Perdita
17-10-2011, 17:33
She's the Tabloid Girl turned soap expert. Nine years after turning up for five minutes,This Morning's Sharon Marshall continues to present her hugely popular segment on the much-loved daytime magazine show. Now celebrating some of the nation's favourite 'Leading Ladies', we caught up with Sharon to talk golden oldies, serial killers, turning 40 and her book, which offered a revealing insight into her many years in tabloid journalism.
Can you tell us about your 'Leading Ladies' series?
"The whole idea of the 'Leading Ladies' is to celebrate people that we don't necessarily get to hear and know about as much, all the time. Betty for example, the wonderful Betty Eagleton who we had on last Tuesday, is great. You never see Betty on the front of a magazine, but she's one of those characters who we sort of know and love. To hear her talking about her memories of working with people like Seth is amazing. We should celebrate women in soap, because they are... We have the most wonderful characters out there. We completely take them to our hearts. 'Leading Ladies' celebrates these female heroes of soap."
Was it difficult to choose which ladies would be featured?
"God yes! We have a list of another 30. That's it, we started off with just Emmerdale and Coronation Street. We're hoping to do an EastEnders one before Christmas. Our initial list had something like 30 names, because there are some amazing women. I didn't want to make it all, and no disrespect to Betty, but I really wanted to get some golden oldies in there. A lot of the younger cast tend to get the headlines and the magazine covers, but actually, the ones we take to our hearts are the ones who remind us of our mothers or grandparents."
You've got Emmerdale's Emma Atkins and Coronation Street's Katherine Kelly coming up. What can you tell us about those?
"Emma was great because she doesn't do interviews that often, so it was an absolute pleasure to sit down with her. I know that there is an absolutely huge storyline coming up with Cain before the end of the year, so it was great to find out a bit more about what makes a character tick. In our mind we see her as this feisty schemer, but there's so many more layers to her and she has that vulnerability to her. Beneath that tough exterior, there is a gentleness underneath. With Betty, I'd forgotten that there was the whole thing about her not being able to have children. I'd forgotten about that, especially when you look at storylines like you've got Amy coming up, and you think, 'Ah, has this been gone through before with the older characters?'"
So you've featured a good mix of characters from icons to icons in the making.
"Exactly. We went for who are icons. We do tend to, as a nation, celebrate more younger people. They are the ones whose faces appear on the covers. But I tried to think, if you went to the sets, who would you really hope that you would bump into and have a chat with? It's nice to have time as well; usually you only get a couple of minutes or if they're on the sofa it's eight minutes and live. So it's great to have a proper sit down and go back down memory lane."
Will there be a 'Leading Men' series?
"We were actually... it's been suggested! I'd love to do it. I'd love to do a Golden Oldies series as well. We'd love some ideas from Digital Spy readers as well about what they'd like to see. That'd be great. Especially, with the Emmerdale anniversary coming up. Who would they like to know about? What would they like to see? It'd be great to get some ideas."
This soap section remains as popular as ever on This Morning, are you still enjoying it?
"Absolutely love it. I love that we do it two times a week. I do wish that we had another five minutes so that we could do Neighbours, Home and Away and Doctors. I wish we could do more. I try and put up on Twitter as much as I can in between, because it's difficult to fit it all in to five minutes."
This Morning continues to go from strength to strength. Is it as fun as ever to be part of the team there?
"It's brilliant. I came here nine years ago for five minutes and I've kind of never left. I adore it. You can actually sit here and go, 'OK, who do we fancy going to see? What do we fancy going to do?'. And I prefer existing in a fantasy world anyway! I think it's quite nice to talk about mythical people all day. It does slightly alarm people sometimes if I'm sitting in the green room talking about serial killer grandfathers and psychotic lesbians trying to burn people. I remember Sandy Toksvig was sitting beside us one day and said, 'You lead the most extraordinary life!'. We decided not to tell her."
Talking about soap characters as if they are real must confuse some people!
"I've always had a golden rule that each week before going on, that I ring the production and press offices and go through what gossip I'm going to be talking about - they're kind enough to tell me stuff a few months in advance, so I just check I'm not breaking any news plans they've got. Of course, I do sit there quite calmly discussing things, such as with Hollyoaks, whether or not the serial killer grandfather might kill his transgender grandson!"
Do you find that Hollyoaks is getting a lot more attention these days?
