Paula Wilcox tells Steve Pratt that she has really enjoyed bringing haunted Miss Haversham to life in the latest adaptation of Great Expectations

HOW refreshing to hear Paula Wilcox say that the roles are getting more interesting the older she gets. None of this “there aren’t enough decent parts for more mature actresses”

that comes out of the mouths of many an older performer (usually because they’ve been unemployed for some time).

The public may still cling to the notion of her as Chrissy in the ITV sitcom Man About The House in the mid- 1970s as one of three houesharers, (two girls and a boy, at a time when co-habitating was a naughty novelty), but she points out that away from TV in the theatre she has tended to break the mould and do more serious stuff.

She’s currently playing Miss Haversham, one of literature’s most embittered spinsters, in a new touring production of Great Expectations, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel.

SHE’S the jilted bride, you may remember, who’s never got over a lost love and insists on wearing her wedding dress all those years later.

“She’s a very warped person because of what happened to her,” says Wilcox. “Because she’s suffered greatly, she’s terribly abusive to those around her. She’s possessed by a huge anger and a tragic sense of having been wronged in life. Her age is never stated, but she’s someone who’s wasted away. She’s atrophied because of her hatred of men and stopped growing emotionally.

“She’s completely dried up inside, almost no human feelings until she realises what she’s done, not just with her own life but Estella’s and Pip’s life. She’s deeply tragic.”

Wilcox read the book at school and has seen the David Lean film version from 1946 starring John Mills and, most memorably, Martita Hunt as Miss Haversham.

“You try to forget the image of her. It’s so horrible and I think that she’s the one that lingers. I haven’t seen the film for quite a few years, but re-read the book. I first read it at school. Sometimes if you are very young you can be quite decisive about characters and quite judgemental. “Dickens does have a strong voice about child abuse and adults with power abusing their power over those much weaker than themselves.”

She even admits to “sort of liking” Miss Haversham, or at least parts of her – she’s very uncompromising and very clear.

“She’s such a strong woman albeit very evil,” adds Wilcox.

“What’s nice is that, as I’m getting old, I’m getting tough women to play, which is great.”

The character she’s playing in Sky’s current series of Mount Pleasant is such a role, a woman who’s had a life and toughened up. “It’s nice to play people who’ve been through a bit of rough and tumble,” she adds.

Because of her TV roles Wilcox is often seen as a “rather nice person”, partly as a result of doing a lot of comedy on the box right from her first job, the sitcom The Lovers opposite Richard Beckinsale. They only made 13 episodes of the Jack Rosenthalscripted series, but it was huge at the time. Then Man About The House consolidated her reputation as a comedy actress.

Theatre, like Great Expectations, offers something different.

What attracted her to the project was the script by Jo Clifford.

“It’s a very good adaptation. It’s concentrated, but addresses the story of Pip very clearly,” she explains.

“All the characters who are in the play are very clearly delineated so you know why they’re behaving the way they do.

You get to really understand the characters and start to empathise with them, and not just Pip and the good types like Joe.

“In the theatre, the main thing that attracts me to a part is the script, and who’s going to direct and produce. Those are the things, and if you have got that you at least know it’s going to be fun to work on.”

SHE, or rather Miss Haversham, also gets a very fine costume.

Her wedding dress has been designed by Giovanni Bedin for the House of Worth. There’s even a Dickens connection – Frederick Worth, who created the first couture house, was a contemporary of Charles Dickens, whose bicentenary is being celebrated this year.

Wilcox very much likes the works of Dickens. Studying Great Expectations at school has helped her on this production.

“Sometimes if you’ve been forced to read something you learn not to be scared of it. I love Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

They are great stories.”

She can see why Dickens’ work has endured. “He was a complicated character himself but he wrote great stories and his characters, even the most straightforward ones, all have back stories. And, of course, he had this massive social conscience.”

  • Great Expectations: Darlington Civic Theatre, Tuesday to next Saturday. Box Office: 01325-486555 and darlingtonarts.co.uk