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Enjoy "Tea Lady" Heather online as well as on-air!

Our Afternoon Tea host Heather Sanderson delivers a weekly web column and monthly feature article, here on Tea with Heather, which complement our British television programs.

 

Tea Time Tidbits

Week of May 13, 2013:
The Bletchley Circle's Anna Maxwell-Martin

So how did you enjoy The Bletchley Circle, the latest PBS mystery which wrapped up last Sunday? You might have also recognized Anna Maxwell-Martin, who played from an episode she appeared in of Midsomer Murders and as Susan in Masterpiece's Bleak House.

Anna Maxwell-Martin.

Born on May 10, 1977 in Beverley, near Hull, in Yorkshire, Martin dreamed all her young life of attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She didn't audition for the prestigious drama school until she'd graduated from Liverpool University where she studied history, specializing in the First World War. Finally at the age of 20, Martin auditioned for RADA and was devastated when she failed to get in. Instead she applied to the London Academy of Dramatic Art and was promptly accepted. Midway through her training, her father, who was the Managing Director of a pharmaceutical company, was diagnosed with cancer. Before his death he got to see Martin perform as Alexandra in The Little Foxes at Donmar Warehouse, but died before her next play which was The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, where she played Lucy, for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The cast of The Bletchley Circle.

In 2005 Martin won her first British Academy of Film and Television award, for her role as Esther Summerson in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's book Bleak House. Her second BAFTA award was in 2008, for Poppy Shakespeare, where she played 'N', a patient in a psychiatric hospital. When her name was announced as winner, Martin was home fast asleep, having just given birth to her first child, daughter Maggie. Her husband, director Roger Michell, who directed the film Notting Hill starring Hugh Grant, was in New York at the time. It was left to his grown up children to wake up their step-mom and give her the news. "I heard this crashing and banging", recalls Martin "my step kids ran into the room telling me to get up. I couldn't believe it; I sat there in shock."

In Bleak House.

Although Martin has enjoyed huge success on television and theatre in the last decade, the film world eludes her. This despite the fact her husband is an acclaimed director. Notting Hill was one of the films he directed. Martin puts it down to her looks, "with film I do think you've got to look a certain way and I don't really I think that I fit that bill."

Martin's looks have been described as "unconventional" and "interesting", but the 5'6" mom-of-two shakes off any negative comments about the way she looks.

"I don't think they're being mean, it's more that they're saying I don't have film star looks. And I think that's a good thing. I wouldn't change it [the way she looks]."

With husband Roger Michell.

The Bletchley Circle may have concluded its first season, but I hear on the grapevine another series is in production. It should be available by this fall. We'll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, if you have anyone you'd like to see featured on Tea Time Tidbits, write in and let me know.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of May 6, 2013:
The Café's David Troughton

David Troughton.

One of the things I appreciate about the actors we see regularly in our Afternoon Tea programs is the caliber of their acting. If you're a frequent reader of these weekly articles though you'll know why: they all pretty much seem to have come from the world of theatre and are classically trained. One actor who didn't go to drama school and yet still managed to become one of England's foremost classical actors is David Troughton, who stars as Chloe's father Stan Astill in The Café.

David Troughton in Dr. Who.

Troughton does though have theatre in his blood, being the son of actor Patrick Troughton, who died in 1987, but is still fondly remembered by many as the second Dr. Who. Younger half-brother Michael was also an actor, until he gave up acting and teaching drama to care for his disabled wife who died last summer.

Sam Troughton in Romeo & Juliet.

Troughton's middle son Sam has also followed into his father's and grandfather's footsteps; his portrayal of Romeo wowed New York audiences when the Royal Shakespeare Company toured there a couple of years ago. Youngest son William ("Wigsy") also recently ventured into the theatre world appearing in a touring stage production of The Ladykillers. Nephew Harry Melling is also in the "family business", being known to Harry Potter film fans as Dudley Dursley. Troughton's eldest son Jim isn't an actor, but he is frequently in the spotlight, as captain of Warwickshire Cricket Club, a team on which he's played for over twenty years.

Troughton's wife Ali was also a professional actress but nowadays spends her time touring schools giving acting workshops for an organization she co-founded called The Drama Pool. Troughton and Ali first met when he was playing King Peladon opposite Jon Pertwee's Doctor and although Ali was instantly attracted she had no idea who he was, much to the amusement of her friends.

As Richard III.

One of the reasons the North London-born Troughton didn't have any formal training may have been because he simply didn't have time. He was born in 1950 and appeared in his first television show when he was just 13 years old. Television work kept him busy for the next two decades, until 1982 when he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he finally got the classical training he'd not had time for as a youngster. Not that getting into the RSC impressed his father, who preferring screen acting to theatre. "Oh well, something else might come up", he said. Troughton Jr. on the other hand fell in love with Shakespeare, so much so that he moved his family to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he and Ali still reside.

As Dr. Bob Buzzard in A Very Peculiar Practice.

The 1980s were also when Troughton started to come to the attention of the public, when he starred as Dr. Bob Buzzard, alongside Peter Davidson, in A Very Peculiar Practice; a series which enjoyed a cult following about a doctor who hated patients. Some of the other series you might have seen Troughton in include Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot (The Yellow Iris), Masterpiece's Our Mutual Friend, Kavanaugh QC, New Tricks, Outnumbered and – naturally – Dr. Who.

Despite Troughton's success as a television actor, he's a huge advocate of getting people to turn off their TVs. "We should ban the dumbing down of television and get rid of computer games", says Troughton. "The national theatre for most people is the box in their sitting room. We have to get them out of there and experience the joys of being part of a live audience."

David and Ali Troughton.

Encouraging youngsters to discover live theatre is something of a passion for Troughton and to this end he often teaches at the school workshops The Drama Pool organizes. He also lectures for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare Institute. Also, for the last 20 years the entire Troughton family has been actively involved in The Holly & The Ivy, an annual charitable Christmas event devised and directed by Ali, which takes place at the RSC's Swans and Courtyard theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon. This year's event raised money for The Shakespeare Hospice and for the development of a Youth Cricket Club, something that should come in very handy now that Troughton's grandson Finley is of a cricket playing age. Unless of course he decides to go into acting.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of April 29, 2013:
Call the Midwife's Judy Parfitt

Judy Parfitt.

I love all of the midwives in Call the Midwife, but have to admit to having a soft spot for Sister Monica Joan, and not just because the actress who plays her, Judy Parfitt, and I hail from the same town: Sheffield in Yorkshire. Parfitt's portrayal of her character is so authentic that I find it hard to believe this is the same actress who also played the scheming and spite-filled Mildred Layton in The Jewel in the Crown, who so viciously destroyed the gentle Barbie, played by Peggy Ashcroft.

As Gertrude with Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia, and Anthony Hopkins as Claudius in Hamlet.

Parfitt, who was born on November 7, 1935, honed her acting skills at the acclaimed Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and made her stage debut at the Amersham Repertory Company in 1954, playing a bridesmaid in the romantic comedy Fools Rush In. It would be another fifteen years before Parfitt achieved name recognition when she appeared as Hamlet's mother Gertrude in the 1969 stage production of Hamlet starring Anthony Hopkins as her husband Claudius. The role of Hamlet was played by Nicol Williamson who you might recall seeing as Lord Louis Mountbatten in the Masterpiece Theatre series Lord Mountbatten – the Last Viceroy. Marianne Faithfull, the 1960s pop singer, played Ophelia. Parfitt reprised her role in a film version of the play.

As Mildred Layton in The Jewel in the Crown.

Not long earlier in 1966 Parfitt had married actor Tony Steedman; the two were together almost 40 years until his death in 2001. Although both were in the public eye quite considerably they somehow managed to keep their private lives private. Maybe in an attempt not to embarrass their only son David, who according to Parfitt "was always very embarrassed by the fact that his mum and dad were famous and used to walk a couple of paces behind us whenever we were out anywhere!"

To that end Parfitt's interviews tend not to be about herself, but about the characters she portrays; and what memorable characters. Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities, Lady Catherine in Pride and Prejudice, Rosa Dartle in David Copperfield, Mme. Thenardier in a 1967 televised series of Les Miserables.

As Mrs. Clennam in Little Dorrit.

Parfitt's Hollywood film debut didn't arrive until 1995, when she starred with Kathy Bates in the thriller Dolores Claiborne. In 2003, she was cast alongside Colin Firth as the scheming mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The 5' 8" Parfitt seems to excel in playing cold and often cruel women in classical period settings, such as when she played the villainess Mrs. Clennam in Masterpiece Theatre's Little Dorrit in 2008. Clennam was a dream role for Parfitt. As she told an interviewer, "at my age the chances to get parts this good are few and far between." Reflecting on how much she had enjoyed working on the series, Parfitt confessed to feeling "bereaved", when filming finished.

As Mercy Woolf in Funland.

Another role Parfitt thoroughly loved was Mercy Woolf in the comedic thriller series Funland, where she played the evil, manipulative head of the Woolf Family, who are at the heart of a Blackpool amusement arcade. Mercy, who runs a lapdancing club and has ambitions to own Blackpool in the same way the Mafia owned Las Vegas, couldn't be more different than the woman who played her. "I'm about as frightening as Minnie Mouse", says the almost 75 year old grandmother of two.

