Anna-Jane Casey: From Cabaret to the U-Bend - High Kicks, Low Points & Fawlty Moments

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Screen Rats, and here we are with another episode of Television Times Podcast.

This will be the last one before Edinburgh.

I'm going to take another short, short break, just because I have to, because I have a lot of stuff to do in preparation for my show, Steve Otis Gunn is Uncomfortable, which is on every day from August 2nd to the 24th, apart from the 11th.

If you happen to be up in Edinburgh and you want to see someone struggling on stage for 50 minutes, get yourself down there.

Space UK, a surgeon's hall.

Anyway, today's guest on this podcast is an old friend of mine.

She's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant actress.

She's in all the musicals, all the musicals for years and years and years, Anna-Jane Casey.

I first met AJ in 1993, working on Grease and had a conversation, we'll talk about all of that sort of stuff anyway.

But she's brilliant, she's brilliant.

She's in Fawlty Towers at the moment playing Sybil, very convincingly on stage, which is getting rave reviews.

So get down and watch that when you can, if you're in London, even if you're not, get down there and see it anyway.

So it's on at the Apollo Theatre in London.

It's doing a nice run at the moment.

Dates, check online, cause it's malleable, right?

It's gonna keep going, it's gonna keep running that one.

It's very popular.

We talk about that on this podcast a lot as well.

So yeah, this one is, it's a great chat.

I really enjoyed talking to AJ.

We're trying to get her on for a little while.

She was high on my list and now we're getting not just comedians and actors, but also theatre actors and people from musicals and stuff.

I'm really, really chuffed to kick that little branch of guests off with AJ because she's excellent and good fun.

And I had to chop a lot of this, you know, it got a little bit savage with the politics.

So we didn't want to subject you to that.

And a couple of subjects that I didn't think was worth leaving in just in case either of us get canceled.

But it's a pretty open talk anyway.

There's some stuff in there.

So you'll enjoy that.

What to talk about.

I don't really want to do too much of a preamble this week because I really am knuckling down for this show that I'm doing.

And I mean, have I even mentioned that the Labour government won?

That's kind of amazing.

And Trump got shot.

So that's aging this podcast.

What a mad time.

What a mad time.

One of the headlines I saw the other day really, really sort of pinpointed this moment in time.

And it said one inch from civil war.

I sort of believe that.

I mean, whatever you think of Trump, if that would have happened, it would have been an absolute fucking nightmare.

So let's be all grateful that that did not occur.

But for me, I'm very happy that I've got the government we've got for now.

Come back in five years and ask me.

But right now, pretty chuffed.

I like them all.

I think they're all good people.

Pretty impressive.

So finally the UK is going in a new direction.

I'm very, very grateful for that.

So I do feel that there is good times ahead.

So I'm very positive.

And that is something I haven't felt in a very, very long time.

So anyway, we're not gonna get marred down in politics, because if we do, we'll have to change the name of this podcast to, they're all skibidi-wop-bop-bip-bop.

I don't wanna just swear in the preamble.

I swear in the podcast, but it sounds a bit harsh if I say it there.

Anyway, they're not, they're not.

They're all good people.

Anyway, let's get on.

Let's get on with the podcast.

So this is me talking to the wonderful, brilliant, talented, incredible Anna-Jane Casey.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms from my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them, and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

How are you?

I haven't seen you for 24 years.

At least 106 years, yes.

It's something like that.

Do you remember my face?

I do remember your face.

You probably don't remember mine.

Of course I do.

I've always known your face.

Oh, bless your heart.

I remember watching Graham Norton a couple of years ago and going, hang on a minute.

Who's that old boy with the mask?

No, no, I was like, that's definitely you.

Yeah, yeah.

So where to start this?

Oh my God.

1993?

Is that Greece?

That's Greece, yes.

It's Greece.

That's where I first met you on that.

I was working in a shop back then.

I did a sound course and they had placements.

And they said, do you want to work in a music studio where like you two and all them record?

And I was like, well, of course I do.

And then they said, there's another placement going on this new musical that's opening in the West End.

And I was like, oh, really?

He goes, what is it?

And I knew nothing about theater.

Although I think I might've seen you in Cats because I went to see Cats in like late 1988 or early 89, something like that.

I think you might've been in it, which is weird.

Well, 88 to 90, I was there.

Yeah, August 88.

Yeah, so you probably wouldn't.

Oh, well, I definitely saw you then.

That was the only musical I'd ever seen.

There's New London.

New London, yeah, yeah.

So that was the first thing I went to see.

I didn't know if I liked it.

I remember coming out very confused, but it was good, but I didn't have any reference, do you know what I mean?

To theater.

So then I walk in on Greece and you're already open, or pretty much, I think, and it's all like, bad-a-little-little-little-dee-dee-dee.

And I was like, the fucking vibe of it backstage, like I've never, I still remember this.

I used to cycle home to Putney through Hyde Park, and I would be happy, and I didn't know why I was happy, and I was just a sound-deb.

I wasn't even being paid much, but it was being in it and being backstage and seeing all that and running the mics around and famous people, to be honest with you, people from, you know, Debbie Gibson, for God's sake, she was a pop star, Craig McLaughlin, Shane Richie was about to be, and you know, all these people, and everyone has gone on to things as well.

