You are in the Special Features section - Liza Goddard, Skippy, Yes Honestly, Take Three Girls, Bergerac, Alan Ayckbourn

Digger talks to actress Liza Goddard. 

 

Liza Goddard

 

 

Liza Goddard shot to fame in the UK with her appearance in the drama Take Three Girls, about three young women and their experiences in the swinging London of the late 60s and early 70s. The series, one of the first to be shown in colour, received critical and popular acclaim and is suspiciously absent from the BBC's current DVD releases. Liza had previously appeared for two years in the Australian cult classic Skippy (The Bush Kangaroo) as a 'child star' in a brief residence in Australia.

She also appeared in the cult classics The Brothers, Doctor Who, Tales Of The Unexpected and Bergerac, as well as the comedies Pig In The Middle, The Upchat Line and Yes Honestly.

 

Liza was married to two high-profile entertainers, Doctor Who number six Colin Baker and 70s Glam Rocker Alvin Stardust. Liza was a regular on the game show Give Us A Clue and also a main character in the long-running children's series Woof.

Busy in her beloved theatre and radio also throughout her career, Liza has appeared in the plays of Oscar Wilde, Alan Ayckbourn, Alan Bennett and Somerset Maugham.

Liza more recently appeared in Midsomer Murders. In common with other actresses such as Brigitte Bardot, Doris Day, Virginia McKenna and Liza's contemporary Alexandra Bastedo, Liza currently involves herself with a number of animal causes and charities as well as being a supporter of breast cancer charities.

Liza kindly agreed to undergo an interrogation with us here at www.retrosellers.com and to bring us up-to-date with her activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some images courtesy of and © copyright www.rexfeatures.com

 

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Digger: You're up in Scarborough, one of my favourite parts of the world. Do you get a chance to meet Alan Ayckbourn?

 

Liza: Oh yes, I'm working with him.

 

Digger: I see. He's still directing his own plays up there is he?

 

Liza: Absolutely. He's directed both the plays and he's just re-written the second one. It's a revival of one he wrote some years ago called A Snake In The Grass and the new play which is his 71st play is called Life And Beth. And it's the first play he's written since he had the stroke two 2 years ago. It's his last year as artistic director at the Stephen Joseph. So it's an extraordinary year and that's why we're all here really.

 

Digger: It's a terrific cast. Are you getting good houses?

 

Liza: Marvellous.

 

Digger: Is it touring after Scarborough?

 

Liza: Yes, we're going to Stoke-On-Trent for two and a half weeks and then we're going to tour Life And Beth around the southern part of the country. Guildford and Oxford and Cambridge. They don't do a very long tour, only seven or eight weeks. 

 

Digger: Can you describe your childhood in Smethwick?

 

Liza: Well, I wasn't there for very long. I was only there for six months because my mother's family lived there and I was born up there. My mother was with her mother and then we moved down to Winchester to be with my father's parents. My grandfather was science master and a house master at Winchester College. And they had a big house with central heating and it was a very cold winter. I have been back from time to time and the place hasn't changed at all. And then we moved to Farnham in Surrey.

 

Digger: So you've been touring all your life really?

 

Liza: Yes, yes. 

 

Digger: When did you know that you were destined to become an actress? 

 

Liza: Well, when I decided was when I was six. My mother was working on a programme called Jesus Of Nazareth, which starred Tom Fleming. It was live TV in those days and they wanted some children for a scene -  suffer little children. And so my father took me up and I remember sitting on Jesus's knee thinking "This is what I want to do". We did it Thursday night and then a repeat on Sunday afternoon so they had to do it all over again. It was quite extraordinary.

 

Digger: And all live? So you were a child star?

 

Liza: No, no, no, it was just a walk-on. But I wanted to be like Hayley Mills. But my dad said "NO, you have to have an education", so I had to go to school. I used to do amateur dramatics at the local village school - the Tilford junior players. And then, when I was fourteen, I used to go and work at the Farnham castle theatre. With a wonderful woman called Jo Knight who had me doing everything - sound, lights, make the costumes, make the sets, make the tea. I loved every minute of it.

 

Digger: Who were your contemporaries then? 

 

Liza: Ian Talbot, now director of the Regent's Park open air theatre, Lucy Fleming, Ian Ogilvys' wife, and I can't remember a lot of the names now but I held the people there in high regard. So my father was working for the BBC and he went to Australia to be the head of drama for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, so we went to Sydney with him too. First I lied about my age and went to work in the old Tote theatre, which doesn't exist anymore - it was at the old racetrack. And again I told them I'd been working in England and I worked backstage and got small parts and then I played Juliet and won an award for that. And Antigoni and various serious classical roles. And then TV things in Sydney and then landed the part of Clancy in Skippy which went on for two years from age 17 to 19.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digger: And I presume it must have been a big international hit? 