As well as appearing regularly in British television shows, Parfitt has also starred in several American series. She was Snow White's Stepmother, Evil Queen Lillian "Lily" White in The Charmings, an episode of which also starred her husband Tony Steedman as Santa Claus in The Charmings' second season Christmas special. Parfitt also appeared on an episode of Murder, She Wrote and in 2002 was in a number of episodes of ER, where she played Dr. Elizabeth Corday's mother.

In 2004, Parfitt once again played a domineering dowager, this time with an American accent, when she was Mrs. Van Schuyler, in Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

As Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife.

Parfitt's most recent television role, as Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife is a lot different from the ones she generally plays. It's also one of the most challenging. As Parfitt explains, "she comes from a good family and she's an innocent. She's very eccentric but she's also getting dementia so she's in and out of reality, which makes it really interesting to play because it's a very difficult line to get through."

Call the Midwife airs on MPT Sunday nights at 8pm and repeats on Mondays at 9pm on MPT2.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of April 22, 2013:
Last of the Summer Wine's Keith Clifford

Keith Clifford.

This week it's time for another viewer request as we take a look at actor Keith Clifford, who plays Billy Hardcastle in Last of the Summer Wine.

Clifford was born on June 20th, 1938 in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He started out his television acting career in 1973 in what may have been one of the first ever reality TV shows; Crown Court. The Courtroom drama presented cases over a three week period at the end of which the jury would give their verdict based on the evidence presented. Although the Jury was made up of "ordinary people, chosen at random from the electoral roll of Manchester, the site of Granada Television studios where the series was made, as the Jury Foreman was required to speak, actor's union rules stipulated that the part be played by an actor. Clifford was that actor, reprising the "role" in another episode five years later.

As Charlie West in Coronation Street.

After his first go round in Crown Court, Clifford returned to Manchester to appear in Granada Television's long running and top rated series, Coronation Street. Before becoming a regular on the show in 1983, he portrayed a couple of different characters, first in 1975, then in 1983. In 1997 he got his own featured role in the series; Charlie West, an amiable comedic character that proved popular with the viewers.

As Billy Hardcastle in Last of the Summer Wine.

While working on Coronation Street, Clifford continued to take other roles and it was in 1998 when he was appearing with LOTSW actress Thora Hird in the television drama, Lost for Words, that the series' director Alan Bell offered him the role of Billy Hardcastle. Clifford portrayed the wanna-be descendent of Robin Hood for almost a decade until 2006 when he decided it was time to move on. The following year, in a move that would confuse Coronation Street viewers, he returned to the "Street", but not as Charlie West. Instead he played a nursing home resident, Frank Nichols.

Receiving the Sony Best Actor award.

As well as appearing on television for over three decades, Clifford also appeared extensively on the stage. Most notably in a play he co-authored; Randle's Scandals, about Lancashire-born comedian Frank Randle. The idea for the show came about in the mid-eighties when Clifford was starring in a musical comedy about a "coughing choir" set in a smoke works called "The Great Eric Ackroyd Disaster". Clifford styled his character in the show after Randle who was one of England's finest and highest paid comedians of the 1940s era, but who sadly died in poverty of a combination of TB and cirrhosis of the liver. As soon as comedian Mike Harding saw Clifford's characterization he guessed it was Randle and suggested they create a play based on the comedian's life story. The one-man play was such a success that not only did Clifford tour the country in it for over ten years, but its airing as a radio play on BBC 7 in 1992 garnered him a Best Actor Sony Radio award.

With wife, Annie.

As well as television and stage acting, the 6ft father of six Clifford, who married his wife Annie in 1974, has also appeared on the big screen. You can see him as the Harbor Master in the 1999 comedy Captain Jack starring Bob Hoskins.

Although Last of the Summer Wine is no longer being produced, Clifford relishes the memories he has of working on the show, his most memorable day being when they had to film a song and dance routine for a Christmas episode. Although they made it look like Holmfirth was covered in snow, in reality the episode was shot on the hottest day of summer and the actors, dressed in top hat and tails, were expected to dance over and over again until they got it right. As far as Clifford's concerned, it was a small price to pay for the pleasure the episode ultimately gave to so many people.

You can enjoy Last of the Summer Wine weekday afternoons at 1:30pm on Afternoon Tea and on MPT2 Sunday evenings at 7pm.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of April 15, 2013:
BBC Television Center, part two

Miranda, in 2012 the last sitcom to be made in BBC Television Center.

We continue this week with a look back at the history of BBC Television Center, which recently closed its doors after being sold for over $300 million.

After enjoying twenty years of thriving business, producing world class dramas, comedies, sports and news shows, the 1980s found BBC Television Center to be used less and less for major drama productions. More and more productions were filmed on location or in film studios with a single camera as opposed to being recorded in a multi-camera studio. In 1994 The House of Eliott became the last major drama series to be taped with Henry IV, Part 1 being the last single drama recorded in 1995.

BBC Television Center.

Over the next decade BBC Television Center coped with numerous challenges. In June of 2000, a major power failure at 5 o'clock in the afternoon resulted in many of its live news services being cut off or disrupted. In March of 2001, a bomb, attributed to the Real IRA, exploded outside the news center while police were trying to carry out a controlled explosion. It blew up a taxi but left no fatalities and minimal damage to the building itself. In 2006 during the live broadcast of National Lottery: Jet Set the studio was invaded by Fathers 4 Justice causing the show to go briefly off air while the protesters were removed from the set.

Their biggest challenge of all, however, was in 2007, when they faced a shortfall in funding of over $300 billion. To manage the shortfall, the BBC announced its plans to sell off BBC Television Center by the end of the fiscal year of 2012/13. In November, 2011, just as it was approaching its Golden Age, Television Center was put on the property market.

Penelope Keith, Ronnie Corbett, John Cleese and David Jason were among those who paid on-air tribute to BBC Television Center.

Between July 2012 and March 2013, the largest live newsroom in the world, the BBC News Center at Television Center, for which a brand new complex at the front of BBC Television Center had been built in 1997 and to which BBC's radio news, previously housed a few miles away in Broadcasting House, had been relocated, moved back to Broadcasting House. Sports and children's departments relocated to the northern town of Salford. As for the departments responsible for bringing entertainment to the world, there are no plans for a centralized location. A fact which left actress Penelope Keith feeling like, as she put it, an "orphan".

On the evening of on March 22, BBC Television Center ran its last live broadcast, Madness Live: Goodbye Television Centre. The building closed on March 31st. Plans for the new site include a public square and cycle route, shops, cafes, offices, apartments and a luxury hotel. A small housing development will also be built and affordable housing will replace what is now a multi-level parking garage. Some of what was once BBC Television Center's basement areas will be turned into dressing rooms and offices for the media and production companies expected to be leasing the Center's three main studios, which will be refitted. The rest of the basement space will be turned into parking spaces.

BBC Television Center.

At the end of next year, the BBC will lease back 20% of the site at a cost of approximately £5 million a year. Some of which they hope to recoup by opening up what will be known as The BBC Digital Experience; a public attraction which will include an area in which visitors provide their birth date and are then able to watch scenes from shows of their childhood. The Centre will also allow visitors to see how some of their favorite shows are currently produced. The BBC's commercial businesses, including BBC worldwide, will also be housed in the newly refurbished space.

When questioned as to how, with the lease back agreements and the expenses associated by relocating productions, the BBC could be saving money executives defended their decision by explaining that the sale of the Center will save in excess of £30 million a year. A figure which, according to a veteran BBC engineer said will be "enough to pay for 30 hours of high-quality drama."

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of April 8, 2013:
BBC Television Center

BBC Television Center.

This week instead of focusing on the British programs you get to see on MPT, or the actors who star in them, I thought we'd pay homage to the building in which so many of the shows we've enjoyed over the years were taped; BBC Television Center in London.

After bringing countless hours of service to the world for the last 59 years, BBC Television Center, which was sold to property developers last summer for about $350 million, finally ceased its broadcasting operations on March 31 of this year.

Aerial view; an early sketch.

Although not officially opened until June 29, 1960, discussions for the building of a new TV center began back in 1936, but were put on hold during the war years. They picked up again after World War II, and the official announcement that the BBC would be building the world's largest television center was made in April of 1949. Originally planned to occupy 6 acres of land on the site of what was once the Franco-British exhibition of 1908, by the time it opened the Center was over twice that size.

BBC legend has it that the Center's architect Graham Dawbarn came up with the idea for its design while in the pub, where he drew the triangular shape of the building site on the back of an old envelope. As he sat there pondering, he doodled a question mark in the middle of the triangle and suddenly realized it would make the perfect design!

Susan Hamphire.

Most of the building's layout was the same on the day it closed as when it first opened. Its distinctive circular main block around which studios, dressing rooms, engineering areas and the News Center, was known to staff as the "doughnut". The circular nature of the design made it easy to get lost when wandering the corridors, which all looked the same. Susan Hampshire, who in 1967 starred in the last BBC series to be made in black and white; Forsyte Saga and the first to be made in color; Vanity Fair, recalls just how confusing the "doughnut" was to navigate.

"We all got lost on our way to find the studio or the canteen" explains the now 75 year old actress. "Unless you recognized someone in the costume from your period you had no idea where you were. All of us would end up in the wrong studios."