And just like being amongst it, and I don't know, I've never felt an energy like it, and I got completely drawn in, that's when I got drawn into it.

It was brilliant, wasn't it?

Yeah, and those like 80s, 90s musicals were huge.

They had money, and so, you know, my husband's working at the Dominion at the moment doing Sister Act, and it's a massive barn of a shed.

It's like 2,000 people every night losing their minds.

There's joy in that, there's a fizz in the air for that.

So absolutely, it's not like that now.

Not when you're at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 200 quid a week and there's like three lesbians that are whipping in the audience.

I'm a celeb.

The 90s Greece one is them.

It might have been a few years later, but then I did some work on Chicago, and you were playing Velma in Chicago.

TV Tiny Velma, Midget Velma.

All I remember is you had a mic pack and a wig, right?

Yes, which is not good, because I'm a small person, but when they put a wig on me, I look like a giant head, I was like this.

Like, what the fuck is that?

And I'm sure in 10 years' time, we're gonna find out that people who wore mics in their heads have now got brain tumors, and you're like, oh, send me some illness, why don't you?

It's like one of those, well, there's phones in the 90s, one to, was it one to one?

There's a Motorola phone.

The first one I had, you put a credit card in it, and it was the size of a credit card because it didn't work out, you could take the SIM out of it yet, and you used to put it next to your head, and I would get headaches.

I remember getting headaches talking to my friend, and I remember thinking, I don't know if this is quite good to have the receiver, and it was like a car battery, this thing, you know?

Yes.

Oh yeah, oh my God, I just remember this.

It's completely unrelated to anything we're talking about, but there used to be these signs that said like Mercury, and it would be like a bus stop sticking out of a news agent, and if you got near that sign, it meant you could use your phone.

In years to come, like, oh, I suddenly have a tumor on my arm.

Yeah, there you go.

I feel like I'm talking about those machines you see in the Wild West a month ago.

Sending the telegrams or something.

So how are you anyway?

I read an article.

I'm breathing, which at my age is a fucking bonus, so that's fine.

Oh, you're kidding.

You're very fit, you're running around, you look very healthy.

Very healthy.

What are you looking for in the Facebook?

I'm dying, aren't we all?

Well, I read that article and I wasn't looking.

It came up, the article in the pandemic where you and your husband were doing deliveries.

I mean, you've probably talked about that to death, but how was the coming out of that back into theater?

Do you know what?

Now this is, here we go, drama, press record.

Now it's recording.

Amazing.

This sounds unbelievably dramatic and I'm gonna call it because, sod it.

You know, they talk about PTSD.

I haven't served in Iraq and I've not seen my friends blown up and I've not been ass raped by ISIS, thank you very much.

But I really do think that anyone who worked as a self-employed person, I'm not just talking theatricals because we're dramatic as we are.

Anyone who was self-employed in that pandemic who didn't get any help from the government, we are still, we're still twitching every so much.

Because I had a mate the other day, a fantastic actor called Dave Ganley, who is at the moment doing something very nice at the Donmar.

I think he's doing some check-off.

He's not doing, he's not going, oh, he's doing something with the meeting.

But we were on the train together.

He's just moved to where I am.

I mean, I'm in Kent.

Saw him at the train station.

Oh my God, you live here now.

And he said, how was your pandemic?

And I literally was like that.

And he said, no, I moved in with my brother in Wimbledon.

It was lovely.

It got me furlough.

And I went, not me.

There was no furlough for us.

We thought we'd lose our house.

We had to educate our children.

Do you know what?

They're trying to spin a positive thing on it.

My husband and I, my husband and I, we've been married now 25 years.

And we both said at the end of that, we've never been closer.

We never felt like we can do this together.

That whole thing of you, when you marry somebody, you hope to take their hand and walk the path of life.

We climbed the mountains of life in those nine months that we had to deliver.

And yeah, so if I'm gonna spin a positive on it, it made me stronger.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

It made me realize I can pretty much do anything.

Yeah.

And so, but it was hell.

It was hell on earth.

Did you both work at the same time or did you have to sort?

Oh no, what happened was, cause they just needed drivers Monday to seven days a week.

So I said, well, we've got to educate our kids as well.

Cause the schools are closed.

Yeah, of course.

That was fun.

You know, you could go to the races, couldn't you?

Don't get me started.

Did you give up on the homework quite early?

Cause I did.

No, because I'm like-

You really did.

You kept going.

I'm like shield up, head down.

Let's just dive into this grimness.

I was doing fucking word searches and just making stuff up.

No, that's why I'll die before you, Steve.

Cause my liver is now, the liver of a 90 year old for all the stress.

Oh yeah.

Well, there was a lot of drinking in the pandemic.

I don't know if you're a partaker and such things.

See, I don't drink, but maybe I should.

It is what it is.

Well, it's interesting you say that, cause I do think that me and my wife, obviously, you know, we have altercations now and again, we don't get on exactly perfectly all the time, but having survived that, you kind of think, well, I mean, we're in it for the long haul now.

If you've got through that, I'm sure lots of people didn't make it.

I mean, I feel really bad for like new relationships that would have been thrown together in that.

But I know people in long-term relationships who didn't make it after that, they drove each other insane.

