4 SATURDAY MAGAZINESANDITON
Sunday 9pm ITVthings in the script saying,
“Lady Denham sweeps in”
and “Lady Denham sweeps
out” and there wasn’t a lot of
sweeping. Maybe that’ll
happen in series two. But all
the guys were helping me up
and down the stairs. They’ve
all been absolutely lovely, the
young men in it.’
Anne says that she still
loves acting as much as she
did when she first started out,
but admits that gruelling
filming schedules do take
their toll on her now that
she’s in her eighties.
‘They’re very long days,’
says Anne, 84. ‘You’re up at
about 5.45am and are picked
up at about 6.30am, then
you’re on call – though you
may not be actually filming
until about 7pm.’
It meant that all she was
good for after a day on set
was dinner and bed, rather
than socialising with the other
cast members.
‘At night I’d just go back
to the hotel, order a bowl of soup, have a
shower and go to sleep. Doing something
like Last Tango In Halifax was easier, but
Lady Denham was a challenge. I’d never
taken on any role like it before and I felt
so lucky. To play a really great character
from Jane Austen was wonderful.’
Anne admits she’d love to see Sanditon
commissioned for another series and she
had a great time working with Kris for
the first time.
‘I always felt like I would work with him
one day,’ she says. ‘I told him that, and
I think he thought I was coming on to him!’their hands on. It was
a fun character to play,
says Anne, and one
that required a bit of
thought in how she
approached it.
‘If Lady Denham was
a dog, she wouldn’t
be an Afghan hound,
she’d be a terrier.
She’s difficult, that’s for
sure!’ she laughs. ‘She
doesn’t always behave
terribly well.’
Anne began her acting
career with early credits
including Hancock’s Half
Hour in the late 1950s,
but it was as Valerie
Tatlock in Coronation
Street that she became
a household name.
Valerie married Ken
Barlow in 1962 and was
a regular in the soap
until her character’s
shocking death in 1971.
After working
consistently through the
1970s and 1980s, she
returned to the limelight in the 1990s,
starring in Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies.
She was more recently on screen playing
matriarch Muriel in BBC1’s Years And
Years with Emma Thompson.
While it was the quality of the script and
the meaty role that drew Anne to Sanditon,
she says that the prospect of filming on the
Somerset coast during the height of
summer was a tempting one, too.
‘I found this series a bloody sight warmer
than doing Years And Years, I can tell you!’
laughs Anne. ‘The only problem I had was
that I had a bad hip. There were all theseAs she returns to our screens in the period drama Sanditon, Anne Reid reflects on
the shortage of TV parts for older women and why her new role is a breath of fresh air
I
f you’ve got a Downton-shaped hole in
your life, and still swoon remembering
Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy striding out of the
lake in Pride And Prejudice, you’ll love
ITV’s lavish new costume drama Sanditon.
The eight-part dramatisation of Jane
Austen’s last and unfinished novel stars
Rose Williams as the impulsive lead
Charlotte Heywood, who comes to the
rescue of Tom Parker (Kris Marshall) and his
wife after a carriage accident. She is invited
by the couple to spend time at Sanditon –
the town Tom is striving to turn into a
leading seaside resort – and it’s there
she meets love interest Sidney Parker,
Tom’s roguish brother.
Last Tango In Halifax star Anne Reid
rounds out the cast as grand Lady
Denham, the main investor in Tom’s
ambitious plans to transform Sanditon- a role, she says, that leapt off the page
from the moment she picked up the script.
‘I’d never done anything like this before
and I’d always longed to,’ says Anne of the
drama, which has been penned by Andrew
Davies – the writer behind the hit BBC Pride
And Prejudice series, along with House Of
Cards, Mr Selfridge and Les Misérables.
‘You get scripts, and I often throw them
across the room because they say things
like, “Grandma’s in bed with tubes up her
nose” or “This old lady comes through the
door with a dog and a stick”. So to get a
part like this, I can’t tell you. I lit a few
candles and said, “Thank you, God.”’
Blunt, no-nonsense Lady Denham holds
the power in Sanditon – and does not let
anyone forget it. Twice-widowed, she is
a woman of great fortune – a fortune her
scheming relatives continually try to get
‘I often throw scripts
across the room’
Coronation StreetLast Tango In HalifaxDinnerladiesWords by: Tricia Martin & Kirsty Nutkins Pictures: ITV; Getty Images