The "doughnut-shaped" atrium with statue of Helios.

In the centre of the main block outside a statue of Helios, the god of the sun, was erected as a symbol of the radiation of television around the world, at his feet two reclining figures, symbolizing sound and vision. Originally a working fountain, the structure was too noisy for people who worked in the overlooking offices, so the water was cut off.

The first transmission from TV Centre was a one-off variety show called First Night, which kicked off three decades of drama series, serials, single plays musical spectaculars and an overwhelming number of comedies, such as Are You Being Served?, Monty Python, Open All Hours, The Good Life, Fawlty Towers, To the Manor Born, Yes Minister, Blackadder, 'Allo 'Allo, May To December, One Foot in the Grave, Absolutely Fabulous, As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances and Yes Prime Minister. Such a vast quantity of productions also required a huge amount of space in which to rehearse. Unfortunately, adequate rehearsal space had not been factored into the design of the center and was often in scarce supply. Actors and entertainers would be forced to "slum it" just as they had before the building of Television Center by rehearsing in local army drill or Church halls.

The Television Rehearsal Rooms in North Acton.

In 1968, the British Government announced they were reducing the size of their Territorial Army and the drill halls the BBC had been using for rehearsals would no longer be available. This forced the BBC to build a dedicated rehearsal facility, which opened in 1970 on Victoria Road in Acton. The Television Rehearsal Rooms was an impressive seven story building with 18 large rooms. For the first twenty years of its life it was very busy with all kinds of shows being rehearsed - dramas, comedies and variety shows. The canteen at lunchtime was filled with dozens of famous television celebrities. Then in the early 1990s, the Rehearsal Rooms began to be used less and less. Old variety shows, which required lots of rehearsal time, had gone out of fashion and most dramas were being shot with a single camera on location, where the rehearsals could also take place, rather than in a multi-camera studio setting, which required separate rehearsal facilities.

The taping of I, Claudius in 1976.

Additionally, the BBC's accountants decided that the Television Rehearsal Rooms building should be making a profit and they put a price on the hire of each room. It was, however, unrealistically high and was too expensive for many of the programs being produced to sustain. This forced them to return to the local church halls, which were a lot cheaper. Why the BBC accountants responsible for setting the rental fees didn't simply match them to the lower rates being charged elsewhere and thereby keeping the money in the BBC's coffers is not known. The end result, however, was that by the end of the 1990s, the building was no longer used for any rehearsals at all. Two of the floors became costume and wig storage areas and the remainder of the space was turned into offices. The BBC vacated the building entirely in the spring of 2008 and it was demolished in the summer of 2010.

Next week we'll continue with this retrospective look at BBC Television Center. In the meantime you can be sure to enjoy shows that were taped there every weekday afternoon on Afternoon Tea.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of April 1, 2013:
Death in Paradise's Ben Miller

Ben Miller in Death in Paradise.

This week I thought we'd chat about a new face to MPT, Ben Miller, who plays Detective Inspector Richard Poole in MPT's new Thursday night mystery, Death in Paradise.

Although he was born in London's East End, where his Lithuanian born paternal grandfather ran an assortment of shops, Miller grew up and went to school in the market town of Nantwich, Cheshire. Both of his parents were educators. His father worked at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic and his Welsh mother, Marion, taught at South Cheshire College.

While at school, Miller excelled in athletics and is proud of the fact that he still holds the school record for the 1500 meters. He was also a good academic student - especially at math, for which he credits his math teacher, who also happened to teach drama. On leaving school, Miller went to St. Catharines's College in Cambridge where he studied natural sciences, after which he remained at Cambridge to study for a Ph.D. in quantum physics. To his parents' dismay, Miller left Cambridge before finishing his doctorate studies and moved with fellow graduate Alexander Armstrong to London where the pair tried to break into the comedy business.

Alexander Armstrong and Miller in The Armstrong & Miller Show.

Success didn't come fast for the comedy duo. As Miller describes it "it was our Potato Years, because all we ate was potatoes. It was an absolute nightmare. I slept on a friend's kitchen floor for a year and a half." By 1996, their fortunes had changed and they began to get regular television work and in 1997 their first comedy sketch series, Armstrong and Miller, was commissioned. The hugely successful show ran for four seasons on the UK's independent TV station, Channel 4, then after a six year break the longtime friend moved their show to the BBC where it ran for 3 more years.

Independent of Armstrong, Miller has ventured into the film world, starring in 2001 in Steve Coogan's first feature film, The Parole Officer and in the 2003 film Johnny English, in which he played the role of "Bough", sidekick to Rowan Atkinson's title character. Since 2007 Miller has starred as James Lester in the sci-fi drama Primeval and in 2010 he went behind the camera when he directed the film Huge, about a feuding double act trying to make it in the cut-throat world of stand-up comedy. Of his own double act partner, Miller insists their relationship is "forever" and the pair is so close that when Armstrong got married, Miller even helped to decorate the wedding cake.

As a child.

It was while working on Primeval that Miller met his first wife, Belinda Stewart-Wilson, daughter of former equerry to the Queen Sir Blair Stewart-Wilson. Together the couple, who divorced in 2011, has a seven year old son, Sonny, with whom they share custody. Miller also has another son, Harrison, with his current partner, Jessica Parker. Harrison was born just last year when Miller was into his third season of Death in Paradise, which is filmed on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Not wanting to be separated, Miller had Parker bring baby Harrison and Sonny out to the neighbouring island of Antigua, but the trip put the baby off his sleep schedule and no one, including Miller, got any sleep. So the family returned to England and Miller made the 14 hour journey back to England every couple of weeks.

With first wife Belinda Stewart-Wilson.

Being isolated for long periods of time from his family is just one thing Miller doesn't enjoy about Death in Paradise. Another is that it took Miller years to get used to filming in the intense heat. He's had heat exhaustion a number of times and thought he'd discovered a way of keeping cool by wearing backless shirts, under his jacket. He had to stop, when it would get so hot that his back would get stuck to the suit lining.

Recently Miller returned to his academic roots with the publication of his first book, "It's Not Rocket Science", which covers everything from "quantum physics to global warming". Miller sees a lot of crossover between science and comedy. As he explains, "Comedy's about things the way they are. It's about the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be and science is the same really."

You can see Ben Miller, Thursday nights at 10:30pm on MPT.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of March 25, 2013:
Call the Midwife returns

This week I want to remind you about the return of one of last year's most popular British programs; Call the Midwife, an all new season two which airs Sunday evenings, beginning March 31st, on MPT at 8pm.

Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine), Trixie Franklin (Helen George), Cynthia Miller (Bryony Hannah) and babies.

Adapted from a memoir by the writer Jennifer Worth, Call The Midwife was originally published in 2002 and is about Worth's work as a midwife in London's East End during the 1950s. Worth penned the book and its subsequent follow up novels in an attempt to "do for midwifery what James Herriot did for vets".

The television series was adapted by screenwriter Heidi Thomas, who worked with Worth closely up until Worth's death shortly before filming of the first series began in the summer of 2011. Thomas' husband Stephen McGann appears in the show as the widowed GP Dr. Turner. This doesn't mean though that McGann has insider knowledge of what's going to transpire in the series as Thomas keeps the scripts hidden away.

"If he comes into my study while I'm working on them, I cover the screen," says Thomas. "But it's wonderful having a project that you can mull over with your partner, although I think our son gets fed up with it."

Thomas, who also serves as Executive Producer of the show, met McGann after he starred in one of the first plays she wrote at the Liverpool Playhouse 25 years ago. Call the Midwife is the first time since then that the couple have worked together.

Trixie Franklin (Helen George) weighs a baby.

Although Thomas is secretive about her Call the Midwife scripts, she is quite open to letting people know how the series' production crew go about recreating London's East End in the 1950s. It's all done by computer-generated imagery (CGI). The crew might for instance film in a cobbled street, with a background of modern high rises. Those modern buildings are then blocked out and through the wonders of the computer, made to look as though there is smoke coming out of chimneys. CGI was also used in episode four of the new series to create what looks like a flesh wound on a baby's back, because obviously you can't submit a newborn to a complicated make-up procedure.

The babies used in Call the Midwife are "booked" before they are even born. This is to facilitate the lengthy paperwork process involved. If the producers waited until after the babies they are hiring were born, they'd be older than 10 days and no longer look like newborns. By hiring them before they are born, all of the necessary paperwork relating to health and safety and BBC guidelines has been processed. In the cases where a non-newborn has had to be used, they've had to wrap the baby tightly in a shawl so that it doesn't look quite so relaxed.

When a "birth" is being filmed, the baby is held until the last possible moment by Terri Coates - the midwifery advisor on the series - who, after handing the baby over to the actress, still stays very close to the baby. Usually she's contorted under a bed or kneeling just out of the shot. Something to bear in mind when you see the new series, again which begins airing on Sunday March 31st at 8pm on MPT.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of March 18, 2013:
The Café's Michelle Terry

So how have you been enjoying our new Afternoon Tea comedy series, The Café? The series was co-written by actress Michelle Terry, who also appears in the show playing the role of Sarah Porter.

Michelle Terry.