Whereas Graham and I were like, I'll just hold on to you, you're the only one I've got.

I think becoming, like doing that thing that you did, like you split the jobs, I think that was really crucial because that's kind of what we did.

It wasn't great in the way that we'd be, I'd be doing something, she'd be doing something, you take a break, I'll take a break.

We sort of juggled everything and you sort of forget to look at each other for six months, but that can happen.

Hold on to each other at night, like cry until it's back.

Your phone.

Watch a TV show at like 10 o'clock at night going, oh my God, we're so tired though.

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty pants.

It was pants.

And I do think there's a sprinkling of PTSD for anybody who is self-employed.

I remember listening to a radio program and there was this guy, oh my God, and it broke my heart.

Fully grown man, a plumber.

And he was like, all my work's dried up.

I can't go into anybody's houses.

I'm not getting any help.

And he was, I'm gonna lose my house.

And I thought, oh my God.

And you're all pouring fricking champagne in the houses of parliament.

I'm not even, I'm not even, yeah.

I wouldn't say I had OCDs, my wife would disagree.

But I had certain little things that happened after that.

Like I was not scared of the germs.

It was like Robocop.

Someone would come in my house, they'd touch a door and I'd go touch something else.

And I would fucking scan it and think it'd go right.

Clean that, clean that, clean that.

That banister, they'd touch the keys, everything.

I was wiping the food.

I was that guy, I was lunatic.

And I just was really worried that I was gonna put some of that on my kids.

Cause now that, you know, they touch the, what do we call a crosswalk, Pelican crossing.

They touch it with their finger or they knuckle them.

Like, oh, I think that's me.

There are little things that I think I've passed on.

I'm trying to get them to maybe eat a bit more mud and do that kind of thing.

I was gonna say, I'm the opposite.

I was like, I can say this now cause it's gone and they can't come and get me or whatever.

But my house was open house.

Those teenagers who I just thought the poor things are living online.

They're all self-harming.

They're all gonna hurt themselves.

I was like, we've got a lovely house, a nice big tall house with a basement.

I was like, get all the kids in the basement.

As long as you're not sick, as long as nobody's coughing and is ill, you are very welcome to come and hang at my house.

I just thought that human connection that, like we say in theater, 2,000 people in a room laughing and having a great time.

That's what I worry for our young folk.

They've missed out on a good block of that.

And that's human connection.

There's nothing like it.

You know, a lot of people, oh, I like to be on my own.

I love being on my own, but at the same time, there's confidence and there's warmth and there's togetherness in groups.

So I was like, let them all in.

I wish I was like you.

I wish I was like that.

Teenagers all jizzing on each other.

No, they weren't doing that.

They were like, come on, have a drink, drinking out of everyone's bottles and touch wood.

Thank Christ.

Touch wood, nobody got ill.

Praise the Lord and thank you.

That's great.

There was a lady on the tube the other day, in fact, and she had a mask on and rubber gloves.

So I thought, a couple of years ago, I had gone, what a wally.

And I was like, do you know what?

If that makes you feel better, my friend, treat yourself.

Because I know some people really were terrified and I can understand it.

You got to do the saturation thing.

What I did, again, I can admit on here now, because I have, I think it was, I used the, I'm mostly blind in one eye.

So I used that to get one of those lanyards, you know, the, you can't see the disability thing.

I can say that on here.

I don't care, it's true, I am, so it's fine, right?

And I used it in a way that would, so basically I went to London and I wore it and I didn't wear a mask.

I think it was summer 2021.

I just went, I'm going to London, I'm going to see some friends.

I think it was an open time, but you still had to do certain things.

But I thought, you know what?

I'm going to go on the tube.

I'm going to go on the tube.

I'm not going to wear the mask.

I'm going to put the lanyard on.

I'm just going to get on with it.

So I did do that.

I wasn't sick.

I tested and all of that sort of stuff, but I wanted to take the fear away from me.

And that was the only way I kind of started then getting back to normal because going in a hotel room, oh my God.

You know, that was like, who's been in there?

I know.

But I still don't like it when people walk, like if I see someone walking down the street and they just go, like that, I just go, have you learned nothing?

I know, well, absolutely.

And as much as I am, spitting in my mouth, I mean, I take chewing gum out of people's mouths.

I am that kid.

Have you finished with that?

I love it.

But yeah, that's just being courteous to others though.

You wouldn't go all over.

You wouldn't lift your ass cheek and fart on a stranger, would you?

People do, they do.

Are you a vaper, are you not a vaper?

No.

No, those vape clouds, the ones that vape and then just blow it into my face.

I just think, am I allowed to kill you?

Oh, I said to my husband the other day, man up, smoke a fag, you pussy.

Get on with it, if you can do it, do it.

I don't know if pussy's coming back, but I'm starting to feel, that's kind of all the vibes that I'm getting, like, I keep hearing people saying, oh, you're a vegetarian, you don't eat the, you got the oat milk, and I'm like, oh, I'm a vegetarian, I drink oat milk.

Am I a pussy?

I think-

Let's bring pussy back.

I'm not a pussy, I'm gonna have it on T-shirts.

You can take from that what you will.

Are you a lesbian?