"I like the fact that Hollyoaks really feels like it's stepped it up the last year. They've been pretty brave with storylines. I absolutely love Brendan. It's great to see them taking home awards. It shows that they may not get the same ratings as the main three, but if people really get behind the show and characters, then they can still get awards. There's a huge buzz. Also with Doctors, there's a huge buzz around the Hollins family storyline at the minute. People really like it. The big three are always going to have an ardent fanbase, but it's wonderful to see the smaller soaps absolutely holding their own against the big guys."
It must get exciting for you around this time of year, as the on-screen build-up to Christmas begins?
"I can't wait! I'm so hoping we get to do a behind-the-scenes of the lesbian wedding in Coronation Street. It sounds amazing. Also, I was lucky enough that when I went up to filming at Emmerdale, the boss described what was going to happen on Christmas Day. I burst into tears just hearing what was going to happen. Just the way he described it, I thought, 'My God, that is going to be compelling TV'. In EastEnders, Albert Square will keep us glued to the edge of our seats. I can't wait for it all."
On a personal note, you recently celebrated a birthday - how are you finding being 40?
"I was keeping it secret until Phillip [Schofield] brought on a cake with '40' on it! I was trying to blow out the candles so you couldn't see how old I was. I was trying to keep it quiet, but no such chance. But Twitter is so lovely - I had lovely messages from everyone. My 30s, I was working away in tabloid journalism so I've got a much nicer job to do in my 40s. Well, not nicer, I was very proud to be a tabloid journalist, but I kind of like living in my fantasy world at the moment."
What else is coming up for you?
"There's a writing project, which I can't tell you about just now - sorry to be awkward! But good soap related writing stuff coming up. Also it looks like something is going to be happening with my Tabloid Girl book as well."
How did you find the reaction to Tabloid Girl?
"You know what, it's quite strange, because I wrote it before things kind of exploded. The way that I wrote it is that everyone in the tabloid industry knows who is exactly in the book, but nobody is named or identified. I used to work for the News of the World. I'm incredibly proud of the fact I did. Yes, we had rotten apples, yes there were things that were going wrong, but there were people there who became lifelong friends - good friends, good colleagues and good journalists. It's always heartbreaking when you see former friends in trouble and losing their jobs, but I still think tabloid newspapers will go ahead. It's an industry that I absolutely loved working in. On the upside of it, I suppose all the extra attention in the tabloid industry has been quite good, because it does look like Tabloid Girl is going to go into development now!"
Catch the latest in Sharon Marshall's 'Leading Ladies' series on This Morning tomorrow, from 10.30am on ITV1.
Can you tell us about your 'Leading Ladies' series?
"The whole idea of the 'Leading Ladies' is to celebrate people that we don't necessarily get to hear and know about as much, all the time. Betty for example, the wonderful Betty Eagleton who we had on last Tuesday, is great. You never see Betty on the front of a magazine, but she's one of those characters who we sort of know and love. To hear her talking about her memories of working with people like Seth is amazing. We should celebrate women in soap, because they are... We have the most wonderful characters out there. We completely take them to our hearts. 'Leading Ladies' celebrates these female heroes of soap."
Was it difficult to choose which ladies would be featured?
"God yes! We have a list of another 30. That's it, we started off with just Emmerdale and Coronation Street. We're hoping to do an EastEnders one before Christmas. Our initial list had something like 30 names, because there are some amazing women. I didn't want to make it all, and no disrespect to Betty, but I really wanted to get some golden oldies in there. A lot of the younger cast tend to get the headlines and the magazine covers, but actually, the ones we take to our hearts are the ones who remind us of our mothers or grandparents."
You've got Emmerdale's Emma Atkins and Coronation Street's Katherine Kelly coming up. What can you tell us about those?
"Emma was great because she doesn't do interviews that often, so it was an absolute pleasure to sit down with her. I know that there is an absolutely huge storyline coming up with Cain before the end of the year, so it was great to find out a bit more about what makes a character tick. In our mind we see her as this feisty schemer, but there's so many more layers to her and she has that vulnerability to her. Beneath that tough exterior, there is a gentleness underneath. With Betty, I'd forgotten that there was the whole thing about her not being able to have children. I'd forgotten about that, especially when you look at storylines like you've got Amy coming up, and you think, 'Ah, has this been gone through before with the older characters?'"
So you've featured a good mix of characters from icons to icons in the making.
"Exactly. We went for who are icons. We do tend to, as a nation, celebrate more younger people. They are the ones whose faces appear on the covers. But I tried to think, if you went to the sets, who would you really hope that you would bump into and have a chat with? It's nice to have time as well; usually you only get a couple of minutes or if they're on the sofa it's eight minutes and live. So it's great to have a proper sit down and go back down memory lane."