Originally from Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, Terry actually grew up in the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare where The Café is set and filmed, having moved there with her family when she was a young child. It was there that Terry caught the acting bug, when her mother signed her brother up for a drama group and she asked if she could also attend. It wasn't long before the 7 year old Terry was performing in amateur shows and taking exams in poetry, prose and spoken verse.

When Terry was fourteen she joined the National Youth Theatre, but on leaving high school rather than go straight into drama school, her "sensible parents" persuaded her to attend University instead; thereby giving Terry a back-up-plan in case she didn't make it in the acting world. Although Terry complied and attended Cardiff University, where she studied English, she remained faithful to her dramatic pursuits by joining the University's Drama Society, of which she was President.

As The Princess of France in The Shakespeare Globe production of Love's Labour's Lost.

On graduating from University, Terry auditioned for and was enrolled into London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. On graduating RADA in 2004, Terry was cast in a production of Blithe Spirit, which toured the UK before going to London's West End. After that she found work at repertory theatres in the north of England. It was while she was working at a theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme that a freelance casting director stopped by the theatre she was appearing at, having missed his train from Edinburgh to London. Terry's talents impressed him so much, that he put her name on the list for the Royal Shakespeare Company ensemble. As well as working at the RSC, Terry worked at the Royal National Theatre and her television roles include the Ricky Gervais comedy Extras and Law and Order: UK.

The Café being filmed at Weston-super-Mare's seafront.

The idea for The Café came about when Terry met co-writer Ralf Little when they were both appearing in the stage play 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and "bonded" over a mutual dislike of bad television scripts they'd been given to read. Eventually they decided that instead of moaning about there being no good characters written, they'd write their own character-driven sitcom. It took three years for the pair to write and develop the show, and while writing, a number of different locations were considered for the show's setting. Eventually Terry realized that her home town was the perfect setting and after she brought Ralf down to Weston, her co-writer agreed.

Terry's role of Sarah in the show wasn't something she intended, but gradually as time went on she realized that she couldn't let go of the series. Terry insists that the character she plays, Sarah, a twenty-something who has returned home from London to work in a café and pursue a writing career, is not autobiographical because she doesn't think she's "a good enough writer to be imaginative", but she does sometimes get that "whoops!" feeling when she suddenly realizes she may have written about a past relationship.

You can see Michelle Terry in The Café on Afternoon Tea Wednesdays at 1pm. Don't forget to let us know what you think of it by dropping me a line:

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of March 11, 2013:
Ballykissangel's Dervla Kirwan

Time for another viewer request as we take a look this week at Dervla Kirwan who plays Assumpta Fitzgerald in Ballykissangel.

Dervla Kirwan.

Born in Churchtown, Dublin, Ireland, on October 24, 1971, Kirwan was the youngest of three daughters. Her father was an insurance broker, and her mother taught Latin. Her great-grandmother (on her mother's side) was Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll; an older sister of Michael Collins, who led the IRA against British rule and founded the Irish Free State in 1921. Collins was also uncle to Kirwan's maternal grandfather, Finian O'Driscoll. On her father Peter's side, Kirwan's great-grandfather was a Polish Jewish immigrant.

Life for the young Kirwan was decidedly unglamorous. She wore her sisters' hand-me-downs and magazines were banned in her home environment where they would have been deemed trivial and frivolous. As a child, Kirwan was also extremely shy, which as she grew older people would mistake for aloofness. Through acting she learned to be confident, and while she still doesn't enjoy walking into parties or new places, she's now trained herself to at least look as though she's enjoying it.

Despite her shyness, Kirwan landed her first television role at the age of just 15 in the BBC Drama Troubles. A year later she moved to London to perform as a factory girl in A Handful of Stars; the first of a trilogy of plays called the Wexford Trilogy. Moving to London to do a show didn't sit very well with her Catholic school and they asked her to leave, so Kirwan finished her education in a non-denominational school in Dublin.

It wasn't long before Kirwan was back in the acting world and in 1991 she came to the attention of the British television viewing public when she appeared in the BBC Scotland production of A Time. That was followed up with stage roles, including stint at the Royal Court Theatre and the Globe Theatre in London.

With Stephen Tompkinson as Assumpta and Father Clifford in Ballykissangel.

In 1994, Kirwan met her Ballykissangel co-star Stephen Tompkinson, when they worked together on a radio play, but it wasn't until they started working on Ballykissangel in the spring of 1995, that they realized they were attracted to each other. Not wanting to let their feelings for each other interfere with their work on the show, they put things on the back burner until filming of the show was completed. The minute they arrived back in England though, Tompkinson plucked up courage to ask Kirwan out and after a dinner at The Ivy and a trip to the cinema to see Children of the Lost World, the relationship got underway.

Once the press worked out "Assumpta" and "Father Peter Clifford" were dating in real-life, they assumed it was just a publicity stunt, but they were proved wrong in July of 1997 when the couple got engaged after Tompkinson proposed to Kirwan in Neary's bar in Dublin while filming BallyK.

As Kirwan recalled during an interview, "We were sitting at this table, surrounded by the rest of the cast when Stephen took my hand under the table. I thought, ooh? Then I felt something being put on my hand and I looked down and there was this rock. It was a big shiny thing!"

The engagement last two years, until in September of 1999, the couple split up, but remained friends. After three seasons, Kirwan left BallyK, just as she as she'd also left another popular series, Goodnight Sweetheart, which starred Nicholas Lyndhurst.

"I think I've got some actor's form of ADHD," says Kirwan, "I just can't do the same thing day in, day out. I kept telling myself it was a great job to have and all that but, when it got to the third series, I felt as if I was on autopilot."

Kirwan's performance in Ballykissangel won her the National TV Award for Best Actress in 1996, and the Irish Post Award for Best Irish Entertainer in 1997.

With husband Rupert Penry-Jones.

In 2001 while appearing in a West Yorkshire Playhouse production of JB Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Kirwan met her current husband, Rupert Penry-Jones, who played Adam Carter in a show you can see on MPT; MI-5. Initially Penry-Jones, who is the son of another face familiar to Afternoon Tea viewers, Angela Thorne, who plays Marjory Frobisher in To The Manor Born, was going to turn the job down because he'd heard Kirwan was difficult to work with, but within a few weeks the couple were head over heels in love. Their play eventually transferred to London's West End.

In 2003, Dervla again appeared on stage with Penry-Jones in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Bristol Old Vic. The following year she gave birth to the couple's first child, Florence; son Peter arrived two years later and Kirwan and Penry-Jones finally tied the knot in 2007, after a three year engagement.

Following a stabbing incident in the long-time quiet London neighborhood where they'd lived since getting together, Kirwan and Penry-Jones uprooted their small family and moved to rural Hampshire, where they live an unusually low-key life, given that they are one of England's most high-profile couples. Celebrity status, however, is not something the couple seek out.

"We love acting", explains Kirwan, "but when it spills over into the whole celebrity thing, it makes us very uncomfortable. It just doesn't suit us".

Dervla, Rupert, Florence and Peter.

The family routine, according to Kirwan, is very ordinary. "We're like anyone else", she says, "wondering how to entertain the kids for eight weeks over the summer holidays."

Since leaving BallyK Kirwan has hardly had a time when she hasn't been working – either on stage, or on screen – small and big. Most recently, she appeared in a BBC1 drama miniseries called Blackout and in two films; Luna, a fantasy film due to be released later this year and the independent thriller called Entity. It's the role she did as a 23 year old that still brings her the most attention though. To this day Kirwan is approached by people in the street expressing their affection for her portrayal of the attractive young landlady.

Kirwan likens it to being "like a singer who has a hit number one. You'll always be defined by that song. It doesn't matter if I go and play at the National [theatre], it really doesn't matter that I'm doing a major TV series for the BBC - I'll still always be remembered as Assumpta in Ballykissangel."

You can see Ballykissangel weekday afternoons on Afternoon Tea at 3:30pm.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of March 4, 2013:
We remember Richard Briers, part two

Richard Briers.

One of the omissions in this year's Academy Awards "In Memoriam" segment was Richard Briers, whose death on February 17th was – to quote his Good Neighbors co-star Penelope Keith – a "kick to the stomach" for many of us. Why he was omitted I don't know. Perhaps because the bright faced actor came across more like a friendly uncle, than a movie star, despite his over fifty years in show business and a film career that included roles as diverse as Smee in Peter Pan to Polonius in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Briers' friendly on-screen persona was completely genuine. A good friend of mine who once acted with Briers in a car commercial, reports that he was one of the nicest actors she'd ever met. Apparently it was Briers' likability factor that made him such a sought after actor – everyone wanted to work with him – and work he did. As well as films, plays and television shows, Briers was also a much sought after voiceover artist. He was the voice of Noddy, in the children's television series based on the popular Enid Blyton character. He was also the voice of Mouse in the series Mouse & Mole, and was Fiver in the animated film adaptation of Watership Down. Briers' voice was also used in all three series of the televised adaptation of Watership Down, where he played a character called Captain Broom.

With his castmates from The Good Life.

While to me, Briers will always be Tom Good in Good Neighbors or The Good Life as it was known in England where I first saw it as a teenager, for many MPT viewers, Briers is best known as Hector MacDonald in Monarch of the Glen. Briers played Hector, the best friend of Lord Kilwillie (played by Julian Fellowes) from 2000 to 2005, at which point he asked the producers to write him out in order that he could spend more time at home with his family and grandchildren.

