This Much Is True

I took the train up to Birmingham for the audition and arrived at Pebble Mill Studios. A woman in reception with a clipboard greeted me. She said, ‘Right, then. So you’re the three o’clock, are you? That’s Miriam Mar. oh, that’s new.’ (Like many others, she had difficulty with my last name.) ‘Well, just take your script, love, and go in the waiting room and I’ll call you when we’re ready. All right?’ I did as she asked.

I was just about to sit down when I felt that ominous trickle. Fifty per cent of my readers will know what I’m talking about, and the other fifty per cent won’t have a clue — my period had started. I found the ladies’ room. In those days, and I’m talking about fifty years ago, there used to be a big brown box fastened to the wall called Southall’s Sanitary Towels. It was a vending machine and you put your money in the slot, usually a two-pence piece, and pulled open the drawer to retrieve the little carton containing the sanitary towel. I had my money ready, so I put it in the slot and pulled open the drawer — and it snapped back with my finger in it. I could not get it out! I was pulling and pulling and I was in agony. Finally, the drawer snapped open again and I was able to extract my finger, bleeding, lacerated and extremely painful. I ran it under the cold tap, I got the sanitary towel, fixed myself up, and finally I went back to the waiting room.

After a few minutes the lady with the clipboard came out and said, ‘Right, that’s Miriam Mar. oh, dear… Miriam… Oh! I can’t deal with that. Miriam, they’re ready for you now. It’s in there.’ I took my script and I went into the room where they were waiting to audition me.

At an audition there’s usually about four or five people sitting stony-faced behind a desk. I stood in front of them and I was just about to begin the reading when I saw that the script pages were covered in blood. They were sopping, just seeping with it. I looked up at the people sitting at the desk. Their mouths were hanging open and they looked a bit green. I said, ‘Oh I’m terribly sorry, you see, my period started.’

Well, that was altogether too much information. Now they looked as if they might throw up. I hastened to explain: ‘No, no, it’s not… umm… IT’S MY FINGER!’ and I quickly gathered my wits, launched into the audition piece — and, period or no period, I got the part.

The role was for a rather unpleasant woman, who wore a head-scarf and was perpetually grumpy. The actress playing her daughter was Jackie Holborough. Some years later, Jackie went to prison for being involved in a conspiracy to kidnap a tobacco king in South Africa. She also founded the feminist theatre group Clean Break. I liked Jackie, we palled up in Crossroads. If she reads this, I hope she gets in touch. I remember having a bit of a tussle with Noele Gordon, the star of Crossroads. There was a green room where we rested between takes. I sat in an armchair, Noele came in. ‘That’s MY chair,’ she barked. ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t see your name on it.’ We reckoned she only had the job because she was sleeping with the boss of the channel.

Two Spikes Would Be an Extravagance!

Some are born comic, some achieve comedy, while some have comedy thrust upon them. I am definitely in the third camp. There’s something about my face and my body which makes people laugh. I’ve always known that. It’s professionally useful, socially perhaps a bit limiting, but I’m asked to dinner parties because of it and I’m not going to moan about looking different. We all have to deal with the cards we’ve been dealt and make the best of it. And truly, I think I have. And I cannot deny that I have always enjoyed a good bit of slapstick and physical comedy — my farts are legendary amongst my friends.

My loudest and most public fart was probably with Graham Norton when we went to see Dolly Parton. Joe Mantello, who’d directed me in Wicked and Dolly in her musical 9 to 5, had arranged tickets. Graham loves Dolly (who doesn’t?) so I asked him along. The show was magical and Joe set up a meet-and-greet moment afterwards. I hadn’t realised that we would be two in a queue of about 150 people waiting to see Dolly, shake her hand, have a photo and leave.

We started queuing quite merrily in the cavernous tunnel under Wembley Stadium, on the way to Dolly’s dressing room. After forty-five minutes, it became slightly wearisome. And I could feel a fart gathering as the moments passed. I held it in for a long time. But there came that moment when I knew I’d reached the end of The Holding.

My fart, having gathered momentum during the wait, finally burst forth like a bullet from Big Bertha, the wartime gun. I promise you it came unaccompanied, but it was fierce because it had been constrained for too long. It exploded gloriously with such a gigantic boom, I fear the security guards thought it might have been a terrorist attack.