the party, you know? The over-generous one, the one who’s going to arrange the jolly, the one who’s already bought the tickets. She’s lovely.”
She is enjoying the chance to work with Chester-born comic Abbot, and Whitfield, who plays Maureen’s boozy mother Joan.
“June and I have worked together before and I adore her,” she says. “Anything you mention, Russ has got a joke about it. You know Fagin’s coat [from Oliver Twist] with all the buttons? He must have 26,000 jokes in his head. He’s darling.”
Beacham entered the world of showbiz as a model initially, before studying drama at London’s prestigious Rada and landing TV roles, an early one being in BBC series The Queen’s Traitor, playing Mary, Queen Of Scots. The big screen beckoned three years later, with Michael Winner’s sporting drama The Games.
The actress, who was born partially deaf, also appeared in Dynasty spin-off series The Colbys, and ITV prison drama Bad Girls.
It’s Dynasty and Bad Girls that Beacham gets recognised most for, but she admits: “The one that probably touches me most is when people say, ‘I saw you in the theatre’. I don’t know [why]. Probably, I’m better in the theatre. Whereas, ‘Yeah, you’re off Bad Girls’, doesn’t really tell me if it was a good experience or a bad one.”
Despite her youthful outlook, Beacham does have to work harder at memorising her scripts these days.
“My brain doesn’t absorb the lines as fast,” she confesses.
“I’m having to concentrate on the moment so much more. I’m not able to just be nattering away and then suddenly, ‘Oh quick, go for a take’.”
She has two grown-up daughters with her former husband, actor John McEnery, and splits her time between Spain, Malibu and London.
“I live in a series of hovels,” jokes the actress. “I’ve got a lovely partner… he’s in Spain and I’m Skyping him.”
She admits to worrying for her grandson’s generation.
“My childhood was childhood. They all know too much and they know it so fast,” Beacham explains.
“I think we probably were the luckiest [generation] ever. We had the full National Health [Service], no war, best education, free university. ‘What are you studying?’ ‘Egyptology’. ‘Ooh, why?’ ‘Got a good grant’.”
For all her star turns on screen and stage, being a grandmother seems to be her favourite role to date.
“Last year I took Trollied [the Sky1 supermarket comedy] just so I could be in Bristol, which is where he [Jude] was. He comes and spends a month with me every summer and half the holidays,” she says with a smile.
“He watched me in [the Noel Coward play] Hay Fever and at the end, apparently he slapped the seat in front of him and said, ‘That’s my Glamma’.”
EXTRA TIME – RETIREMENT COMEDIES
:: Last Of The Summer Wine (1973-) – The world’s longest-running sitcom originally followed a trio of elderly friends – Compo Simmonite (Bill Owen), Norman Clegg (Peter Sallis) and Cyril Blamire (Michael Bates) – on their slapstick misadventures around the Yorkshire countryside.
:: Last Tango In Halifax (2012-) – This romantic drama centres on seventy-somethings Celia (Anne Reid) and Alan (Derek Jacobi), former childhood sweethearts who, after being widowed, reconnect on social media and rekindle their relationship.
:: One Foot In The Grave (1990-2000) – Richard Wilson starred as cantankerous pensioner Victor Meldrew, who seems to attract nothing but bad luck, leaving his wife Margaret (Annette Crosbie) exasperated with the misfortune that befalls them.
:: Keeping Up Appearances (1990-1995) – Hyacinth Bucket (Patricia Routledge), or Bouquet as she insists her surname is pronounced, is a social-climbing snob. Clive Swift co-starred as her long-suffering husband, Richard.
:: The Golden Girls (1985-1992) – This much-loved US sitcom revolved around four older single women sharing a house in Miami – widows Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) and Rose Nylund (Betty White) and divorcee Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) as well as Dorothy’s 80-something, wisecracking mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty).
:: Boomers is on BBC One on Fridays
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