Male lesbian, that's the Eddie Izzard thing.

Well, the other night, to get into the old Eddie Izzard, Eddie came to see our Fawlty Towers opening night.

I'm an amazing Eddie.

I love Eddie Izzard.

Everything they do.

But they decided to give notes to one of our cast members.

So now I'm over it.

Oh shit.

I'm like-

Really?

Yeah, like you were great, maybe you could.

And I thought, oh, hang on pal, hang on.

This is not the time and the place.

This should just be well done or say nothing.

Yeah, they gave one of our leading actors quite a few notes about their performance.

And I was like, Susie, Eddie, whatever.

No babes, I wouldn't note you.

I'd celebrate, be kind and be kind, be kind, be kind, as they say.

And so I don't know, but everyone's got an opinion.

We've all got an opinion.

We've got a chat about Fawlty Towers first.

So obviously you are playing Sybil in Fawlty Towers in the West End.

Indeed.

So I guess my big question is, were you a fan of the TV show growing up?

Well, I was only a little human.

I mean, I'm a 1972 baby.

So, and these came out in 75 and 78, I think, were the first and second series.

So I don't remember it the first time around.

My earliest memory is sitting in a pram, I must have been about 18 months with jingly bells over me.

But I don't remember sitting and watching that as a child.

But I do remember it.

I must have been 10 or 11.

They probably did reruns.

So we're talking early 80s.

They started to show them again.

And I do remember it.

And it was, yeah, I absolutely remember it.

I remember how funny it was.

I remember it being, Basil being bonkers.

Sybil just had lovely hair.

It was all about the hair.

So yes, I do remember it, but not in its original incantation.

So yeah, a lot of that comedy would have gone over your head because I'm trying to sort of introduce my son to stuff like that.

And we have watched, he likes to watch the 10 funniest bits of Fawlty Towers.

He's 10 now.

And he's watching that.

I'm like, you really want to watch like a 50 year old TV show?

Because yeah, show me.

And he loves that bit.

And I let him watch it.

He gives a fuck, I don't care.

That bit where Basil puts his hand around to do the light switch and touches the Australian woman's tits.

It's so funny.

I mean, it's probably not okay now, but I still think it's hilarious.

Or when the woman opens, he opens the blind and she's asking for a better view.

And he's like, what do you expect to see?

Not on the Serengeti or anything.

Yeah, I went to Reduction, Bob, because Krakatoa's a lot exploding.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's very, very funny humor.

I mean, all that typhoon, Cleese is brilliant.

Whatever you think of Cleese.

And I have a lot of opinion on Cleese because I'm a raging feminist.

And you met him recently.

Is a picture of you with him?

Just the other day?

Yeah.

Is that the first time you met him or?

Yes, it was because I didn't meet him through Spamalot.

I've done Idle Palin, not done them.

An Idle Palin, and then Terry Gilliam the other week, because he tamed our press night.

And he was just gorgeous.

I just wanted to hold him.

He was really giggly.

I was like, Oh my God, Terry Gilliam.

And then Cleese, and he worked with us for the last 10 days of rehearsals.

And whatever you think of him, he's famously, I wouldn't say he's outwardly misogynist.

He doesn't go out to hate women.

But the women his life has been involved with have led him down a path of all women want to take my money and I hate them all.

The first day we met him, and he would fully say this, I think he says it in his stage shows.

He says, first day we met him, he said, Oh, it's so lovely to meet you all.

He said, I'll probably put my foot in it at some point.

I apologize now.

He said, I once opened one of my shows over in LA, the way he was doing his show.

He walked on stage and he said, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I'm a little bit down tonight because one of my wives has passed away and the audience went, Oh, and he said, it's all right, it was the wrong one.

Now, I was like, because I laughed, because it's funny.

Oh no, we're talking about dead women.

I'm not sure.

But then again, I'd probably say that if I'd been married five times and one of them was an asshole and it wasn't the one, I would probably say the same because funny is funny.

It's a joke, he's making a joke.

Yeah, it's a joke.

I don't, yes, he didn't murder her and I don't.

It's not Robert Wagner on the boat, whatever.

Didn't happen, maybe it did.

Yeah, it wasn't that, it didn't, yeah.

But he's controversial, but he's a brilliant, do you know what?

He says about himself, I'm a writer who just happens to act and that is a lovely thing because his writing is phenomenal.

He knows comedy, he knows funny words.

What do they talk about?

K's are funny, anything with a K in it, a word that ends in K or starts with K.

So he knows where the laughs should lie.

He had a brilliant note for our wonderful Basil, Adam Jackson Smith, who is phenomenal, who makes me look better than I actually am.

Thank you, Adam.

He had a note for Adam.

There's a bit where the Major and Basil, the moose head, you know, the famous moose head that keeps cool.

Yeah, of course.

It's a bit where the Major's going, how does it speak?

Because there's a bit with, Manuel is underneath the counter, the reception looks like the moose head is talking, the Major starts talking to the moose.

He says to Basil, how does it speak?

And at this point, Basil is holding the moose.

So on stage, you've got Paul Nicholas and Adam Jackson-Smith with a moose.

And they would go, first of all, Adam would go, Paul Nicholas says, and how does it speak?

And he'd go, with difficulty.

