Glynis Barber is busier than your average TV actress, appearing in The Royal and New Tricks in the same week! Here she tells TV Times about her new roles... What is it like being in The Royal? "I love it. I was a little girl in the Sixties and I clearly remember what my mother was wearing at the time, and in The Royal I dress very similarly to how she used to dress. It was kind of weird because I was looking in the mirror thinking I could be my mother!" Did you get to choose your own clothes? "I went with the costume designer to an antique fair and you can buy all this fabulous authentic jewellery, gloves and handbags for practically nothing. I recall my mother always wore a brooch and a matching pair of earrings. It was amazing as it just took me back to that time in my life and brought it alive again." Your charcter Jane, the hospital administrator, is quite a tough cookie? "It’s fun because St Aidan’s hospital hasn’t had a female administrator before, and especially being the Sixties, this is a little ahead of its time. I enjoy playing Jean as she’s a good, mixed character. She’s colourful and, I suppose, slightly glamorous. But being a woman, Jean has to be quite tough and her new colleagues don’t know what to make of her." How was it filming in Yorkshire? "It’s like a little holiday because we all stay in a hotel together. I found a couple of lovely ice-cream parlours there, too! And the cast are a really nice bunch of people. I’d met Michelle Hardwick, who plays receptionist Lizzie, previously at TV Times’ Christmas Carol Concert at the Royal Albert Hall a couple of years ago. We were sat in a box with your nice editor, Ian." How was being in New Tricks with your husband Michael Brandon? "Our characters don’t actually meet, but it was fun ending up in the same episode! The only time we saw each other was at the read-through where they very sweetly sat us together!"
