In the opening pages, Alison Steadman, an actor only a monster could fail to adore, tells us about meeting the audience after one of her first professional engagements. “And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the real me!” she declared.
I don’t doubt the protagonist of her amiable memoir is the real Steadman. But she also comes across as one of the author’s fictional creations. Not the monstrous Beverley from Mike Leigh’s immortal Abigail’s Party. More the warmest version of characters in later television shows such as Fat Friends and Gavin & Stacey. In year 2024, she still says “birds of the feathered variety” to distinguish (I assume) from a now near-extinct euphemism for young women. A proud Liverpudlian, Steadman, acknowledging the late St Cilla, really does tells us she has had a “lorra, lorra fun so far”. Those italics are hers. There are many more, some accompanied by exclamation points, in a book that often reads like transcription of a chatshow appearance.
One could scarcely imagine a more archetypically idyllic portrait of Merseyside in the 1960s. Inevitably, Steadman grows up a penalty kick away from Anfield as part of a close family that adores Liverpool Football Club (she has to later conceal her son’s support for Manchester United from his granny). She is banned from attending the Cavern Club, but sneaks in anyway and gets autographs from a charming Paul McCartney and a sour John Lennon. Her working-class parents are touchingly supportive when she goes to drama school and tolerant of her appearances in controversial projects such as The Singing Detective.
There is grist and insight here also. The depressingly familiar tale of a sexual assault (or something very like that) leads on to a much later, accidental encounter with the culprit. “I’ll never forget what you did, ever,” she says with great bravery. Fans of Abigail’s Party with thrill at her description of meeting a proto-Beverley at the make-up counter in Selfridges while creating the role in 1977.
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For the most part, however, Out of Character is an undemanding saunter through a largely happy life. There is little about her marriage to and divorce from Leigh. Few confidences seem to have been broken elsewhere. “We’re not here to hold conversations,” Beverley honked in Abigail’s Party. “We’re here to enjoy ourselves.” Fair enough.
