Kathy Burke is a TV legend and her book is filled with funny and frank stories from her career and family life
One of Britain’s best loved stars Kathy Burke has gone through the highs and lows of the first 40 years of her life for a brilliant new book A Mind Of My Own. Kathy has excelled as an actor, theatre director, comedian, documentary presenter and podcaster, but none of it was handed to her easily.
Born in 1964 in London, her mum died when she was just two, meaning she and her two brothers were brought up by their alcoholic dad who was prone to binges and lashing out.
Food and money was often tight but she got big break when she studied at the Anna Scher Theatre School in islington and landed a role in the 1982 film Scrubbers, directed by Swedish actress Mai Zetterling and featuring the likes of Pam St. Clement, Robbie Coltrane and Miriam Margolyes. She has lived life to the full ever since and here are just some of her many highlights…
Meeting John Lydon
Aged 13, Kathy would loiter outside the Hope and Anchor pub to try to catch a glimpse of her idols. One day she spotted Johnny Rotten.
He looked over from the crowd and said: “Hello, little girl.” Nervous and keen to impress, Kathy thought hard before replying: “F*** off, Johnny.” It earned her a laugh from him and his pals.
Persuading Ray Winstone
Before she was a big name, Kathy wrote the play and planned to stage it in 1990 in the theatre above a pub she frequented. Spotting actor Ray necking a pint, she gave him a script and urged him to read it even though he did not seem overly interested.
He called her the next day, saying: “Did you write that? All on your own?”
He agreed to take part, and Mr Thomas was a success, helping to rejuvenate Ray’s career. He and Kathy starred in film Nil By Mouth later in the decade.
Winning best actress
“F***ing hell, I don’t have a passport,” Kathy told her agent in 1997 after being informed she had scooped the Best Actress gong at the Cannes Film Festival for Nil By Mouth and only had a few hours to get there from London.
Someone was able to work some magic and her agent called back to say Kathy would be picked up in an hour.
Thankfully, the pinstripe suit Kathy wore for Harry Enfield’s wedding was fresh from the dry cleaners.
“It’s not a frock but f*** it, it will do,” she thought. The film’s producer, Luc Besson, provided a private jet from London City Airport, and Kathy and her agent got a helicopter the rest of the way.
Joining the movie’s director Gary Oldman on the red carpet, Kathy said in reference to their days in theatre: “It’s a bit different to our digs in Westcliff, love.”
She recalls: “The rest of the night is a blur of receiving the award from Hugh Grant, giving a press conference with Sean Penn, who won Best Actor, asking Kylie Minogue if she’d like to join our table, accepting a cocktail from Harvey f***face Weinstein and going for a stroll in the grounds of Hotel du Cap with [actor] David Thewlis, who couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw me on the red carpet having been talking to me on the phone hours earlier. I think that’s what they call a whirlwind.”
On Absolutely Fabulous
After working with French & Saunders on their sketch shows, Jennifer Saunders got in touch and asked if she would play fashion boss Magda in a new sitcom she was writing. Jen was known for leaving things until the last minute and when she eventually entered the rehearsal room she would be met by “piss taking claps and whistles” and the scripts were still hot from being printed.
Kathy didn’t know much about the fashion world but was told to say her lines quickly so they would be harder for ‘the TV police’ to cut them. A few weeks after filming Kathy received a card from Jen which said something along the lines of “Who knows what people will make of Ab Fab, it’ll probably be a flash in the pan but thanks a million for taking part.”
On Kevin and Perry
This iconic comedy duo played by Kathy and Harry Enfield from 1994 only came about thanks to a chance meeting of Kathy and pal Paul Whitehouse, as she hadn’t intended to return to Harry’s latest show with just the old character she played. Paul remembered Kathy had once done a teenage kid on a Jonathan Ross TV show and suggested combining it with one of Harry’s character, giving her a new sketch as well as other characters to make her role on the new series more prominent, to persuade her to sign up. Kathy went for it and the rest is history. Other hit characters around this time included The Slobs.
As well as the Kevin and Perry movie, arguably their most famous gags is around Oasis, which is down to Kathy. She explains: “A favourite sketch I did with Harry involved my character Perry turning up at Kevin’s house after visiting Manchester, where he developed the walk and talk of Liam Gallagher from Oasis. I told Harry and Paul about the times when I’d arrived home from Wigan as a kid sporting the accent. They thought this was great, so turned the story into a sketch. We had to record Perry’s entrance a few times as a roar from the studio audience was too much for our sound engineer to bear. This sketch still does the rounds on social media now and then, especially if Oasis are in the news.
On smoking a ‘spliff’
At a daytime party in the Nineties she took an “inviting-looking spliff” from Shaun Ryder as he rambled at her and she thought “that northern grass tastes off”. Feeling really weird she then put a lit cigarette near a woman’s bum, called her friends “c**ts” and then went home and was violently sick before suffering hot and cold shakes.
Years later Shaun told her: “Back then? Nah that wouldn’t have been weed, it was either smack or quite possibly crack.”
On kissing Dougray Scott
Cathy made the film This Year’s Love in 1999 which she enjoyed, even getting singing tips from David Gray. But that wasn’t the best bit. She says: “As the film was about trying to find love we all had a few smoochy scenes. One involved myself and Dougray’s character having a snog on Waterloo Bridge, and still to this day, that beautiful man will say in interviews that his most enjoyable screen kiss was with me. Likewise, baby! What a dreamboat!”
On Gimme Gimme Gimme
Whilst this sitcom from 1999-2001 wasn’t universally loved, it had a real cult following and Kathy really enjoyed working on it with James Dreyfus.
She says: “I loved playing Lindy alongside James’ Tom. They were such ridiculous, deluded characters with a mix of sweet ignorance and acid awareness. We really enjoyed breaking the fourth wall and so did our audience, and as its script editor I wanted as much of this as possible, but it frightened the powers that be so we were only allowed to indulge in this so much. It is funny that a few years later one of the BBC’s biggest comedy hits, Mrs Brown’s Boys, was encouraged to fully embrace this concept.” The show ended after three series, Kathy deciding to call it a day with a fourth wall scene that got a big laugh getting cut being the final straw.
On life off the stage
She has rarely acted in the past decade or two and says she preferred directing, especially in the theatre.
She adds: “I used to love acting so much, but the feeling I’d get in my tummy when playing certain roles was dissipating. When asked about the difference between acting and directing, the best analogy I came up with was acting was like being a footballer and directing was being the coach.”
Kathy, who never had kids, says: “I’d often thought about having a baby. I was in my late 30s, so the clock was ticking, but it wasn’t something I was crying out for. I [had] a short broody spell in my early 30s, but wasn’t interested in having a child with the person I was with at the time.”
She found out in her 40s a blood condition meant she could not have kids anyway, and explained a previous miscarriage. She adds: “Having a baby had never been my true heart’s calling.
“I’ve had lovely relationships with the kids in my life, but I’m always happier once I hand them back. And much the same can be said for romantic relationships.”
* Kathy Burke A Mind Of My Own is out tomorrow(Thursday) published by Gallery Books.
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