Now that's funny, but if you, Cleese said, wait, he says the line, how does it speak?

He said, I want you to look, hold it for five.

One, two, three, four.

On five, you both look at the moose and then you go with great difficulty.

The difference in the laugh from the night before to that was outrageous because he knows how to land his own shizzle.

And that is the art of a great writer, the great comedy writer.

Just holding it for five, both look down, both look up.

It's immediately funnier than just saying it.

And it's those little sprinkles of joy that he's given us, which I have full respect for the man, even though he's 84 and been married 19 times.

And yeah, whatever, you do you, John, you do you.

Yeah, he's a good man.

Let's see, if we're going down politics for a minute, I call myself a right-wing liberal.

I would, oh, here we go, right.

That's like me being a sort of non-dairy pescatarian.

These weird things that we all are.

Bops ticking.

This will be the point where AJ gets canceled.

I'm gonna say it.

That I believe everybody should be allowed to go wherever you want.

If you wanna work somewhere, if you are Greek and you wanna go and work in Turkmenistan, or if you're British and you wanna go and work in Saudi, you should absolutely be allowed in.

As long as you got a passport and a will to work and you're gonna obey the rules of the country, that's fine and dandy.

But the minute you fuck up and the minute you take the system for a piss take, bring back hanging.

Bring back hanging.

You steal, remove limbs, and if you murder people, bring back hanging.

What you're saying there is like, if somebody comes to somewhere else, comes here, does something wrong, you shouldn't house them in a prison on the taxpayers' money.

No, you should try and, yeah.

You should try and rehabilitate them, definitely.

I don't think the prison system screwed.

Like, well, everything.

They've just sucked the money from everything.

I don't believe in death penalty.

So, no, it's the thing, it's the daring thing.

It's the stories we tell ourselves.

I don't believe I believe in the death penalty, but when I, there was something that happened in London that was very dark involving someone going out with a knife and killing some people on a fucking platform, just waiting for their tube.

And they had the guy and they saw the guy.

And I remember screaming at the screen at home, just going, I hope they fucking kill him.

I hope they shoot him dead in the face right there, right then, if not, take him out.

Cause everyone has that, right?

If someone hurt my kids or anyone that goes and does anything like that deliberate, I think, I do think, yeah, fuck it.

If you're a hundred percent sure and you've seen them do it right there, bang, bang, fucking double tap, why not?

But you know, I don't believe in it as a concept generally.

No, I probably, yeah, I'd like to kind of rescind what I've just said.

I do believe though, if you've, I mean, we know we're parents.

If you educate a child between nought and five, is it nought and five they say, or nought and seven?

If you've given them the ground rules of being a good human being, you know, treat us as you wish to be treated, don't go and kick an animal, don't point at somebody because they've got a black face or they've got no arms.

We shouldn't have to then have a death penalty because everybody should know what the basic rules of being a human being are.

Of course there are anomalies and there are people who have got chemical imbalance and they just want to kill.

And those are the people I think should be killed.

They're the death penalty people.

Right, before you're canceled and I'm arrested, let's swerve into TV for the last 15.

I know, like, awkard.

Well, 13's my lucky number.

I'm not lucky, I am now.

13, late night TV show you were allowed to stay up for.

Then it was V.

Yeah, I remember V.

Still one of the greatest shows ever.

People come from another planet and they're aliens and they eat hamsters.

That was proper, like, you went to school the next day and I would probably be in about 13, 12, 13, 14, that kind of neck of the woods when that came out.

But one, it was terrifying, like, oh my God, and it's remarkable.

It was great.

And when that woman, really bad seat, don't even think it was CGI, they put like a rubber tour on her.

She was called Diana.

Diana, Diana and eating that rat.

Eating that rat.

1983, so I would have been 11.

Yeah, I'm 11 and I was allowed to stay up for that because that was probably an eight or nine o'clock, I won it.

Oh, so you're too young for Vy.

I mean, I would have been 13.

So I don't know, I must have seen it at the time.

Yeah, it was one that you talked about with your friends, wasn't it, the next day?

Freddy Krueger was in it, he was a good guy.

He was a good lizard.

Yeah, I remember.

Good lizard.

I'd watch Vy now and I'd probably still be going, ooh, behind a cushion.

Yeah, it's creepy.

Do you ever see the remake with all the pretty people in the 2000s?

Yeah, they remade it, not that I'd say within a decade ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

With the good-looking woman from Holland.

She was in it.

The original.

No, you wanted people who were kind of slightly odd and weird, which the cast were, weren't they?

They were like, they had this kind of like, they were a bit arrogant.

You were like, oh, hang on, they're a bit weird.

It was such a 80s, well, probably 70s, 80s kind of view of like space as well.

Like all the stuff in it was like Battlestar Galactica with sort of triangle clothes and all of that.

It just looks really dated now.

All those fabrics, they'd never have washed them armpits.

They were like, you have to beat the armpits, like Victoria Wood said, beat them to with a hockey stick to smudge them.

So manmade fibers, there was no natural fibers in any of them outfits.

Okay, a side swipe.

What's your favorite jingle?

Have you got one?

You're a musical person.

You must have a favorite jingle.

What, like for an advert?

Yeah, well, I guess so.