Will there be a 'Leading Men' series?
"We were actually... it's been suggested! I'd love to do it. I'd love to do a Golden Oldies series as well. We'd love some ideas from Digital Spy readers as well about what they'd like to see. That'd be great. Especially, with the Emmerdale anniversary coming up. Who would they like to know about? What would they like to see? It'd be great to get some ideas."
This soap section remains as popular as ever on This Morning, are you still enjoying it?
"Absolutely love it. I love that we do it two times a week. I do wish that we had another five minutes so that we could do Neighbours, Home and Away and Doctors. I wish we could do more. I try and put up on Twitter as much as I can in between, because it's difficult to fit it all in to five minutes."
This Morning continues to go from strength to strength. Is it as fun as ever to be part of the team there?
"It's brilliant. I came here nine years ago for five minutes and I've kind of never left. I adore it. You can actually sit here and go, 'OK, who do we fancy going to see? What do we fancy going to do?'. And I prefer existing in a fantasy world anyway! I think it's quite nice to talk about mythical people all day. It does slightly alarm people sometimes if I'm sitting in the green room talking about serial killer grandfathers and psychotic lesbians trying to burn people. I remember Sandy Toksvig was sitting beside us one day and said, 'You lead the most extraordinary life!'. We decided not to tell her."
Talking about soap characters as if they are real must confuse some people!
"I've always had a golden rule that each week before going on, that I ring the production and press offices and go through what gossip I'm going to be talking about - they're kind enough to tell me stuff a few months in advance, so I just check I'm not breaking any news plans they've got. Of course, I do sit there quite calmly discussing things, such as with Hollyoaks, whether or not the serial killer grandfather might kill his transgender grandson!"
Do you find that Hollyoaks is getting a lot more attention these days?
"I like the fact that Hollyoaks really feels like it's stepped it up the last year. They've been pretty brave with storylines. I absolutely love Brendan. It's great to see them taking home awards. It shows that they may not get the same ratings as the main three, but if people really get behind the show and characters, then they can still get awards. There's a huge buzz. Also with Doctors, there's a huge buzz around the Hollins family storyline at the minute. People really like it. The big three are always going to have an ardent fanbase, but it's wonderful to see the smaller soaps absolutely holding their own against the big guys."
It must get exciting for you around this time of year, as the on-screen build-up to Christmas begins?
"I can't wait! I'm so hoping we get to do a behind-the-scenes of the lesbian wedding in Coronation Street. It sounds amazing. Also, I was lucky enough that when I went up to filming at Emmerdale, the boss described what was going to happen on Christmas Day. I burst into tears just hearing what was going to happen. Just the way he described it, I thought, 'My God, that is going to be compelling TV'. In EastEnders, Albert Square will keep us glued to the edge of our seats. I can't wait for it all."
On a personal note, you recently celebrated a birthday - how are you finding being 40?
"I was keeping it secret until Phillip [Schofield] brought on a cake with '40' on it! I was trying to blow out the candles so you couldn't see how old I was. I was trying to keep it quiet, but no such chance. But Twitter is so lovely - I had lovely messages from everyone. My 30s, I was working away in tabloid journalism so I've got a much nicer job to do in my 40s. Well, not nicer, I was very proud to be a tabloid journalist, but I kind of like living in my fantasy world at the moment."
What else is coming up for you?
"There's a writing project, which I can't tell you about just now - sorry to be awkward! But good soap related writing stuff coming up. Also it looks like something is going to be happening with my Tabloid Girl book as well."
How did you find the reaction to Tabloid Girl?
"You know what, it's quite strange, because I wrote it before things kind of exploded. The way that I wrote it is that everyone in the tabloid industry knows who is exactly in the book, but nobody is named or identified. I used to work for the News of the World. I'm incredibly proud of the fact I did. Yes, we had rotten apples, yes there were things that were going wrong, but there were people there who became lifelong friends - good friends, good colleagues and good journalists. It's always heartbreaking when you see former friends in trouble and losing their jobs, but I still think tabloid newspapers will go ahead. It's an industry that I absolutely loved working in. On the upside of it, I suppose all the extra attention in the tabloid industry has been quite good, because it does look like Tabloid Girl is going to go into development now!"
Catch the latest in Sharon Marshall's 'Leading Ladies' series on This Morning tomorrow, from 10.30am on ITV1.