 

Liza: Well, huge. We had no idea it was going to be so massive all over the world. I came back to England for a holiday really because I'd always wanted to go on the Trans-Siberian railway so I went on that back to London and stayed with friends of my parents in London - she was a portrait artist and he was a limousine driver. They knew lots of fascinating people and the house was full of artists and communists and philosophers and it was just very exciting. And then to earn my money back to Australia I went up for a part in Take Three Girls. And after that I went up for a part at the Bristol Old Vic and I played Cicely in The Importance Of being Ernest and then another series of Take Three Girls.

 

Digger: There were only two series of Take Three Girls. I can't find it on DVD - are they going to release it do you know? 

 

Liza: No they wiped it. Because, as you probably know, in those days they recorded on that huge tape and they re-used it. Most things that were on film have survived but video tapes no. And remember, Take Three Girls was the first drama series in colour which was rather terrifying.

 

Digger: They haven't found a hooky copy of it somewhere where someone recorded it off the telly? 

 

Liza: I've got a black and white of one but it's very, very bad quality. You'd have thought that someone would have thought of keeping the first drama series in colour, wouldn't you? The first drama series ever to use a pop song as a theme song too.

 

Digger: Produced by the Who's producer, Shel Talmy. 

 

Liza: Was it? Gosh, I didn't know that. I'm up here but Pentangle have just been touring and if I hadn't been up here I'd have gone to see them. I saw them in the paper and I thought "Oh my GOD!" but I was too far away to go and see them.

 

Digger: So how did you land the role for Take Three Girls? 

 

Liza: My agent sent me for an interview. They were looking for an upper class brunette and they said they didn't really want a blonde Australian, but then they thought "Oh, perfect for the part." 

 

Digger: I've been told by people who are older than me how much of a ground-breaking programme it was. I can recall the music and the credits but I'm not sure I was allowed to watch it then as I was only 12 or so. It's a shame we can't see it now.

 

Liza: I remember reading an article by Annie Lennox saying the reason she went to London was because of Take Three Girls. The idea that you could come to London and share a flat and be single and it was the first series to feature women in all the main roles. 

 

Digger: Have things improved for women in the entertainment industry and for actresses in your lifetime?

 

Liza: Not really, I don't think. You look at all these series that are on now, the long-running series are mostly men. If you think about Heartbeat and Midsomer Murders and Frost.

 

Digger: New Tricks has a woman as the boss.

 

Liza: Yes, but the real stars are the men and she's only one of four. There's very few ... Helen Mirren, of course, but she's an exception.

 

Digger: Is there equality with earnings at least?

 

Liza: No, I think the men earn more. 

 

Digger: That's outrageous in 2008 and after all the promise of the 60s and 70s.

 

Liza: I know, I know. 

 

Digger: Compared to the heyday of the 60s and 70s, what do you think of TV today?

 

Liza: Well, I mean like everybody else I think it's mostly rubbish and I never watch it. Luckily I work in the theatre so I never watch television. I only watch on Sunday nights - Heartbeat and Coronation Street and that's my lot. 

 

Digger: You're into Corrie?

 

Liza: I love Corrie.

 

Digger: Have you ever been in it?

 

Liza: No, I'd love to. It's easier said than done. There's very little worth watching. If my daughter's round I'll watch Top Gear. I like that. It's a very entertaining show. These are the exceptions but I was in the period that everyone talks about when we worked in television. We worked at the BBC and it was the most thrilling place to work and you felt so privileged to be there because you'd walk into the canteen at the rehearsals room and there'd be everybody from Dr Who through to the leading lights and actors of the generation doing Shakespeare to Bruce Forsythe doing variety on a Saturday night. There was everything there. And the BBC television centre had Top Of The Pops, great drama - thrilling times. And why a lot of the great series of the 60s and 70s are not talked about is because there was so much good stuff at that time. There was so much to choose from and everything was marvellous. The thinking behind it was not ratings, it was quality. Sure, there was probably a lot of dross but the main thing was that people's main aim was high quality writing, acting and production.

 

Digger: Yes, if you look at the back-catalogue now there does seem to be a lot of good material. I have bought a lot of DVD sets from the 60s and 70s and I tend to watch them more than I do current programmes.

 

Liza: It was well made and well written and that's why people like the Gold satellite channels. I think today what they forget is that you need to have good writing. A lot of the time they think that just putting a well-known person in rubbish is enough and people will watch it, and of course they don't which is why people are turning away from television. 

 

Digger: Kris Marshall was successful as the wacky son in My Family and they put him into a comedy drama about estate agents and it was awful. Really badly written.  It died the death, at least I hope it did.

