FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
Biographies
Bill Gardiner, who co-wrote Barbara (and Jim) with Tony Holmes, is the author of the novels Diary of a Soho Boy, The Gospel According to Nigel and The Closet. He is working on a film adaptation of Diary of a Soho Boy. His stage adaptation was put on at the Royal Court in 1969.
Tony Holmes has written more than twenty series for radio and television. After Barbara (and Jim) he wrote (with Diane Stafford) Everyone Loves Jackie, before going on to create Salt and Vinegar, The Green, Green Grass of Home and Would Like to Have Met for ITV. He is a frequent contributor to the radio series I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue and Just a Minute.
Clive Richardson has had a long career in television in both the UK and the US. He was Dr Nigel Fisher in ER, and for many years played Chief Inspector Richard Jury in the successful and popular Jury, adapted from the books of Martha Grimes. He lives with his third wife, the American actress Carrie Courtenay, in Hollywood.
Sophie Straw has been a much-loved star of British stage and screen ever since she introduced herself to the British viewing public in Barbara (and Jim). Her TV series include His and Hearse, Salt and Vinegar, The Green, Green Grass of Home, Would Like to Have Met and Minnie Cab. She is now probably best remembered for her work in the long-running soap opera Chatterton Avenue, where she played Liz Smallwood from 1982 to 1996. Her stage work includes touring productions of The Importance of Being Earnest, A Taste of Honey and several of the plays of Alan Ayckbourn, including A Chorus of Disapproval and The Norman Conquests. She was married to the producer and director of Barbara (and Jim), Dennis Maxwell-Bishop, until his death in 2011. She has two children. Her daughter, Georgia Maxwell-Bishop, received a BAFTA nomination for her performance as Adela Quested in the BBC’s adaptation of A Passage to India.
From the programme notes to the BAFTA tribute Barbara (and Jim): The Golden Wedding Anniversary, October 2014
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Sophie tried to remember whether she had ever seen herself projected on to a big screen, and decided that she hadn’t. Except she’d had a small part in that peculiar thing with Ewan McGregor four or five years ago, playing the mother of his deranged ex-wife, and she was almost certain that she’d been to the premiere, and been coaxed on to the stage with everyone else, Ewan and Ros and Jim Broadbent. Had she not even stayed to watch the film? She thought she had. She could remember huge chunks of Barbara (and Jim), could have chanted along with the lines as she watched, yet half the time she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten for supper the previous evening. She didn’t care very often, because not many of the suppers were worth remembering, but her memory was annoying at times like this, when she wanted to remember.
And then she realized what it was: she’d never seen this version of herself cinema-sized, the twenty-one-year-old version. She’d only ever seen her ancient self up there, and shuddered, and looked away, and actively tried to forget the lines on her face and the lumpy shapelessness afterwards. She hadn’t bothered with the premiere of Chemin de Fer, the awful film she’d made with the French pop singer in Wales. (She had caught as much as she could bear to watch on TV one night, a few years ago, on one of the hundreds of obscure channels to which Dennis had insisted on subscribing. Without him, she would never be able to find any of them again.) And this was the first time that Barbara (and Jim) had been shown in a cinema, as far as she knew.