Emma Thompson’s Desert Island Discs

 

Fascinating to hear Emma Thomson on Desert Island Discs this week, recalling the critical drubbing she received for her 1988 comedy series, Thompson.

 

The lovely Emma was given a terrible pasting, some it unnecessarily personal and full of invective, which must have come as a horrible shock having led a charmed life thus far, thanks to her great talent, winning personality and work ethic.

 

I was one of a gaggle of London-based journalists bussed up to Manchester to interview Emma during the making of the BBC2 series. Emma was utterly charming, unfussily beautiful and just really nice. Fortunately I was never a TV critic – my job was to interview her, not to sit in judgement on the series, which although it had its merits, was admittedly too twee and middle-class for comfort at times.

 

I was there also as a fan, having seen her in earlier sketch shows, televised Cambridge Footlights reviews and the like. I recall one Channel 4 special early in her career in which, apart from the comedy, she sang some torch song in a figure-hugging, floor-length gown and her gamine-like short hair, singing superbly and looking stunning. She was clearly a rising star even then.

 

Most astonish revelation on DI Discs though was that she was suffering clinical depression at the time she appeared in the smash-hit stage musical Me and My Girl, playing the female lead opposite Robert Lindsay.

The Press Night was on the same day as the BBC launch of EastEnders. I recall asking the Sun’s then TV critic, Margaret Forwood, if she would be going to the show later. “I wouldn’t be seen dead doing that,” she retorted.

 

Well it was Maggie’s loss, as it turned out. I’m no great fan of musicals myself as a rule but this one was sublime – funny, endearing, romantic, and the two leads were sensational, going on to win countless awards both in the West End and on Broadway, where it transferred after its London run.

 

Even the hard nuts among the critics (I used to do theatre reviews for the Westminster Press chain of regional newspapers) applauded to the rafters and the whole audience was soon on its feet for a standing ovation. Emma was seemingly basking in the glory when, behind the scenes, she was anything but happy.

 

Rather piquantly, clips from her eponymous TV series are still viewable on YouTube including one where she and her then-husband Kenneth Branagh play a divorcing couple dividing their record collection, something they must have done for real not many years later.

 

Emma’s mum, Phyllida Law, also appeared in the series, and I had the pleasure of interviewing her on location a few years ago with the TV adaptation of children’s best-seller Stig of the Dump. As well as writing features for newspapers from the set visit (conducted amid drenching Derbyshire rain all day) I was also asked to supply the interviews section for the ensuing BBC Press Pack.

 

In 2009 I finally completed the set, interviewing Emma’s actress sister Sophie during the making of circus sit-com Big Top, which endured a critical kicking to match ser sister’s 80s sketch series.

 

Emma and Sophie’s dad, Magic Roundabout creator (English version of, that is) Eric Thompson was almost another connection. The children’s series was cult viewing for teenagers and adults too when I was at school, and I won the Sixth Form Declamation Contest (an annual speech competition) with a Magic Roundabout pastiche making the case that the seemingly innocuous series was an insidiously corrupting influence on the nation’s youth.

 

Two years later I was a freshman studying English at Manchester University when the English Society organised a visit by Eric. I was very tempted to hear his talk but there was a modest admission charge and I was broke, so I resisted. I regretted that decision all the more when I heard what his theme had been – the corrupting influence of The Magic Roundabout on the nation’s youth.

 

Emma, of course, went on to put her TV setback behind her, becoming a BAFTA and Oscar-winning actress and screen writer.

 

On Discs she also revealed that she was actually hired to write her Oscar-winning adaptation of Sense and Sensibility because the producer saw her sketch show at some ungodly hour in America and thought she could do it, so even that apparent failure carried a silver lining.

 

This is not a story I’ve ever told in my stints as an after-dinner speaker, but perhaps I should add it to the mix…