 

Liza: A case in point. Noone can do anything with a bad script. Judi Dench can't do anything with a bad script. They're not putting the money into the scriptwriting. There are good scriptwriters out there.

 

Digger: No. They're not willing to take risks. I think we've caught up with the American now in that sense.

 

Liza: That's right. They're not allowing the creative people to say "This is good".

 

Digger: Please tell us about your passion for animals.

 

Liza: Well, I've always had a passion for animals and I grew up in the country and had a pony. And rabbits and cats and dogs. And that doesn't seem to have left me.

 

Digger: My sister is over in Cork and she always has four rescue dogs on the go at any one time.

 

Liza: Yes, all of my dogs are rescues. My horse came from Ireland, funnily enough. I went to the west coast and came back with a horse!

 

Digger: How did you manage that?!

 

Liza: God knows. My husband couldn't believe it. The luckiest horse in the whole world. I was given a dog in Morrisons one day. There was a woman weeping and she said she couldn't keep the dog and so I brought the dog home and said "Look what I got in Morrisons". 

 

Digger: So you sound as eccentric as people might have thought you are?

 

Liza: I don't know, I just seem to pick up animals wherever I go.

 

Digger: Speaking of eccentricity, in Yes Honestly you played a 'dizzy blonde'. How much fun was that to work on?

 

Liza: Oh, how I loved playing that part. Of course, it was written by the Brady's again who wrote Take Three Girls. And just wonderful and mad Donal Donnelly the potty Irishman. And I don't think I've laughed so much, although looking back on my career I've laughed a lot which is GREAT. But we really, really had great fun on that show.

 

 

 

 

 

Liza and Donal Donnelly

 

 

 

 

Digger: Are they available on DVD?

 

Liza: I don't know. I wish they'd repeat them, they were terribly good.

 

Digger: How would you describe the 60s and 70s? Have they left a legacy?

 

Liza: Well I watched a programme the other night about the growth of pop...

 

Digger: Pop Britannia?

 

Liza: ... Was that what it was called? What they left out, of course, was the political background because there was all the pop, and Mary Quant and the big explosion of youth and of course in Sydney, which is the sister city to San Francisco. And so we were very led by the flower power and everyone was a hippy (well, only at weekends!)...

 

Digger: Did they still look to London as the place where things were happening?

 

Liza: No, America... And of course, the Vietnam war was on and they always leave this out but there was a huge political background to what was going on. All the youth were rebelling against things and the skirts got shorter and the young became more outrageous, and the pill. And enormous change for the young. We'd grown up after the war and everything was still hard and everyone had lived through great privation and we were just reveling in the fact that we weren't at war. Although my friends in Australia were being conscripted to go to Vietnam which was terrible. They didn't have a choice. Everybody of 18 was terrified to get the telegram. So we all used to protest all the time in Sydney and get water cannons on us. And then when I got back to England nobody seemed to know or care about the Vietnam war very much.

 

Digger: The sixties to my American friends means Kennedy, the moon landings and Vietnam. Although it does to us to an extent, it mainly means the swinging sixties and pop culture and fun.

 

Liza: To me it means Vietnam and flower power and all that. Also, although we didn't realise it that much, we were under the shadow of nuclear annihilation. That had quite a lot to do with it and the live for today mentality because we might be nuked tomorrow. That was from '63 to '93. 

 

Digger: Isn't it weird that when you lose a threat like that up pops another one in the form of international terrorism? 

 

Liza: Yes, it is.

 

Digger: What are your biggest achievements in life and what would you still like to accomplish?

 

Liza: Well my greatest achievements, of course, are my children, whom I adore beyond anything, and my grandchild who is the light of my life. And I think I've played some cracking parts, and done my best. Even at this age I'm surprising myself doing things I didn't think I could do. Alan gives me parts that are just a little bit harder than they 'should be' but I just adore working with him. In acting, which is what I wanted to do originally, working here at the Stephen Joseph for Alan in one of his plays is the pinnacle of my art; it's pure acting. You have to be completely and utterly focused and it's just thrilling.

 

Digger: Is comedy more difficult than drama?

 

Liza: Oh yes, and I prefer it really. Because some nights you don't get it and you think "Oh, why aren't I getting those laughs?". You've got to play it as seriously as a tragedy but have comedy timing. It's a really fine line. 

 

Digger: There's an expectation and a nervousness for the first minute or two of a comedy play where the audience is trying to work out the terms of reference and what kind of comedy it is.

 

Liza: Well, Alan's very clever 'cos the first five minutes is telling everybody everything they need to know about the people - the characters. Who they are, what their names are and what they do within the first five pages. And then you can get on with the story. Genius.

