by John Elliot
[Starring] Geoffrey Keen, Philip Latham, Philippa Gail, Robert Hardy
also starring Alan Gifford, Geoffrey Chater, Jerry Stovin, Jeremy Longhurst
Trouble boils up for Stead during a cross-country car rally. Izard has to put his personal life before Mogul.
[Article] Philippa Gail in The Troubleshooters BBC-1 at 10.0
After chattering away for over an hour Philippa Gail suddenly admitted: 'I'm terrified of press interviews. Can never think of a thing to say - don't even have a hobby, never mind an "angle." Told one journalist a lot of nonsense about drama schools being dens of vice and about my parents putting me on the stage in the hope that it would cure my tantrums. He simply quoted it all! My heart skipped several beats when I read "Philippa Gail Finds a Cure for Tantrums."
'My trouble is I can't help being flippant. Sometimes I try to write serious fiction and when I read it over it nearly always turns out to be hysterically funny. But you must forgive anything I say today because it's one of the few days I've had off in months. I've been on a clothes-shopping spree, paid £45 for a dress, so I'm feeling a bit punch-drunk.'
Miss Gail at home - a Knightsbridge flat shared with two girl friends - is practically unrecognisable as the actress who plays the competent secretary Jane Webb in The Troubleshooters. The real person is not only gigglier, she looks younger and tinier and (because of a luminous golden quality in skin and hair) even more exciting. 'I gather I look about twenty-seven in the part. I'm actually twenty-three. Jane Webb is much more efficient than I am. I did once do a secretarial course, though. Got half way through. Perhaps I could have become a journalist - always wanted to write - but not a secretary in a business office.
'I couldn't bear a job that wasn't creative - well, I mustn't be so sweeping as to say business is never creative - but the people I admire are those who write books, paint pictures, win wars, build their own houses-always dashing about getting different things done. All I do is act. Oh yes, it's creative work: you re-create emotions and atmospheres you have experienced and you use your imagination to act out situations you've never been in.'
Philippa's main reason for pursuing an acting rather than a writing career is that she is 'desperately lazy.' She finds it hard to work alone and has difficulty getting started - 'though I am able to lose myself in writing and let twelve hours go by and not notice. Sometimes I read a good book and think I'll never write anything up to that standard. Then I read a rotten book and I'm encouraged to think I could do better.'
Though quite passionately enthusiastic about books, Philippa doesn't gush much over theatrical performers. 'Only a few artists have the magic to make me want to go out on a rainy night to see them. Garbo is certainly one. And Joan Sutherland. I'm beginning to think Vanessa Redgrave has it. David Warner has certainly got that mystique. On television I find David Frost quite magical. Cook and Moore are wonderful comedians. And Patrick Wymark is among my favourite actors. I'd love to do a stage play with him.' (David Griffiths)