In Monarch of the Glen.

Home for Briers for 45 years was the house he shared with his wife, Annie, in Chiswick. On weekends, Briers enjoyed nothing better than having his grandchildren round, or taking them into London to see a show or an exhibition. Each series of Monarch of the Glen, however, would take almost a half year to film and with the filming taking place in Scotland, it was a lot of time to be far from home. Briers did, however, love the highlands and its ever changing climate. Far more so than Tuscany where he filmed Much Ado About Nothing. As he once told a reporter, "in Tuscany, there was rarely a wind change, but in the Highlands you have four climates a day – you never bore of Scotland. It's dramatic and appeals to me as an actor".

In Cockneys vs Zombies, his last film role.

As well as acting and his family, Briers was also an avid reader with a massive personal library. His theatre books alone totaled over 3,000! As well as reading books, Briers also enjoyed writing and wrote on a variety of topics, including Coward and Company about Noel Coward, A Little Light Weeding, an amusing book of stories about gardening and English Country Churches, research for which had Briers visiting over 100 historic British churches.

Technology on the other hand left Briers cold. He never owned a cellphone, a computer or an iPod, and he barely knew how to operate his telephone answer machine. According to Briers, he was very much "an old-fashioned chap with sound values at heart", one who cherished "courtesy, kindness, thoughtfulness"; all virtues which Briers found "conspicuously lacking in folk who bellow ceaselessly into their mobiles."

Briers once unapologetically described his home as "a shrine to a slower-paced era, when household goods were made to last and no one with a scintilla of common sense threw anything away if it still worked."

In his back yard.

Briers also eschewed the acquisition of possessions, with the exception of books, and one of his most treasured possessions was his gramophone, on which he played his collection of 78s. Among his favorites were The Ink Spots, Al Jolson and Enrico Caruso. Briers also had an almost fifty year old reel-to-reel tape recorder, which he refused to replace for something more contemporary. His car – a modest Japanese hatchback - was also over a decade old. He bought it second-hand, not wanting to "fritter away" his hard-earned cash on a new model which would only depreciate in value the minute it was driven out of the showroom.

There was only one occasion that Briers was, as he put it, "shamed" into updating his home's ancient electronic equipment. It was when his good friend Penelope Keith came for supper one night. As she walked into the sitting room and spotted the aged television set with its tiny screen and wood surround, which the Briers' had had for about twenty years, she roared laughter and demanded to know why they still had the old relic. Eventually she cajoled Briers into buying a brand new flatscreen model. But that, along with a fax machine, which he never knew how to use, was the extent of Briers surrendering to technological advancements.

As a murderous vicar in Midsomer Murders.

The role of elderly curmudgeon was one which Briers seemed to relish and he particularly enjoyed the grumpy unsympathetic character he played in the 1980s sitcom, Ever Decreasing Circles. His role in that show, which was written by the same writers that penned Good Neighbors, was that of Martin Bryce a character who was the antithesis of Tom Good. It was, however, Briers' favorite sitcom character of all time.

Briers final film role, prior to his death, was playing an old age pensioner in a film called Cockneys vs. Zombies, about a bunch of East-Enders fighting their way out of a zombie infested London. This may have been Briers last film, but it wasn't his first encounter with sci-fi – he also appeared in Doctor Who, Torchwood and the 1994 film Frankenstein with Robert DeNiro.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of February 25, 2013:
We remember Richard Briers

A young Richard Briers.

This week we look at the life of actor Richard Briers, who passed away on Sunday, February 17 after succumbing to the chronic lung condition emphysema. Although known to PBS viewers as the affable Tom Good in Good Neighbors, Briers career spanned over five decades and his film roles brought him into contact with legends as varied as Raquel Welch and Stephen Spielberg.

Born on January 13, 1934, in Surrey, Briers inherited his love of performing from his mother, Morna, who as well as being an actress was also an accomplished pianist. His father Joseph held many jobs – none of them for very long. The family were often in debt, something Briers vowed he'd never be and as a result always lived within his means. To the day he died he never owned more than three pairs of shoes and had just one suit, and a dinner jacket.

With wife, Ann, on their wedding day in 1957.

On leaving school at the age of 16, Briers took a job with a London cable manufacturer, while he studied nights to qualify as an electrical engineer. Those efforts didn't last long though and he soon left to become a filing clerk. Two years later, Briers was called up for his National Service and served in the RAF, which is where he met The Café and Last of the Summer Wine actor Brian Murphy. The pair got on like a house on fire and on leaving the RAF, it was Murphy who encouraged Briers to join the Dramatic Society at the Borough Polytechnic Institute, (now London South Bank University), where he performed in several productions.

Briers then followed in Murphy's footsteps by studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1954-56, alongside actors Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney. After graduating, he won a scholarship with the Liverpool Repertory Company, where he met his wife Ann Davies, a television and film actress, who was working there as a stage manager. Within six months, the couple was married and their times at the Rep, acting together, and without the trappings of family life, were some that Briers would later say were the best of their lives. Their over fifty year marriage would produce two daughters, Kate and Lucy, both of whom also went into theatre.

With Prunella Scales, in the 1960s, and more recently.

Briers made his West End debut in the Duke of York's Theatre in 1959 and his first big television break came just a few years later in 1961, when he was cast opposite actress Prunella Scales in a sitcom called Marriage Lines. It ran for five years, and resulted in a lifelong friendship between the two actors. In fact, when Scales was giving birth to her first child, unable to track down her husband Timothy West, she asked the nurse to try and locate Briers; sure enough West and Briers were at the pub across the street, whetting the baby's whistle before it had even been born!

Not surprisingly most of Brier's best friends were acting colleagues, such as John Thaw (Inspector Morse) whose wife Sheila Hancock said rarely made friends, because he didn't think anyone would want to be friends with him. Thaw and Briers were very close, however, which Hancock puts down to them being "so completely on one another's wavelength." The two families would spend Christmases together and as Hancock recalls Briers and Thaw would "get equally drunk and equally ratty, and make each other laugh."

With Raquel Welch in the 1960s film Fathom.

Paul Eddington was another good friend. The pair shared a similar sense of humor and knew each other before they were both cast in The Good Life (known in the US as Good Neighbors). Briers was also close with Penelope Keith, who played Eddington's wife Margo in the series. After being told of Briers' death, Keith said it felt like she'd been kicked in the stomach. "You will hear a lot of people saying a lot of marvelous things about Richard", said Keith "and let me assure you, they are all true."

Surprisingly the one acting colleague Briers never became friends with was Felicity Kendal who played his wife, Barbara Good. It saddened the normally upbeat Briers that Kendal made no attempt to see him during his battle with the disease that would kill him – a disease that Briers claimed had been caused by him smoking some 500,000 cigarettes before giving up in 2003.

Briers reflected on Kendal's disappearance from public life in an interview shortly before he died. "She seems to have disappeared in a strange way," he said. "She's an extraordinary girl. I don't really know who she is. Never did. She was always an attractive girl and she's still pretty young but, you know, she's very strange. Enchanting, but strange."

Kendal and Briers might not have developed a close relationship off screen, but their on-screen relationship made them both household names. The public adored the pair of them. Briers, however, wasn't too fond of "good old Tom"; he thought the character was terribly selfish. "It was all about him all the time", said Briers, "and he was terrible with the wife. There were no clothes for her, no babies, nothing at all."

Receiving his CBE medal with his wife and grandchildren in 2003.

The Good Life first aired in the UK in 1975 and although it only ran until 1978, it was such a popular show that it continues to be repeated all over the world. One of the show's biggest fans was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who attended the recording of the final episode. In 1989, when she honored Briers by appointing him an OBE, as she presented the jovial Briers his award she said "And I suppose you're getting this for making people laugh?". The Queen later bestowed another honor on Briers when, in 2003, she made him a Commander of the British Empire.

As well as making people laugh, Briers was also very actively involved in numerous charitable organizations. He became President of Parkinson's UK, after his second cousin the comedic and much loved British actor Terry Thomas was diagnosed with the disease. Briers also helped to launch a Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association campaign and was also a non-medical patron of the TOFS (Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula Support) charity, which supports children and the families of children born unable to swallow.

In 2007, after playing the husband of a person with dementia in the television drama Dad (which starred Kevin Whately as Briers' son), Briers became an ambassador for the Alzheimer's Society. In that role he lobbied Members of Parliament on the injustices of charging for life-enhancing dementia treatments to delivering entertaining speeches.

With Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet.

As well as maintaining a high television profile, with roles in shows such as Dr. Who, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks and Monarch of the Glen. Briers was also a member of Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company, a company which produced not only stage shows, but films as well. He had been introduced to Branagh after being taken by his daughter Lucy to see Branagh perform in Henry V in Stratford-upon-Avon. After the meeting, Branagh offered Briers the role of Malvolio in his fledgling company's production of Twelfth Night, which was later adapted for television.

From 1989 to 2006, Briers appeared in eight of Branagh's films, including Henry V (Bardolph), Hamlet (Polonius) and Much Ado About Nothing (Signor Leonato) and on stage where he played the title parts in King Lear and Uncle Vanya. The Renaissance Theatre Company productions toured the world, but in 2008, Briers retired from touring to concentrate on his television work and voice overs.

