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NEW FOR
KINDLE...
Corrie weekly updates from
1995
17 years in 17 e-books
All the wit and warmth of
Weatherfield, none of the waffle
Available from
amazon.co.uk or amazon.com
Exclusive! Interview with ITV This
Morning's Soap Queen by Glenda Young
Sharon
Marshall
Q: How long have you been the ITV
This Morning soaps queen and how did you get the
job?
I've been at This
Morning for nine years now - all most
unexpected since I was only ever intended to come on for one
day to talk about Dirty Den coming back to EastEnders. I used
to work as a showbiz reporter for the tabloid press, and was
on an ITV2 show called SoapFever with the fabulous Denise
Welch so I've been watching all the soaps for work for decades
now. I remember doing that very first chat with Fern and Phil,
and at the end of it, live on air, Fern asked me if I'd come
back again. Of course I said yes and they've not been able to
get rid of me since. I love it there!
Q: In your years as one of the UK's top soap queens, you
must have met and interviewed a lot of actors from Coronation
Street. Do you ever get starstruck?
Oh yes. And I never
bother to hide it. If I'm a fan I tell them! I'm afraid I
totally lost it with Jack and Vera. I grew up watching them
and they feel like family. Bill Tarmey's the only one that's
made me cry in an interview. He was talking about leaving the
Street and just started sobbing. That was it. I was off too.
All professionalism totally out of the window. It was like
seeing my own granddad cry.
Q: Is there any Corrie
actor that you've never met that you would dearly like to? You
can include past actors here too.
It's my biggest regret that I never
got to meet Betty. I hear she was an absolute maelstrom of joy
to be around and I really wish I'd got to meet her. Of the
current cast I've managed to get most to agree to an
interview. I think the next one I'm going to work on for an
interview is Malcolm Hebden. I just love a bit of Norris. Oh.
And Stephanie Cole. Rumour has it she can play the ukulele for
real.
Q: Which Corrie actors have
you interviewed who have come across as most like their
characters? And which have been a million miles away from the
person they portray on screen?
Well, The Honourable Susan Frances
Harmer Nicholls, is utterly unlike Audrey. Your instant
reaction on meeting her is: "Isn't she posh?" then you realise
she is utterly charming, funny and she puts you instantly at
your ease. She can, on demand, also pull off a rather fabulous
Walsall accent too as she was born there. I'd say Sue Cleaver
is fairly similar to Eileen. I mean, obviously her real life
is nothing like as messed up as Eileen's and she dresses much
better too, but she does have a brilliant knack of timing and
delivering a killer one liner, which you can just imagine
Eileen doing to Steve at Streetcars. Plus she once got me a
cab home after a big night.
Q: Who are your
favourite Corrie characters - and why?
Oh it changes day by day. Becky
just made me cry with that exit. Roy and Hayley are my heroes.
I adore a bit of Norris and Rita. Eileen's a goddess. Steve
McDonald makes me howl. And how good have Carla, Peter and
Leanne been these last few weeks? I could go on all day. It's
usually whoever's on screen. My all time favourite ever was
Blanche because you smiled as soon as she appeared on screen.
You just knew that killer line was coming.
Q: And what have been your
favourite Corrie storylines over the years?
Gnome-gate was a great one and I
was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with Peter Baldwin and
Thelma Barlow once, who actually bought along all the
postcards viewers had sent from 'Arthur'. They'd had
thousands! Richard Hillman was amazing. And all of Ken
and Deirdre's upsets - I did rather love Martha on the
barge.
Q: Is there any
behind-the-scenes gossip from Corrie you can share?
I better not. Although look
carefully at the wedding invites in the Steve/Tracy wedding
and you'll see they spelled the groom's name wrongly. There
was a bit of giggling about that on the day.
Q: Do you know any upcoming
storylines or is it more than your job's worth to share
them?
Because I've started as a
scriptwriter on a rival soap I've really scaled back how far
in advance I'm learning the storylines on other soaps. I've
asked them not to tell me too much. So I'm perhaps only a few
weeks in advance. It's nice actually - I like watching the
soap and being surprised by what's coming up rather than
knowing every single spoiler in advance. I've got absolutely
no idea who kills Frank. And I like it that way!
Q: You've started work as a
scriptwriter on EastEnders. What advice would you give anyone
who wants to write scripts for a soap?
I asked
Russell T Davies this question about three years ago. His
answer? Stop asking how to do it, open up your computer and
start typing. Which was excellent advice and what I now tell
everyone that asks. If you want to write - get
writing!
I bought a book called
Screenwriting by Syd Field which teaches basic structure then
practiced re-writing old episodes and bugged a long suffering
drama executive to read them and give feedback. Then I applied
for the BBC shadow scheme in which you send in a sample script
to executives for the show. They do similar schemes for all
the continuing dramas. If your script is picked you do a trial
and write an episode alongside the professional scriptwriters.
Your episode is never shown but you get to see how the process
works. From that I got onto the BBC Mentor scheme and was
trained up for a month by ex Coronation Street writer, BAFTA
winner and all round soap God Daran Little. He basically told
me to learn the technical stuff, then forget about it all and
just write a scene that would make the reader cry and have a
real connection. He said that there's so much competition to
get in that unless the reader gets a physical reaction from
your script, you'll just get forgotten.
Along the way I was lucky
enough to be able to pick the brains of some Corrie writers.
Jonathan Harvey was brilliantly supportive. He told me not to
give up.
I think the most important
thing is to love the characters and to love the show. Write a
script with love for the characters and you'll be going in the
right direction. And watch everything. Watch what other
amazing writers do and see what works. And ask people for
help.
Getting in is only the start
and the team at EastEnders have been utterly brilliant with me
when it came to writing the real thing. There's a brilliant
team of Script Editors, storyliners and executives who help
you on each script. They've given up so much personal time to
teach me and I still can't quite believe they've given me this
opportunity. Watching my first ep being filmed and seeing what
the brilliant actors do, and add to your work is just magical.
It's amazing, after all these years, to be a soap fan, who's
been allowed to write an episode. I'm still massively
new, very junior and I've got a lot to learn, but I'm now on
my third script and just loving every single second of
it.
Follow Sharon Marshall on twitter at @sharontweet
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