The wonderful Patricia Hodge reveals her far from posh upbringing, her love of Bettys Tea Room and the joy of working on All Creatures Great and Small
For the past few weeks, Patricia Hodge has been warming up Sunday nights for us as Mrs Pumphrey in the latest All Creatures Great and Small.
The woman who fusses incessantly over her pooch, Tricki Woo, is the latest in a long line of posh characters Patricia has played, from Phyllida Erskine-Brown in Rumpole Of The Bailey to Miranda’s mother, Penny, in the sitcom Miranda.
Yet she insists she’s not posh at all. The daughter of hoteliers, she grew up in Grimsby, Lincolnshire – although her mother insisted on elocution lessons.
“The thing is, I’ve never lost being an ordinary person,” Patricia (76) muses. “It’s what I am. If people want to see me as posh, OK – but don’t confuse what I play with what I am.”
Patricia muses on being cast as upper class.
“If that’s the way they see you, that’s the work they’re going to give you,” she says.
“People book you for what they know you can do, and what they think fits with your presentation.”
Does she yearn to play a working-class matron?
“I do sometimes – and ould if they asked ,” she says. “But it’s a estion of whether ople would accept me doing it. I played a Yorkshire housewife in Calendar Girls. I played an American in the theatre recently. You can do it more often in theatre. It’s not often that I’m allowed to.”
Nonetheless, Patricia has enjoyed slipping into Mrs Pumphrey’s tweedy outfits.
“Getting into the gear does it for me,” she says. “Having the permed hair, getting her hat on – I think, ‘I know where I am now’.”
She appreciates the character’s development over the three series since she replaced the late Dame Diana Rigg in series two.
“I like the fact that Mrs Pumphrey’s getting more involved with the community. There’s also a bit of a dance with the new vet, Carmody, who she doesn’t really want to have to deal with. He rubs her up the wrong way.”
She enjoys filming at Broughton Hall, Skipton, which stands in as Mrs Pumphrey’s mansion, but the schedule is full-on.
“When I’m there, obviously for economic reasons they have to really use me,” she says. “I had the idea that I would have time in the Dales and go to Bettys Tea Room, which is my favourite thing.
“But it’s not unusual for me to be up at four in the morning and do a whole day’s shoot,