Well chat more next week about Richard Briers; a man with a twinkle in his eye, whose smile and chuckle could be guaranteed to cheer one up; a man who may never have been knighted, but who was in the words of Kenneth Branagh "a National Treasure."

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of February 18, 2013:
The Café's Brian Murphy

In The Café.

This week it's time for another viewer request as we take a look at actor Brian Murphy, who stars as Alvin Smedley in Last of the Summer Wine and as Frank Dobson in the newest addition to our Afternoon Tea line up, The Café.

Born in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight on September 25th in 1933, Murphy did his National Service in the Royal Air Force along with another Afternoon Tea actor, Richard Briers, who starred as Tom in Good Neighbors. Weekend pleasures for the two young men, included reading aloud Shakespeare's plays into a tape recorder. Between them they covered all the great roles, fired up by the vision that one day they would both become great classical actors.

"Richard Briars was my great mate", recalls Murphy. "We'd record as many plays as we could with us in the lead roles, then we'd report back to duty with very hoarse voices."

In Last of the Summer Wine.

Their tape recorder came in a big heavy case and it almost led to their being arrested, when a policeman asked them what it contained. When Brier's told the policeman it was "a head", he failed to see the funny side.

After being demobbed, they went to London where they performed in plays put on by the Dramatic Society at the Borough Polytechnic Institute. Briers focused on comedy, while Murphy who had trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, took on the more dramatic roles. Years, later of course it would be reversed, when Murphy would become a household name known for his comedic roles on television and Briers would join Kenneth Branagh and go on to play roles such as King Lear.

In Man About the House.

Murphy spent the 1960s and the early part of the 1970s performing on stage and in shows such as The Avengers and Z-Cars, a popular police show. In 1964, he travelled to Broadway with the Joan Littlewood directed, Oh What a Lovely War. When Littlewood discovered that protesters were staging an anti-war vigil in Times Square, she invited them all to come and see the show for free. Murphy would go onto reprise his role in the film version of the show.

As Murphy approached 40 though, he almost quit acting and went into the insurance business. With a young family to feed and money being short as he'd invested in a revival of Oh What a Lovely War that he was part-producing, Murphy had to turn down work he would have previously enjoyed because it wasn't paying enough. Fortunately his agent dissuaded him, telling him that by the time he turned 40 he would come into his own. He couldn't have been more right.

With Yootha Joyce in George and Mildred.

In 1972, just a year shy of his 40th birthday, Murphy was cast as the henpecked husband George Roper in Man About The House. The show was such a success that it was remade in the U.S. under the title Three's Company. Murphy played the henpecked George Roper. His wife in the show, Mildred, was played by his good friend, Yootha Joyce who he'd worked with for many years on stage. Together, they became one of the most successful double acts in the history of British television.

After Man About the House finished in 1976, a spin-off series was created called George and Mildred, which was also very popular. Both Man About the House and George and Mildred were made into feature films, with Murphy, who by now was a household name, reprising his role of George. With eight episodes of the show to go, George and Mildred came to an abrupt end when Joyce died of cirrhosis of the liver due to chronic alcoholism in 1980. It was later revealed that Joyce had been drinking upwards of half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years.

Murphy feels grateful that despite life as a major celebrity, he could always rely on his family to keep him sane.

"My wife and children could always restore me to sanity immediately", recalls Murphy, "they'd say the drains needed unblocking or whatever. Yootha didn't have such stability and that made it harder."

With wife Linda Regan.

Murphy's role as George Roper, along with some wise investments, set the actor – as he calls it – "up for life". He is now fortunate enough to pick and choose his projects. One show you might have seen him for instance was One Foot in the Grave, where he played a character called Mr. Foskett. Most recently he had a regular role in Last of the Summer Wine and of course you can see him now Wednesday afternoon at 1pm in The Café.

Murphy lives with his second wife, actress and crime novelist, 53 year old Linda Regan in Shortlands near Bromley in south-east London.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of February 11, 2013:
William & Mary's Julie Graham

So, how are you enjoying our new Sunday night show, William & Mary, which airs at 8pm? It stars Martin Clunes in a very different role to the one we're most familiar with, i.e. Doc Martin in the show of the same name. His character, Tom Shawcross, in William & Mary, actually smiles - a lot!

Julie Graham.

Starring alongside Clunes in the show is Julie Graham as Mary, the midwife with whom Shawcross, an undertaker, becomes involved. The 47 year old gap-toothed actress hails from Irvine, North Ayrshire in Scotland, where she was raised by her actress mother Betty, after her father left the family home when she was a toddler.

When Graham was eight, her mother re-married writer and broadcaster, David Webster, but sadly she died of lung cancer at the age of 50, when her daughter was just 18. Her mother's death came just six months after its initial diagnosis; it was devastating to the young teenager. Graham, an only child, helped care for her mother, with whom she was extremely close. To this day Graham says there isn't a day when she doesn't think of her mother.

After her mother's death, Graham pushed her grief aside, and moved from Glasgow to London, to pursue an acting career, while she supported her efforts by working in a law office and as a receptionist at a strip club. In her desire to make a fresh start, Graham confesses she never dealt with her feelings about her mother's death. Then overnight, she developed she developed a severe case of eczema; one day her face was clear, the next it was covered in itchy, painful, angry red sores.

"For three years I was at the end of my tether", explains Graham. "Nothing I tried work, and I thought my skin might never heal again."

With Martin Clunes in William & Mary.

The condition sapped the young 21 year old's confidence, to the extent that she hated looking into mirrors. It also wasn't helping her get decent acting parts, and she felt her acting career was as good as finished. Out of desperation to find a cure, Graham decided to visit a homeopathic doctor in Islington. Without even knowing about her mother's death three years earlier, the doctor said he believed her eczema was grief related. He recommended grief counseling along with a course of homeopathic medicines for stress.

"Once I understood that bottling up my grief was causing my problems", recalls Graham, "with the help of friends I started to open up. Only then did I realize the depth of anger I'd felt when I lost my mother."

Within a few weeks, the sores disappeared and never came back. Now, 25 years later, Graham still relies on alternative treatments. She's had acupuncture to heal her neck when she was suffering from whiplash, and to alleviate her asthma, which she's suffered with since she was a child. She also goes for regular shiatsu massage therapy.

Graham also turns to homeopathy when her children have coughs, colds or ear infections. Her daughters Edie May, who is nine, and six year old Cyd live with their actor parents in Brighton. Graham met husband Joseph when he was also working on William & Mary, it was a whirlwind romance. As was their wedding, which took place in Brighton with two strangers the about to become newly-weds grabbed off the street acting as witnesses.

Appearing in Doc Martin.

By the time Graham began shooting the second series of William & Mary, she was already three months pregnant with her first daughter Edie May, who was born six weeks premature. According to her co-star, Martin Clunes, Graham was "amazing!"

"She never seemed to get tired while filming", said Clunes, who also said he had never seen anyone enjoy a pregnancy so much.

In real life Graham and Clunes are the best of friends. A couple of years ago, Graham worked with Clunes again in a couple of Doc Martin episodes. "It was like having a holiday", recalls Graham, of the two weeks she spent in Port Isaac where the series is filmed. Not so pleasant though was Clunes being so grumpy as the Doc. "During our scenes together I didn't like his character at all!" said Graham. "In real life, he's lovely".

To find out how the producers of William & Mary dealt with Graham's pregnancy during the filming of the show you'll have to tune in to MPT on Sunday night's at 7pm. In the meantime let us know if there's an actor or actress you'd like to see featured in our weekly Tea Time Tidbits.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of February 4, 2013:
Yes, Minister's Nigel Hawthorne

Nigel Hawthorne.

I hope you've been enjoying our "chats" about the actors who appear in Yes, Minister. This week we feature my own particular favorite, Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE, who appears in the show as Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Although he was born in Coventry, Warwickshire (on April 5, 1929), Hawthorne grew up in South Africa, after his physician father emigrated there when Hawthorne was four. Hawthorne was the second of four children, all of whom - according to Hawthorne - were pretty much ignored by their parents. His authoritarian father also discouraged the children from mixing with people outside of the family, which Hawthorne would later blame for his lack of confidence. Fortunately, Hawthorne's bleak childhood was cheered up by his maternal grandmother; an artist who introduced her sad, lonely grandson to literature, poetry and art.

With Paul Eddington in Yes, Minister.

Following high school, Hawthorne attended Cape Town University, where he joined the University's drama group. A year later, at the age of 19, urged on by another member of the group, Shaun Sutton, he decided to drop out of school, move back to England and become a professional actor. Sutton, who would later become a BBC producer, found Hawthorne a job as assistant stage manager at a theatre in Buxton, Derbyshire. For six years, Hawthorne knocked on the doors of London agents, auditioned time and time again for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, but found little success and so returned to South Africa.

In "Dad's Army", 1969

Back in his adoptive country, Hawthorne finally began to get cast and managed to build up his acting resume with leading roles. Armed with some impressive credits, Hawthorne returned to London, where he was soon cast as Field Marshall Haig in the West End premier of Oh What A Lovely War. By 1970, Hawthorne was a fixture on the London stage, and was also beginning to break into television, with minor roles. It would be another ten years though before Hawthorne would become an "overnight success" with his portrayal of Permanent Secretary, Humphrey Appleby in the 1980s sitcom Yes, Minister.