 

Digger: Can you describe yourself in a few words?

 

Liza: Middle-aged blonde granny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digger: How are you with technology such as computers, iPods and sat navs?

 

Liza: I love maps and I am a good map reader so I couldn't bear having a sat-nav telling me where to go, thank you very much.

 

Digger: It's always that last bit that you can't find. That's why I like sat-navs.

 

Liza: I love my iPod. 

 

Digger: They're good for talking books too.

 

Liza: No, I love to read. I don't like talking books.

 

Digger: If you were to have a dinner party with your dream guests, living or dead, real or fictional, who would you invite and why?

 

Liza: How funny. We were talking about this the other night. Oscar Wilde, of course. And Stephen Fry because that would be fantastic. I'd have Plato, to find out what life was like then. And Julius Caesar so they could happily talk to each other, Greek and Roman. I'd have Boudcicca - she'd add a bit of punch to the proceedings. Who else would I have? Alan Ayckbourn, because his anecdotes are great. Bill Bailey makes me laugh and Stephen Fry. I love QI, so all that lot. And there's a marvellous American comedian called Stephen Wright. I love that off-the-wall humour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digger: What makes you sad?

 

Liza: The death of dogs. Animals.

 

Digger: You're setting yourself up for a fall if you've got that many dogs all of the time.

 

Liza: I know, I know. They break your heart. But they're worth it.

 

Digger: What makes you angry?

 

Liza: Intolerance.

 

Digger: And what makes you hopeful?

 

Liza: My granddaughter. And I hope we sort out the world problems and our misuse of the planet.

 

Digger: The stuff our generation couldn't sort out? Here you are, here's the baton, now you run with it!

 

Liza: We tried to do our bit.

 

Digger: Can you share some of your specific memories and experiences of working on The Brothers and Doctor Who?

 

Liza: They are just other cases of where we were laughing all the time. With Peter Davidson. I was a very inept space ranger and every time I drew my gun the end fell off. We just used to wee with laughter. And there was a marvellous monster in it. And he'd sweat in his costume and then faint. It was just the best time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liza with Peter Davidson

 

 

 

 

Digger: There must be miles and miles of V.T. wasted with all this?

 

Liza: Yes, people just laughing.

 

Digger: What about The Brothers, was that a happy set as well?

 

Liza: Very. We used to rehearse in London and then go to Pebble Mill. It was marvellous in those days because the same people worked there - the same props guy and electricians and so on so it was like going back to a family every week. The make-up dept. was small too and it was joyous.

 

Digger: You've been lucky, haven't you? You'd done what you wanted to do, had some laughs along the way. Can't ask for more than that really. So what do you have lined-up for the future?

 

Liza: I'm going to be in a pantomime in Norwich this year. 

 

Digger: You can't get more British than that, blokes dressing up as ladies and ladies dressing up as blokes!

 

Liza: I know, but it's very old and it goes way back to ancient types of performing. It's the last remnant of a very old cultural happening, really, pantomime is. 

 

Digger: I really look forward to the pantomime season because it's a really unique entertainment where the children and the grown-ups can all enjoy it on different levels and also on the same level.

 

Liza: The only ones I do are the true family pantos. I can't bear these ones where they have comedians who bang on for hours. I like the true magical stories. At least they're not vulgar. There's nothing better than seeing a theatre full of 4-year-olds gazing in wonder, mouth open, believing that you can magic Cinderella's dress - just heaven.

 

Digger: And a theatre full of 50-year olds with their mouths open too!

 

Liza: Yes! Yes!  I just filmed a wonderful new series called Grandpa In My Pocket starring James Bolam as granddad who's got a magic cat. And I play Lady Prigsbottom and I've got a wonderful picture of Lady P which I'll send to you. It's going to be on CBeebies. A fabulous script.

 

Digger: How many shows have you done in the current run?

 

Liza: Ooh, I don't know but we've been at it for weeks. We rehearsed in April and opened the first play and then rehearsed the second one while playing the first. That was the hardest thing I've had to do for many a year.

 

Digger: Do you get stage fright still?

 

Liza: Yes, of course.

 

Digger: Is performing it as fresh each night?

 

Liza: That's the whole point really, to try and keep it fresh. That's what we do - eight shows a week. 

 

Digger: Do any of the cast do tricky stuff to try and keep everyone on their toes?

 

Liza: No, you don't dare do it with one of Alan's plays and you certainly daren't do it in the round  There's nowhere to hide and that's the joy of the round really. 

 

Digger: Well, Liza, thank you so much for talking to me today. That was brilliant. It was much appreciated and most enjoyable.

 

Liza: Thank you. It was a great pleasure. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liza