Like it could be from now, could be from then.

One that always stays with me and I don't know why.

And we have, my husband's 55, so he's a little bit older, but oh, there's raisins and there's raisins and the raisins that's been raised in California.

It was for California raisins, so sun-made raisins.

It's the raisin that's been raised in California.

Yeah, it was for sun-made little boxes of raisins.

I remember that one, I like that one.

Or Washing Machines Live Longer With Calgon.

Washing Machines Live Longer With Calgon, yeah.

Yeah, that's a good one.

My favorite is um, down on, because it's just so small.

But no, it's the Birds Eye Potato Waffles, the guys in the back of the van, Birds Eye Potato Waffles, Waffly Versatile.

I love that one.

Or Um Bongo, another one, classic.

Um Bongo, a banger of a tune.

Somebody needs to put a drum and bass beat behind that and we could have a new husband.

My children, my biggest, who's now 17, there was a long time where, when they were first learning to talk and it was, you can do it.

You can do it if you be in Cue It, always.

Still, you know, just like, because you tell these in the room, isn't it?

It's the third person in the room just feeding your children some shizzle.

Yeah, that's why I mute the adverts, especially on channel five when they have the Scientology ABC mouse.

Nope, mute.

No, thanks.

Okay, let's do one more.

Okay, so, Gunn to your head, what reality TV show could you go on?

Obviously not Strictly, because you would win it, clearly.

The only reality shows we watch in this house are I'm a Celebrity, although I haven't watched it the last couple of years because of the aggressive ad-hoc.

I can imagine why.

Yeah, so I'm a Celebrity, but I don't think I'd want to do that, and Strictly.

Do you know what I would like to do?

Because I like to challenge myself foolishly, I mean, it'll put me in an early grave.

I want to do like, glad yeers, or SAS, are you tough enough?

Yeah, do that, Ness.

Ah, the SAS one.

You have to bring Aunt Middleton back so you can swear in your face.

She's a sexist.

That really little fella.

I do sort of miss him.

They fired him for saying something wrong.

I mean, of course he's going to do it.

But like, I just like the way he used to go up to people and go, you fucking can't do it, you can't.

Spitting in their face, and they go, calm down a bit.

Shouting at like Melinda Messengers to get in the water or something, you know?

It's just a bit much.

But I did enjoy it.

Some girls are allowed.

Girls allowed number three.

Get in the fucking water.

Yeah, so I think SAS, are you tough enough?

Just because I call myself, I'm a terrier.

I'm a little angry terrier.

And all the raging and the flowing of my hormones at the moment, I reckon I could carry a 17 stone man on my back up a mountain.

I reckon I could fucking have a go at it.

Yeah.

Please God, don't let them ring me because I will go, no, please don't make me.

But yeah, in my mind, I'd like to think at eight stone went through and five foot three, I could smash that mother.

So endurance, you have the endurance thing to be able to do.

Obviously you do fucking eight shows.

How many shows are you doing a week?

Eight?

Eight, yeah, always eight.

So Mondays off?

Yeah, we get Mondays off on Fawlty Towers.

It's brilliant.

But they smash it in Tuesdays to Saturday.

We're like, gang, and then we get Sunday, Monday off.

But every other show in the West End, eight shows a week, people.

What's the funniest thing you ever saw on TV?

It's Dean Gaffney on I'm a Celebrity.

When they dropped him in, so they dropped him in, didn't they?

He was one of those, they'd done the show for like a week and a half.

They'd had people on Rice and Beans and somebody else.

Then they would always bring in two more people, don't they?

And they brought Dean Gaffney in, but they'd literally, he'd just got off the plane.

He hadn't been to the Versace Hotel.

I don't even think he'd had that nice night in where they give you a rub down and a foie gras before you go in.

It got off the plane, and they'd driven him in a truck to wherever the site of the jungle is.

And he walked in, all right, mate.

And he was so positive.

And then they put him through like one of those splodgy trials where they throw like turds on you and then cockroaches and then, and he was, he was terrified through the whole thing.

Ant and Dec were crying with laughter because he gave the best TV ever.

And he kept trying to win because he knew he had to, because he's a good man and he just wanted to win.

And at the very end of it, when he's literally covered in shite with cockroaches there and a snake up his ass, as they go, well, you can go back to the camp now and go and join your teammates.

And he went like this, thanks very much.

And then he went off.

Thanks very much.

I still think it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my whole life.

And there are times when I go, let's just pull that up on YouTube.

Dean Gaffney's first entrance into the jungle.

He has no idea where he is.

It's just beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing.

I'm gonna watch it after this.

That's amazing.

Yeah, when he goes, thanks very much, as he goes off into the jungle.

They hose him down.

I would hate that.

And they always go on those things and tell them their fears, don't they?

Got any fears?

Yeah, I'm really scared of heights and I really hate spiders.

Guess what?

Guess what?

A lift full of spiders.

A platform that thin over a cheddar gorge with spiders.

Well done.

I have a problem with ITV.

I've talked about this before.

ITV just seems really fucking naff to me.

And all those ads and sponsorships and-

Is this part of your childhood though?

Cause we never used to watch ITV as a kid.

Yeah, I think it was crap.

It was, you know, I never really watched Coronation Street.