Filming in front of a live studio audience was difficult for Hawthorne and he needed to take medication to cope with the stress, but the role would eventually win him four British Academy of Film & Television Awards in the "Best Light Entertainment Performance" Category. The show, and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran until 1992, by which time Hawthorne had been honored by the Queen with a CBE (in 1987), and had won a Best Actor Tony award for his portrayal on Broadway in 1991 of C.S. Lewis in the stage version of Shadowlands.

As King George III.

In 1994 Hawthorne was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of King George III in The Madness of King George; a role he'd already won awards for on the London stage. While conducting a series of media interviews to build up support for the film here in the U.S., Hawthorne gave a short interview to the magazine The Advocate, in which, along with other subjects, he discussed his sexuality. Although Hawthorne and his partner, Timothy Bentham had been together for over 20 years and were well known within the community in which they lived in as a "couple", Hawthorne had never felt the need to turn his sexuality into a "crusade".

The revelation that Hawthorne was gay didn't cause much of a ripple in the U.S., but the British tabloids threw what Hawthorne later described as a "juvenile fit". They attacked Hawthorne relentlessly, with headlines screaming out such things as "The madness of Queen Nigel", or "Yes, Minister, I'm gay". The situation got so bad that Hawthorne and Bentham had to hire four security guards to keep the reporters away from their home - a 15th century manor house in Hertfordshire.

Hawthorne and his partner, Trevor Bentham.

The press's relentless hounding didn't just stop on the shores of the British Isles. They followed Hawthorne to Los Angeles where Hawthorne was attending the Academy Awards ceremony and he and Bentham had to be smuggled to the airport where they were checked onto their flight from the parking lot. The normally calm, mild mannered actor was furious - not so much at the fact he'd been "outed" - that didn't bother him at all as he'd never hidden the fact he was gay, but being held up to ridicule was hurtful to the core.

In response to the press coverage, Hawthorne received hundreds of letters of sympathy, along with a deluge of work offers and in 1998 he became "Sir" Nigel Hawthorne when he was knighted for his services to his industry. In 1999, after he finally got to realize his dream of performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company, when he appeared as King Lear, Hawthorne was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After undergoing treatment to remove the tumor, Hawthorne thought he had beaten the disease, but within a year it returned. Hawthorne again underwent surgery and although he was responding well to treatment, while undergoing chemotherapy on December 26th, 2001 he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Hawthorne's funeral.

The 72 year old actor was buried at the Parish Church of Thundridge near Ware, Hertfordshire. Attending the service, which was held for family and close friends only, were actors Charles Dance, Maureen Lipman, Derek Fowlds, Loretta Swit and author Frederick Forsyth. The congregation sang the hymn "Morning Has Broken" and "Lord Of The Dance", and the actor's coffin was adorned with a wreath of white lilies and orchids. It was a modest affair for a modest gentleman.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of January 28, 2013:
Yes, Minister's Derek Fowlds

Derek Fowlds today.

Watching Derek Fowlds, who plays Jim Hacker's undersecretary Bernard Wooley in Tuesday afternoon's in Yes, Minister takes me back to my childhood, when I used to watch him on telly Saturday tea-times in The Basil Brush Show. Fowlds played straight man, Mr. Derek, to a bushy tailed, monocle wearing, fox puppet called Basil. Together they'd interview various celebrity guests, who Basil would invariably end up insulting. The show also included family entertainers who would spin plates, model balloons, sing songs, or perform simple magic tricks. Mr. Derek would end the show by attempting to narrate a story, while he was constantly interrupted by Basil. It was light family entertainment at its best and I loved it!

Fowlds, was born on September 2, 1937 in Wandsworth, London. After leaving school at the age of 15, he became an apprentice printer. Although he'd always enjoyed drama as a hobby while at school, Fowlds never considered becoming an actor as he thought it was a profession only for the rich, or the "posh". While doing his national service in Malta, Fowlds was in three plays with a lieutenant commander who encouraged him to audition for The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. On Fowlds behalf the lieutenant wrote to RADA and coached him in his audition material. The caring commander's efforts paid off and Fowlds not only won a scholarship to attend the most prestigious drama school in the world, but he was also awarded a grant to fund his attendance.

"Mr. Derek" and Basil Brush.

Fowlds left RADA in 1960 and worked primarily in the theatre, with a few television roles here and there. Then in 1969, his agent asked him if he'd be interested in going to the BBC and working with a puppet. Fowlds initial reaction was one of shock. "What are you talking about", he said, "I'm a classically trained actor!" Nevertheless, Fowlds went to the BBC, met "Basil" and ended up staying for five years.

Fowlds' follow-up act to Basil Brush was Yes, Minister which, when he first heard about the show, Fowlds assumed was a religious program! After reading the script, he realized it was "something very special". The bond between Fowlds, Hawthorne and Eddington was equally distinct. The trio got along extremely well and Fowlds cannot remember them ever having one cross word.

Fowlds with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne.

Fowlds first inclination that Yes, Minister would be a success was not until series two, when the show had been moved from BBC2, where it had enjoyed a cult following, to the more widely watched BBC1. It was then that the show started to become a topic of conversation in Parliament and Margaret Thatcher's saying the show was her favorite program sealed its success. After three years the writers felt it had run its course, but the BBC were desperate for more episodes, so the writers complied and made Hacker Prime Minister.

Fowlds and Geoffrey Hughes in Heartbeat.

Yes, Prime Minister ran for two seasons and after it finished Fowlds managed to work pretty steadily in one TV series or another. Then in 1992 he was cast in the police drama series Heartbeat. Fowlds appeared as Oscar Blaketon in all 342 episodes of the show which ran until 2009 and is a series we've aired on MPT. It's hard to imagine either Bernard or Oscar being married, but in real life Fowlds has been married three times. His first marriage was to the glamorous actress Adrienne Corri, about which not a lot is known. His second marriage to Wendy Tory, with whom he raised two children, James and Jeremy, ended in 1973, but the couple remained friends. In fact, it was Corri who introduced Fowlds to his current partner Jo, who he has been with for over thirty years. A retired schoolteacher, with three grown-up children of her own, Jo has what Fowlds describes as a "wonderful cynical sense of humor". She also refuses to get caught up in the trappings of being a celebrity's wife and as Fowlds puts it "thinks that actors are a bunch of wallies".

Adrienne Corri.

In 1974 Fowlds married dancer and children's television show presentation, Leslie Judd. That marriage last four years on paper, but in reality was over in just a few weeks, after Judd realized it "wouldn't work".

Next week we'll look Yes, Minister's Nigel Hawthorne. In the meantime, you can see the series, Tuesdays afternoons at 1pm on MPTs Afternoon Tea.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of January 21, 2013:
Yes, Minister's Paul Eddington, part two

Eddington.

Last week we were "chatting" about Paul Eddington, who stars as Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister, one of Britain's best loved comedy series, which now airs on Afternoon Tea Tuesdays at 1pm. Eddington's success in that series, and the subsequent follow up, Yes, Prime Minister, came despite his debilitating health problems.

Eddington's health issues had first arose back in 1958 when he was 31 and started to experience a mysterious leg pain. It couldn't have come at a worse time for the struggling actor and his wife who had just given birth to their second son, Hugo. Added to which, Eddington's mother died before he got a chance to say "goodbye". By the time his third son, Dominic, was born, Eddington's leg pain had worsened and he was starting to find walking difficult. It was discovered that Eddington had a form of arthritis that eventually fuses the bones together. The subsequent radiation therapy didn't prevent Eddington from working.

Eddington.

After appearing in the film Jetstream, and working in a couple of shows in London's West End, in 1962 Eddington took over the helm at the Old Vic Theatre Company in Bristol. A year later he was back in the West End and not long after saw the birth of his fourth child and first daughter, Gemma. The health problems continued and Eddington began to experience blackouts while on stage where for a moment he couldn't figure out what the next line was, or what he was even doing on stage. The situation became so unbearable for the hard working actor that at one point he almost quit acting. Eventually he made it through the run of the play he was in, albeit with a confidence level that had been shaken to the core.

Around the same time that the blackouts had started, Eddington's arthritis pain increased, and he also started noticing strange red marks in various place on his skin. It did not, however, prevent him from working and in 1968 and the age of 41 he performed in a brand new play called, coincidentally, Forty Years On, starring opposite Sir John Gielgud.

In 1975 Paul got his first chance at a TV comedy role when he was given and accepted the opportunity to star as Jerry Ledbetter in Good Neighbors. Known as The Good Life in the UK, the show starred Richard Briers, Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendall, all of whom he already knew before filming began. The four stars of the show, who were close friends off the screen as well as on, were astounded when the show ended up being an international success; airing in sixty countries.

Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington with one of Yes, Minister's biggest fans, Margaret Thatcher.

At the conclusion of the series, Eddington returned to the stage, until the writer of Good Neighbors asked if he'd look over a script for a new sitcom called Yes, Minister. When he first read the script, Eddington saw himself in the role of Humphrey, but instead he was encouraged to take the role of Jim Hacker. The show was a huge success, but Eddington's health problems increased and doctors found that he was suffering not only from the radiation treatments he'd been receiving, but also had a lingering case of TB.

