Few résumés encompass everything from The Benny Hill Show to Grantchester. Even fewer actresses have the range and longevity of Paula Wilcox, who has appeared in more than 60 shows
Paula Wilcox set hearts racing as flirtatious Chrissy Plummer, alongside Sally Thomsett as Jo and Richard O’Sullivan as Robin Tripp, in the 1970s sitcom Man About the House, which shot her to fame.
And, now 76, Paula, who joined the National Youth Theatre, aged 17, will be back on screen on June 5 in a four part psychological drama, The Fortune, on Channel 5. But, despite it ending 50 years ago, after three years and six series, she still gets recognised from Man About the House – a risque comedy about a man sharing a flat with two attractive women.
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She says: “Now, all these years later, I’d love to do a proper sitcom again.” At the time, however, she found the fanmania difficult to cope with.
Just 23 when she was cast as Chrissy, she says: “I’ve never been very good at handling all that stuff. Richard was wonderful at it. He could be so nice to people. He’d been a child star and so he’d learned how to be very polite to fans. I just never did. You don’t know what to do, you’re scared and then you say, ‘just leave me alone!’ It doesn’t endear you to people. You’d find yourself being a bit rude, rather than just being nice and natural.”
Professionally, Paula got sick of talking about Man About the House. She says: “There was I, playing Juliet or in a Stoppard play. You take yourself a bit seriously and all people wanted to talk about was Man About the House. I was in my 30s and getting on with stuff and I used to get really annoyed and change the subject.”
Paula is now the only member of the cast still working. Richard O’Sullivan, 81, who played Robin, has lived in a retirement home for entertainers since suffering a stroke in 2003 and Sally Thomsett, 70, who played Jo, has retired. Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce, who played neighbours George and Mildred Roper, are now dead, as is Doug Fisher, who played Robin’s best friend Larry.
Paula says: “I’m in touch with Brian Murphy’s widow, Linda. I still see Richard from time to time and we miss Yootha, Brian and Dougie. We were very close mates.”
Surprisingly, despite playing best friends on screen, the one former cast mate she rarely sees is Sally Thomsett. She says: “I saw her a few years ago, when we all went to see Richard. I’m hardly in touch with her now. Sally has moved and she’s very naughty, because she doesn’t necessarily let you know what her phone number is. So, if she reads this – get in touch!”
When Man About the House ended in 1976, Paula became a screen and stage staple. Alongside an illustrious theatre career, her TV work included the comedies Boomers, Mount Pleasant and Upstart Crow. She also played Laurel Thomas’s mother Hilary Potts in Emmerdale and more recently spent three years in Coronation Street as Elaine Jones, the mum of taxi boss Tim Metcalfe and ex-wife of abusive hospital radio DJ Geoff Metcalfe.
She says: “If there’s a terrific storyline I’d love to go back. I loved working with Joe [Duttine] and Sally [Dynevor]. They were so good, so much fun and so clever. There’s no reason why Eliane couldn’t come back. She’s still Tim’s mother after all. He can’t get rid of her.”
Paula attributes her 57-year career to “being up for things,” explaining: “I like being challenged; I always have a go. I’ve done some weird and wacky things, so I think people have been aware of me in different genres and spaces. I’ve done one-woman plays; I’m not just on telly or in the West End.”
The Fortune, which has four episodes, tells the story of happily married mum Amanda Blakefield, whose life is turned upside down when she inherits a large amount of money from a man she’s never met or even heard of. While his shocked family is determined to get to the truth, the surprise inheritance turns sour, leading Amanda into a mystery that leaves her questioning everything she thought she knew.
The stellar cast includes Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson as Amanda, alongside Stephen Tompkinson, Denis Lawson, Rebecca Front and former EastEnders actress Nina Wadia. Paula plays Amanda’s mother Linda, the one person who has the keys to the past.
She says: “She’s an important part of the story, because she knows what happened. She has dementia and is in a care home. She kind of knows everything, but she doesn’t know that she knows. It’s to do with something that went on in her past. She can remember highlights, but, because of the dementia, she goes off into talking about something else, completely unconnected.”
But Paula had doubts about taking on the role. She says: “It’s something that I was a bit wary of. My mum had dementia and it’s absolutely awful. I’ve been asked to play someone with dementia before and I felt it was a bit too close to it. But actually, this part is very different, because she’s a very different woman with a very different story and also, it’s about 15 years ago now, so it’s time to move on.”
Paula, who lives in London with her husband of 35 years, business consultant Nelson Riddle, grew up in Manchester. She began her TV career in 1969, aged 20, playing teenage delinquent Janice Langton in Coronation Street. She recalls: “She was the sister of Ray Langton. I was supposed to be 15 and I’d escaped from Borstal. I came in, laid the law down, nicked some money and then disappeared again.”
Three years later, in 1972, she appeared in an episode of The Benny Hill Show – known for its saucy slapstick humour and sketches featuring scantily clad young women. In its heyday, it attracted audiences of more than 21 million, but Paula quickly realised it wasn’t for her.
She laughs: “I remember thinking: ‘gosh, what am I doing? It just wasn’t my scene really. I think I played his [Benny’s] neighbour in one of the sketches. I remember at one point he asked me to bend over the sofa and I said, ‘ooh, no, I don’t do things like that!’ I think he was trying to sauce it up a bit and I was having none of it. When you’re young you can be quite straightforward like that.”
While declining ratings meant The Benny Hill Show was cancelled in 1989, Paula’s career went from strength to strength. Even now, she has plenty left on her bucket list. She says: “I’ve never worked with the RSC or at the National Theatre, so those are two things that I’d still really like to do. I still get as much pleasure from acting as I ever did and since I’ve passed the age of 50, the parts have got more and more interesting and more fun. You’re not just being cast because you’re cute and because of the way you look. You’re given more challenging things and if you can rise to the challenge, then you get offered them again and that’s very gratifying.”
*Paula Wilcox appears in The Fortune on 5 in June
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