I mean, you've been in that.

You must've been in it.

And I'm from Salford and I never watched it yet.

I mean, you would've watched like, what's those shows with like, this is your life.

And it's the grandma TV shows.

It's not channel full.

We watched The Price is Right.

I remember The Price is Right and-

Leslie Crowther.

Yeah, the little Leslie Crowther.

Did he have one of those Terry Wogan microphones as well?

Really thin one.

He might have done, but I'm just, all I see is blankety blank when I see that.

So I do remember that, but we were never an ITV household.

So you're right.

And yeah, it pisses me off out of those adverts all the time.

And I know why they have to do it.

They have to get their revenue somewhere, don't they?

But yeah, we're not an ITV house.

So I'm with you.

But yeah, Dean Gaffney, I'm a Celeb genius.

And it's only because Ant and Decca are hilarious.

I love those two.

I think they're brilliant.

Peep, peep.

So what is a show that you would erase from history?

Men in Black, Button, Gone, No One Can Remember It.

And what is one you would bring back from the dead?

Well, Mrs.

Brown's Boys can do one.

Bye bye.

Saying that, this is my, my sister laughs at me.

My very famous sister, Natalie Casey, was on Hollyoaks and Two Pants of Lager.

I said to her, this is a good few years ago, I said, do you know I really can't stand Rachel Weiss, the actress, can't stand her.

She drives me mad.

She went, you ever seen her in any of her films?

I said, no.

Well, then I saw Rachel Weiss in like three films and she's amazing.

Yeah, she's great.

She's brilliant.

So Mrs.

Brown's Boys, I would like to explode, but I've never seen it.

So what does that say about me?

I just think it's gross.

I think it's gross to Irish people.

It's gross to people who want to, trans people, or even people who just want to put a dress on on a weekend.

I just think it offends so much.

I don't know.

Maybe I'll watch it and think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life, but maybe not.

Because Brendan is Irish, so, and he...

I know.

I mean, isn't it just the Les Dawson thing, the seventies thing of putting on, like pretending to be a woman, the two handbags and the...

I don't know, I've never seen it.

Once again, Rachel Weiss.

I have seen it.

I think it's fair to say it's shit, but...

It's won like batons and stuff, hasn't it?

It's been like best...

I don't get it, I don't get it.

It does the thing that Sean Hughes' show did in the nineties.

It also takes what Miranda was doing, but it's just not...

Oh, that's another one I don't like.

I don't even mind Miranda, because it was a wink, wink, but maybe you don't like the breaking of the fourth wall, maybe that's the thing.

Maybe, yeah.

But then again, I loved Fleabag, so that's all fourth wall, isn't it?

True, the sides and that, yeah.

All straight to the camera.

Yeah, I don't know, Mrs.

Brown's boys can jog on and as Miranda can as well.

One I'd like to bring back, now this is a show that is not on the terrestrial TV channels that we know, and it's a show called Gravity Falls.

Oh, what's this?

Oh my God, it's on, can you find it on Disney?

Gravity Falls, I'll do a little search while we're talking.

It's absolutely amazing.

It's an animated show, because obviously now I have children, I watch a lot of animated mess.

Yeah.

And it is fricking brilliant.

It's about this couple of twins called Dipper and Mabel, and they're like 11 years old, and they've gone to stay with their uncle Stan.

Stanford Pines, they've gone to stay in Gravity Falls, which is like East Bumfuck, Nebraska.

It's somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

They're like California kids, and they go and stay for the summer season with their uncle.

It's one of the most brilliant, witty, mad, wacky, hilarious, great for kids and great for adults.

And yeah, Gravity Falls, and it only did, I think it only did two or three seasons, and we watch it on constantly on repeat.

We're always like, go back and start it again, go back and start it again.

And Kristen Schaal is one of the voices.

Yeah, I love her.

And she plays Mabel, she voices Mabel, who's the girl twin of these twins.

It's joy, it's 30 minutes of clever stuff that, like I say, very much like, you know, in the vein of The Simpsons or stuff, or Adventure Time.

Something that you can watch that's animated as an adult, that you get more out of than your kids do.

And as they get older, they start to go, oh, I get what that is now.

The wit in it is genius.

They need to make more.

And they were going to, and it's bonkers.

It's meant to be, it's a bit like Bermuda Triangle.

The town has got weird stuff that happens.

There's like gnomes, for a start.

The gnomes, they live in the woods.

They're like little garden gnomes, and they live in the woods, and they've got pointy teeth, and they will come at you.

And then there's a guy called Bill Cipher.

It's a bit like the Illuminati.

There's this symbol that keeps coming on.

It's like a sinkhole or a black hole in the middle of nowhere in America.

It's brilliant.

If you can get hold of it, you'll love it, I think.

It's right up your stride.

What's an invention from TV that you would bring to life?

Oh, an invention from TV I would bring to life.

Oh my God, do finish first.

It's the invitation, what's it called?

I've got to sing the theme tune now.

This is Menopause for you.

Good luck.

Phineas and Ferb, thank you.

Have you ever watched Phineas and Ferb?

I haven't, but I know what it is.

Phineas and Ferb, they do some great things, and there's a great character on there called Dufres Schmatz, and he's an inventor, and he creates amazing things.

