Pauline Quirke Talks To 50connect

One of the best known names in British television, Pauline Quirke began her career as a child actress, and since that time she has appeared in many movies and TV shows, from Shine On Harvey Moon to Carrie's War. Seen on our screens over the last few years in Office Gossip, Real Women, Maisie Raine, Murder in Mind and Being April, her most memorable role was that of Sharon in the series Birds of a Feather.

Her next project is the launch of several performing arts schools across the UK. The Pauline Quirke Academy (PQA) is the brainchild of Pauline and her husband and manager Steve Sheen, and this year they will be opening four new academies. PQA is aimed at children aged from 6 to 18, and the focus is firmly on fun.

Pauline, now aged 48, explained that she has been wanting to run such a venture for a while.

"Next year is a milestone for me because I'll have been acting for 40 years, so it seemed as good a time as any to do it. It's something I've wanted to do, as over the years I've been involved in working with kids one way or another in local schools and so on."

An appearance in Dixon of Dock Green in the late 1960s marked the beginning of Pauline's acting career, after free drama classes offered an alternative to boredom during her own childhood.

"I started when I was 9 so it's all I've ever known. I came from part of London where there was absolutely nothing going on at all. When I started at the drama club at my primary school the lessons were 10p. It's all relative because there were times when my mum couldn't afford the 10p, so I had a free place there."

This experience has influenced Pauline's decisions on opening the new schools.

"We're trying to open academies in places where there's a need, with not a lot going on. It's £7.50 an hour so it costs £22.50 per morning or afternoon session, and not everyone can afford that, so we're going to be offering free places as well so that children whose parents can't afford it won't miss out on joining in the fun."

It was as a child at primary school that Pauline met Linda Robson, her co-star in the popular sitcom Birds of a Feather.

"Birds of a Feather was great fun because Linda and I are really good mates, so I got to work with my best friend every day which was brilliant."

Pauline and Linda still work together occasionally.

"We've not acted with each other since then, but we were on The Paul O'Grady Show together a couple of weeks ago, that was really fun. We shall see - someone might come up with something that's worth doing."

A decade on from the final episode of Birds of a Feather, the pair have no plans to revisit the series.

"It's never a good idea to go back because people are always going to be disappointed. We did it for ten years, filming 101 episodes overall, so it's probably best to leave it and hope people remember it fondly."

Since the series ended Pauline has enjoyed practically every one of the many TV roles she has played.

"Right on the heels of doing Birds of a Feather, The Sculptress was a big drama and that was really interesting for me. Then when I did the series Down To Earth they were a great bunch, and we were in Devon a lot, a beautiful part of the world."

The highlight of her career so far, however, was when she joined her own family on the set of the UK's most famous fictional hospital.

"I was asked to do an episode of Casualty last year because my little boy Charlie had been in an episode just a few weeks before. He was acting and my daughter was working in the camera department in the same episode. To see both my kids working on the same show was memorable, I was so proud. They were both really good and Charlie was extremely well behaved so that was great."

It's down to Pauline's own two children that everything about setting up PQA fell into place.

"When my little lad was at Bristol Old Vic theatre school doing a children's workshop last year, I met some very clever people - Sarah Counsell and Simon Green who have created all the modules that we're using at the academy. Also being a mum myself, hopefully I know what kids want to do. It's a combination of all that which made us decide, come on, let's do it."

You might expect Pauline to drop in occasionally to manage the school or show off her acting talent to the children. However, her role is thoroughly hands on, and includes even the most mundane chores.

"Steve's the clever one, he does all the administrative side of things. I basically do the monotonous and repetitive office tasks. I've been stuffing envelopes this afternoon and putting stickers on - they don't give me anything too tricky to do!"

The academy caters for ages 6 to 9, 9 to 12 and 12 to 16. Modules include drama and comedy, musical theatre and film and television, and are designed to appeal to everybody.

"We do musical theatre instead of dance routines, because we find that boys particularly are more comfortable doing that. Usually boys tend to fall off the radar, especially as they get older, but 40 per cent of our children are boys, and in our older age group we have more boys than girls which is really unusual. In our film and television module kids get to work with cameras, learn presenting skills and so on. We film whatever the kids have done then watch it back and they get to talk about how they could have done it this way or that way."

The modules change regularly, to ensure the children never get bored.

"That's a bit of a tall order with what kids are like these days, but so far so good. Simon and Sarah are constantly thinking of new ideas, and I've just been doing a workshop with 16 to 24 year olds in Belfast, where The Bill kindly gave me some old scripts and we worked with the kids doing scenes out of that, so we're going to do that with our older kids as well, who love doing scenes from programmes."

The first academy opened during September 2007 in Beaconsfield near where Pauline lives.

"That obviously seemed the first place to start. I talked to other mums in the area, and although there are already quite a few kids' drama weekends out there we're different because we're not running an agency or doing end of term productions. We didn't want children to have the pressure of learning lines, and also invariably some kids get the big parts and others don't and we very much wanted to focus on the kids having fun as opposed to coming to us because they want to be famous."

Pauline is keen to emphasise that performing arts school is not simply a route to fame and fortune - it's about helping children develop their confidence and imagination.

"If kids want to do it, it's fantastic for social skills and teaching children to be able to articulate, and it's good fun. There will be those who want to take it up as a career and I can hopefully point them in the right direction and tell them what they should be doing, but we're not going to push that because there's lots out there already for children that want to get involved in that side of things. Sometimes we can get a little bit fame obsessed, but at the academy we're generally going for fun, so kids who just want to enjoy all the different things that performing arts can offer should come along."

Pauline is not yet ready to completely swap acting for teaching the next generation, however, and unlike some of her contemporaries she has no complaint about a lack of parts for actresses once they reach middle age.

"I've been acting for 40 years and I don't know if I want to act for another 40, but who knows? I made the transition from child to adult, and now from adult to old woman! It's not something that worries me. Maybe those with looks to lose over the years might be more concerned, but I never got to play the glamorous parts anyway so it's not really been a problem for me. I've been lucky enough to do all sorts of diverse stuff, so fingers crossed."

Viewers may have seen Pauline in a recent episode of Cold Blood, and there's more coming up.

"I've just done an episode of the sitcom My Family with Robert Lindsay, in which I play a bank robber. I'm still out there!"

By Cherry Butler

Weblinks

www.pqacademy.com

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