Actress, comedienne and producer Kathy Burke was on Radio 4s Desert Island Discs today. As Kathy Burke is one of my ‘people I’d like to have round a dinner table’ choices I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say. Whatever it was, I knew it would be much more frank and down-to-earth than the usual luvvies they have on. I was right! She was, as always, funny, honest and self-deprecating. She talked candidly about her difficult upbringing. Her mother died of cancer when Kathy was young and her father was strict and often violent. When asked who she based the character of Perry on in Harry Enfield’s show, she said he was herself as a 13 year old; awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin. Punk music liberated her, a genre that allowed her to dress how she wanted and look how she wanted without being judged. Weirdly, her music choices mirrored mine (although I’m ten years older) with Joy Division’s classic Love Will Tear Us Apart and T Rex’s takes-me-straight-back-to-Y9- Ride A White Swan included.
Kathy as Linda La Hughes in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.