In my 20s I was in a show called The Unauthorised Autobiography of Samantha Brown. The actor who played my dad messed up his lines and it made me laugh so hard that I ended up peeing my pants.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2026 source ↗
The question
When were you most embarrassed?Originally asked
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In my 20s I was in a show called The Unauthorised Autobiography of Samantha Brown. The actor who played my dad messed up his lines and it made me laugh so hard that I ended up peeing my pants.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2026 source ↗
I constantly forget people’s names when they have literally just told me.
One horrible afternoon in Chicago when I forgot my words in The Marriage of Figaro, in a role I’d sung hundreds of times.
Shitting myself in New York last November. I was wearing cream trousers. We were going to see my son Matty and his band, the 1975, at Madison Square Garden, and I was walking through the streets, enjoying the sunshine, pretending I was in some kind of video – throwing my hat into the New York sky like Mary Tyler Moore. I saw a couple of people turn and look at me. Now, although I’m not famous in New York, whenever Matty’s there I do get recognised as his mum, so I’m smiling and waving at them. I went back to the hotel room and bent over to get something out of the suitcase, and my husband said: “Do you realise you’ve shat yourself?”
Gloria Hunniford’s wedding at Hever Castle 20-odd years ago. We had a lovely buffet and a few drinks and then I had to get a cab back to the train station. I said to the driver: “I’m ever so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to hang on till I get to the train. Could you possibly take me down this alleyway?” He said: “Yes, of course.” As I prepared myself to go “to the ladies”, this police car came along and the policeman said: “Hi-de-Hi!”
Curious, thoughtful and kind.
I had a casting director once stop me in the middle of an audition and tell me to go wash my face in the bathroom because she felt my makeup was too distracting, but I wasn’t wearing any. It was mortifying. It felt like a power play and I was so young, I didn’t know what to do.
When I realised that I could get myself through anything that came my way.
An inability to be authentic.
Crashing in an aeroplane into an ocean at night.
Your lowest moment is temporary.
Tom Allen, Edmund Hillary, Minnie Driver, Edward Enninful, Richard Eyre, Kerry Godliman
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