And it's always like the, like the cake of it, and it just shoots things, everything turns into cake.

So any machine that can make anything turn into a sugared sweet or a sweet delicious thing.

So if I had this book, why I'm no longer talking about race, and it's something like that, it was a massive cookie, that's what I'd like.

So any machine that will change any object into something sweet and tasty, because I'm obsessed with sugar.

I love sugar.

I do a lot of historical podcasts up here in the theatre, so I often record in dressing room one.

It's fucking disgusting.

I mean, if that room was in my house, I'd have it demolished, do you know what I mean?

Absolutely rank.

People have such a funny idea of backstage.

They really do.

There's rats pooing everywhere, there's mouse cack in your dinner.

It's brilliant, yeah.

Unless you get like a really famous person.

Oh, great, great callback, Steve.

I think, were you there when Sasha Distell was there, or had you left by then?

Yeah, Grey did it with Sasha.

Yes, so I must have known him.

So when Sasha came, I remember they did this, Les Dennis was there, wasn't he?

Clark Peters.

I can't remember what order it was.

I was there a lot for about a year and a bit.

And man, did they jazz that room up for Sasha Distell.

He didn't ask for it, I don't think, but they made it like, it looked like something out of The Big Breakfast.

Now there's a new sofa, you know, not that shitty one that like 19 actresses about bled on.

Oh, just like Rudy Henshaw's period.

Treat yourself.

I got in real trouble with him because I got on really well with him and he would, I'd stand backstage on this little sort of platform, but yeah, the rack.

And Sasha would come out and we used to have these conversations about music, because I'd talk to anyone about music.

And he told me that he used to play drums in Frank Sinatra's band.

And I was like, what?

And we had these big chats about music.

And he go, I think I was just kind of tapping on something.

Oh, you were, Steve, are you a drummer?

I said, no, no, I'm playing guitar and piano, but no, not really.

And he goes, oh, I wrote a song and I used to drum a little bit.

And then Frank Sinatra sang one of my songs.

And I was like, what are you even saying to me?

This is insane.

And then he just looked at me and he ran on stage and he said the word something, there was a line in the show, something about someone pick that girl up around that bit.

Oh yes, yeah, yeah.

But it hadn't happened yet.

So the stage manager came to me and went, Steve, you've got to stop talking to Sasha.

Cause I was distracting him.

You can't do it once.

He was lovely, he was lovely, lovely man.

Bless him.

There was another one though, one of those, you know, he would have been on telly, right, with like Morkman Wise or something when I was a kid.

It was so much fun.

Remember when it was the, when they did the big Chicago do, and it was like it was celebrated however many years in the West End.

And they got kept, for every number and every song was a different, oh wow.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I got to sing, whatever happened.

Now what's that tune that you sing with class?

Class.

I got to sing class with Kelly Osborne.

That was an experience.

What a, I'll qualify it by saying, what a lovely girl.

A really genuinely lovely human being.

But, because we've talked about parents and how you parent your children, because that girl has never had to, her mother's never made her a pat lunch.

She's never had to get herself up and get to a school lesson.

So she would have some, we'd do a bit of a rehearsal and they'd go, all right, we'll have a bit of a break.

And somebody would come over to her or her assistant and say, Kelly, what we're gonna do now?

Here's your sandwich and here's your drink.

So you have that now.

And then she'd stop and she'd go, what do we do now?

She was literally led from pillar to post.

She was a fully grown woman and I just thought, man, you've got no autonomy over your life.

You've never had your marigolds on.

You've never cleaned a U-bend.

If you've not cleaned your own U-bend, you've lost concept of life.

And Kelly Osborne couldn't even eat by herself.

Somebody was literally feeding her and she was a grown woman.

I thought, bless her heart.

Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, AJ.

It's been lovely to talk to you after 24 years.

Been a good laugh and it's been a really nice chat.

So thank you for coming on.

Brilliant.

Bye-bye.

That was me talking to the wonderful Anna-Jane Casey there, playing Sybil currently in Fawlty Towers-The Play at the Apollo Theatre in London.

Get yourself down there and watch that performance.

I need to go and see it myself as well.

I just have to get down there.

I can't wait.

It's gonna be fantastic.

And check out all her stuff online.

She's an amazing actress and she's been in everything.

Now to today's outro track.

Now today's outro track is a song called Last Man Standing.

It's written by myself and Aoife Nally.

Aoife Nally worked with AJ on a musical called Bells Are Ringing over a decade ago.

And I thought that was a nice little sort of segue into the song at the end here because she worked with her, she worked with me, I worked with both of them.

You know, it's nice.

So this is from the album 1117, which we wrote in 2009-10.

And yeah, this song is called Last Man Standing.

I wrote all the music, Aoife wrote all the lyrics and I like it because it also has a sort of, there's elements of Chicago in there.

I can sort of hear it now.

Listen back, it's quite theatrical.

So as it would be, wouldn't it?

It would be.

Anyway, so here's the track.

I hope you like it.

That was Last Man Standing by 1117, written by My Good Self and Ethan Nelly.

I hope you enjoyed my chat with AJ and I will be back at some point during August, live from the Fringe, so you can look forward to that.

Okay, thank you for listening and see you next time.

Bye for now.