Page 11 - David Burr Rooftops Magazine Winter 2017/2018

Returning to old haunts . . . the actress Caroline Langrishe
“We were based in Long Melford at the Bull Hotel and it was just like joining a brilliant party that went on all summer.”
“I am still in the frantic frame of mind. I am perfectly used to quick changes, tearing around back stage and coming in through different doors. With farce it is all about timing. There are no thoughts of glasses of white wine, lying around in your dressing room and reading a newspaper until the evening is over. You need to be on high alert.”
She is no stranger to East Anglia and is probably most associated with her role as the auctioneer Charlotte Cavendish in the much-loved and much-missed BBC comedy-drama Lovejoy which was shot in West Suffolk and north Essex. “It was filmed from April to September. We were based in Long Melford at the Bull Hotel and it was just like joining a brilliant party that went on all summer. It was really good fun and the area utterly beautiful.”
Flashback even further and you may just remember she also starred in an episode of arguably Anglia TV’s best- known home-produced drama Tales Of The Unexpected. She appeared in Shatterproof where a husband discovers his young wife has commissioned an assassin to kill him. Caroline laughed: “That was an incredibly long time ago. Eli Wallach, the American actor, played my husband. I just couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t really been further north than Kent at that time. I have got to know Norfolk a lot better since as I have some great friends up here but there does need to be another television series based here, sharpish.”
Words: Stephanie Mackentyre
Robert Daws and I played husband and wife in an episode of Midsummer Murders which we made at the end of last year. It is weird to be married again within about eight months!”
It’s the second time Caroline has appeared in a comedy in the region this year, as she starred in the Feydeau farce Bang Bang at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, adapted by John Cleese.
“It went down an absolute storm in Colchester. They loved it. Unfortunately John was having a hip operation in LA while we were rehearsing but we had some video link communication.”
Although an actor used to playing a multitude of roles in more serious drama from Minder, Casualty and Judge John Deed she’s particularly happy to be back in farce.
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