Star interview: Linda Robson stars in Redhill's Harlequin Theatre panto
In fact, it's almost like having an old friend in the room as the actress who played Tracey Stubbs for nine years poses with fellow actors in a photo shoot for Beauty and the Beast – this year's panto at the Redhill theatre.
Linda starred in Birds of a Feather with school pal Pauline Quirke and actress Lesley Joseph. The sitcom, centred around sisters Tracey and Sharon (played by Pauline) whose husbands were in jail, and also neighbour Dorien (played by Lesley), notched up some 105 episodes between 1989 and 1998.
So what was the secret of the show's success?
"People are always asking that," says Linda. "If you could work out the secret there would be hundreds of successful comedy series'. It was a combination of the writers and directors and the chemistry between all of us in the show."
Linda and Pauline grew up together and started out on the acting path when they joined lunchtime drama lessons at their primary school, which were run by English teacher Anna Scher.
The teacher went on to set up the famous Anna Scher Theatre school, which has seen many household names pass through it, such as Martin Kemp and Gillian Taylforth, as well as Linda and Pauline. Linda would pay 10p a lesson for the after-school classes.
Anna Scher's classes saw the start of Linda's professional career.
"A director came down from the BBC and cast a couple of kids and word got around we were real kids," says Linda. "We never stopped working throughout our childhood."
Linda was 12 when she had her first professional role in the 1970's children's film Junket 89, which Richard Wilson was also in.
In case you've ever wondered, those cine film clips of two girls played at the end of Birds of a Feather are not actually Linda and Pauline.
"It was just two little girls who they cast," says Linda, 51. But she adds: "Most of the actual stills at the beginning of the programme are me and Pauline at quite a young age."
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran were working with the pair in the series, Shine on Harvey Moon, before they wrote Birds of a Feather, specifically for them.
"They loved the way Pauline and I worked together," says Linda.
"They were in a restaurant and heard two women talking about their husbands in prison and that's where the idea came from."
It was through the show where Linda and Pauline first met Lesley and the three are still friends. Linda and Lesley recently filmed an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, to be screened around Christmas.
"It was great fun. Apparently we were hilarious – they kept saying we were like two boxers, sparring with each other."
Birds of a Feather aside, Linda has had many other roles on television and in theatre.
Like Lesley, she has been on stage in Vagina Monologues (although not with Lesley) and she has been in Grumpy Old Women. She has toured Australia in Kay Mellor's Passionate Women, been in Food Chain at the Royal Court Theatre and made her West End debut at the New Ambassadors Theatre as Joe Meek's landlady, Violet Shenton, in Telstar.
On television, Linda has even been in police soap The Bill three times.
"I played a woman on crack and held the police station hostage. That was nice to do something different."
Linda is looking forward to being in panto again.
"I am doing it with Abigail Welford [playing Beauty] who I did it with last year. We get on really well," she says.
"I didn't do it one year and I was really bored. All I did was cook and clean. It's good to get away from the house."
And she is no stranger to Redhill, having starred in the panto Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 2004.
"It's easy to commute and it has a nice shopping centre – when I was asked I said, it would be lovely."
As baddie Witch Hazel, Linda also serves as a narrator for the story.
"She does the beast a favour really. She turns him into the beast and he realises how horrible he is and she is a bit of a match-maker.
"The kids love it," she says. "It's nice to get booed and have the kids screaming at you."
Beauty and the Beast runs at The Harlequin Theatre, Redhill, from Friday, December 11 to Sunday January 3. For performance times and tickets, priced £9.50 to £16, call 01737 276500 or log on to www.harlequintheatre.co.uk.
Deborah Morris
Photos by David Berman
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