Eddington refused to give into his ailments and started to venture into other fields such as voice over work, in which he was encouraged by his good friends Penelope Keith and Richard Briars. He also kept up his television and stage work, which included a three year stint in the play Noises Off. While working on Noises Off, Eddington also began work on Yes, Prime Minister; the sequel to Yes, Minister. It was while recording Yes, Prime Minister that Eddington was diagnosed as having cutaneous T cell lymphoma, a type of haematological cancer that affects the skin. Like the steadfast tin soldier, Eddington continued to perform, keeping his illness a secret from all but his friends and co-stars.

Paul with his wife Patricia at Buckingham Palace after he was invested with the CBE by the Queen.

Yes, Prime Minister ran from 1986 to 1988 and in 1987 Eddington was made a Commander of the British Empire, receiving his CBE medal directly from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. At the conclusion of the last series, Eddington went to Australia to direct and perform in a production of HMS Pinafore. When he returned to England it was business as usual for Eddington and he continued to work on stage, did some voiceover work and made a miniseries playing a one-legged child molester in The Camomile Lawn with his Good Neighbors friend, Felicity Kendal.

Richard Briers appeared with Eddington in his last stage show; a play called Home about two old men sitting around chatting. After Eddington got sick on stage, the tabloids realized something was wrong and he and his wife's home became a hotbed for inquisitive reporters.

Eddington's last television role was as Justice Shallow in the 1995 adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV. The show aired a week before Eddington's death and five days before he died, he made a moving appearance in a television documentary discussing his life, career and disease. In the show Eddington recalled that he was once asked by a journalist what he would like his epitaph to be. In response the lifelong Quaker and pacifist responded that he would like it to "He did very little harm".

Paul Eddington, CBE died on November 4, 1995.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of January 14, 2013:
Yes, Minister's Paul Eddington

Eddington (right) with Derek Fowlds in Yes, Minister.

So, how are you liking Yes, Minister, the new addition to our Afternoon Tea line-up?

Although Eddington, who plays Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister, had been a working actor all his life, it wasn't until he was in his late 40s, when he was cast in Good Neighbors (known as The Good Life in the UK) as Jerry that he became a household name.

Born in Oxfordshire on June 18, 1927, Eddington was a descendent of the founder of the Religious Society of Friends; known as the Quakers. His Irish Catholic mother was born in a workhouse that her parents ran in Leek, Staffordshire and his father was an engineering draftsman until WWI when he joined an artillery division stationed in northern France. Eddington's maternal grandmother would die in an asylum, where she was committed after passing out at a party, following one of her many drinking binges.

A very young – and very blonde – Eddington in The Avengers.

Eddington's parents met at the Savoy Hotel in London, where his mother was working and his father was staying during a trip home from France. They separated when Eddington was 15 with his mother getting custody of him and his sister, although Eddington hadn't lived at home for a while. He had been sent to the countryside to live with an aunt while he attended the Quaker boarding school as a day-boarder.

During his time at school, war broke out, food was scarce and Eddington contracted TB. To supplement the meager food rations at the school, Eddington and his classmates would forage for food in the surrounding fields. Life at the school was bleak; not only were the children undernourished, but it was extremely cold. To keep warm, the young Eddington would sneak off to the airing cupboard, where he'd read PG Wodehouse by torchlight under the blankets. The one bright spot at school was Mrs. Burgess who introduced Eddington to drama; his first play being The Wind in the Willows.

Patricia Routledge and Eddington in Noises Off at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1982.

After leaving school, Eddington went to work as a window dresser at a department store. His school stage experience though had lit a fire that couldn't be extinguished and he soon decided to trade in his job for one in the acting world. He went to The Crescent Theatre in Birmingham, knocked on the door and informed the man who answered it that he would like a job. Eddington's unorthodox job seeking method worked and he was invited in and given stage managing chores and other tasks. It was while at The Crescent that someone suggested to Eddington that he consider joining the "ENSA" – "The Entertainers National Service", an organization that provided entertainment for the British armed forces. Eddington joined ENSA as an assistant to the assistant stage manager, but once it was discovered that he was a pacifist and had registered as a Conscientious Objector, based on his Quaker faith, he was asked to leave.

Using the same direct method that he'd used at The Crescent Theatre, Eddington went to The Birmingham Repetory Theatre, knocked at the door, and asked for a job. Once again, it worked and he was offered the job as an assistant stage manager. It wasn't long though before Eddington was appearing on stage, playing "George" in Our Town. From there it was onto the rep in Sheffield, then to the rep in Worthing for a production of Macbeth, in which he played "Malcom". Appearing as a witch in that production was an attractive brunette from Devonshire. She had brown eyes, a creamy complexion and her name was Patricia "Trisha" Scott. She would become Eddington's life-long wife and mother of his four children, but not until Eddington had applied to and got accepted on a full scholarship into London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he trained alongside Joan Collins.

As Will Scarlett in the Robin Hood television series.

After leaving the school Eddington became a member of the Old Vic in Bristol, but after he and Trish married in 1952, the couple moved to Ipswich, Suffolk, where they both got acting jobs at the city's repertory theatre. Their first son "Toby" was born in 1954, while Eddington was coincidentally appearing in Life With Father. After the baby was born, the newlyweds were so short on money that they had to break up the home, with Trisha taking the baby to Devon to stay with her parents, while Eddington got acting work in more populated areas. Fortunately, the separation didn't last too long, as Eddington got an agent and started to get television work, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, where he put his repertory skills to work, appearing every week for a year and a half as a different character. Eventually he would get the role of Will Scarlett which he played for another year and a half.

In 1958, when he was just 31, Eddington's health started the decline that would continue for almost forty years, until his death in 1995. We'll talk more about that and the more positive aspects of Eddington's life next week. In the meantime, you can see Eddington as Jim Hacker every Tuesday at 1pm, in Yes, Minister on Afternoon Tea.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

Week of January 7, 2013:
Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens

Dan Stevens.

What a splendidiforous kick-off to the third season of Downton Abbey! Finally we got to see Mary & Matthew tie the knot. I think Matthew clinched the prize for my most admired Downtoner when he asked Branson, or "Tom" as he's now known among the upstairs residents, to be his best man.

Dan Stevens who plays Matthew, was adopted at birth on October 10, 1982. He grew up in Wales alongside his younger brother, who was also adopted. Although not from a family of "means" - his parents were teachers – Stevens attended the private boarding school, Tonbridge School in Kent courtesy of a scholarship. It was there that he developed his upper class accent and an interest in acting.

With Rebecca Hall in As You Like It.

After leaving Tonbridge, Stevens studied English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he also became a member of the highly regarded Footlights Revue; a group of comic writers-performers. It was when Stevens was acting for the Marlowe Dramatic Society's production of Macbeth, in which he played the title role, that he was spotted by director Sir Peter Hall. Hall's daughter Rebecca was playing opposite Stevens as Lady Macbeth and Hall invited Stevens to join his company in 2005, where he cast him as Orlando in Shakespeare's As You Like It – again playing opposite Rebecca who played Rosalind.

As Edward Ferrars in Sense & Sensibility.

Stevens put paid any ideas Hall might have had about pairing the couple up in real life, when the following year, he met and fell in love with South African jazz-vocalist, turned singing teacher, Susie Hariet, whom he met while they were both performing at different theatres in Sheffield. Regardless, Hall cast Stevens the same year, 2005, as the son of Peter Bowles and Dame Judi Dench, in Noel Coward's Hay Fever.

Steven's first major TV role also came in 2006 in a BBC mini-series, The Line of Beauty. Two years later he was attracting the eye of the ladies as the wood chopping, wet shirted Edward Ferrars in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austin's Sense & Sensibility.

With fellow Downton Abbey castmates Joanne Froggatt, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera and Hugh Bonneville.

Great works of literature and Stevens go hand in hand. Stevens writes a regular column for the Sunday Telegraph and is editor-at-large of Junket; a literary quarterly he co-founded. Last year he was chosen as one of five judges for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, the much coveted award given to the best novel written in English by a citizen of the British Commonwealth and Ireland. Stevens managed to juggle his judging duties and Downton filming by taking advantage of an e-reader, which he'd take onto the set with him and tuck into the back pocket of his vintage white tie and tails when it came time to shoot the scene.

"I'd be engrossed and they'd yell 'action' and I'd tuck the Kindle in it," Stevens recalled. "That didn't always go well with the cast. I was supposed to be engaged with a scene and I was engaged with a book instead."

With wife Susie Hariet.

The cast couldn't have been too upset with Stevens, because they recently turned out in full force to attend the 6 foot tall actor's Broadway debut in The Heiress, where he plays Morris Townsend, opposite actress Jessica Chastain. Being offered the opportunity of working on Broadway was one Stevens couldn't refuse and he promptly relocated his family – wife Susie, three year old daughter Willow and seven month old son Aubrey – to New York City.

The Heiress runs through February 10th at the Walter Kerr Theatre. If you're planning a trip to New York and get a chance to see Stevens, be sure to let me know what you think.

Downton Abbey airs on MPT Sunday nights at 9pm.

To contact Heather:
E-mail: heather@mpt.org
Address: Afternoon Tea
Maryland Public Television
11767 Owings Mills Blvd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117

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