Posted by Bonnie on 24 April 2007 at
12:00
Tipping the Velvet star Rachael Stirling made a flying visit to Scotland yesterday to back the party launched by her dad earlier this year.
The star of the historical drama was handing out leaflets supporting her dad Archie, who has joined forces with NHSFirst for the Scottish Voice party. They are fielding 15 candidates in the election.
Rachael, 29, currently appearing in The Taming Of The Shrew, in London, said: "I am very proud of my pa who, at a time in his life when he would rather be playing golf, has put his head above the parapet and said to our politicians at Holyrood, 'This is just not good enough.'
"He is brave and defiant and an object lesson to us all. I had to come up for the day to show my support."
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Posted by Bonnie on 24 April 2007 at
12:00
As his campaign to be elected to the Scottish Parliament continues apace, former newspaper man — and more recently, Press Gazette Scottish correspondent — Hamish Mackay, really ought to give up the fags….
Although I constantly carp about my esteemed leader, Archie Stirling's lack of political nous and utter ignorance of the dark skills of Machiavellianism, there's obviously nothing wrong with his genes.
Archie and his winsome actress daughter, Rachael, the offspring of his marriage to the actress, Diana Rigg, are splashed all over the public press on the stump in Stirling (sic) yesterday.
This will surely at last bring a faint smile to our two greetin', grim -faced media advisers, Gordon Hay and Ian McKerron, who are constantly pressing me for exclusives which I am adamantly keeping up my sleeve for my own bunch of admiring sycophantic political hacks.
Still, the dreadful duo should probably get a bigger slice of Rachael Stirling's exquisite cherry cake today as a reward for getting something right at last.
The dosh-laden SNP took grossly expensivecolour advertisements in some newspapers yesterday to reveal the names of a 100 members of the business community who are rooting for it.
Anguished that my good friend, Stewart Spence, mine host of the five-star Marcliffe at Pitfodel Hotel and Spa in Aberdeen, whom I advise on media matters in my day-time job, is amongst them (fortunately for Stewart, he's abroad on holiday), I scan the list for other names which I might know.
Lo and behold there's a Hamish Mackay and a Neil Mackay ( my old man's name). Thank you, Kevin Pringle, for the plug, but where on earth is my shares dividend from Scotia Cars?
I am bound for the Aros Centre on Skye on Thursday night to give yet another brilliant hustings polemic on a panel which includes the SNP's Mike Russell, who is no mean scribbler and oratorical bore himself. It will be a good opportunity to renew my love/hate relationship with the querulous Lesley Riddoch, who, like myself, has Caithness roots, and is also now a teetotaller, and can bore for Britain about it.
The feisty Lesley is chairing the meeting …and I am determined to take no bossy boots nonsense from this daunting dame. My cunning plan is be briefed by Rachel Stirling, over a large latte, on her current role in 'The Taming of the Shrew', in London's West End, for a tip or two.
The West Highland Free Press informs me the event will also feature musical entertainment (yippee), and entry is free …although booking a seat is advisable? Boo! That means I will actually have to speak to nit-picking voters who keep putting their oar in about how they could run Scotland better than Archie and I — moaning about the price of Norman Cameron's Loch Torridon oak-smoked salmon.
I take a break from writing this splendid nonsense at 5am to nip to the filling station for my daily doze of fags and newspapers, and come back to my penthouse suite on the 16th floor of my council-owned multi-storey, at Inverdon Court, to find I have locked myself out at ground
level, and shiver for an hour in a tee-shirt and slippers until a nurse heading for her hospital allows me in. I make a mental note to speak to Gordon Brown about a swingeing pay rise for these Florence Nightingales.
Fortified by my seventh cup of coffee of the morning, the Press and Journal tells me that the count in the Gordon seat won't be announced until around 6am on May 4 which could mean SNP leader Alex Salmond may have his party in power without knowing if he will be a putative First Minister.
I feel a pang of sympathy for the mental ordeal facing Alex but then recall that he gave me a totally bum tip at Perth race course some years ago, and my compassion evaporates.
To keep my bosum pal, broadcaster, Robbie Shepherd, and BBC Scotland sweet, I am going to give you a touch of Doric every morning. And for reasons of political correctness, I promise to do something similar for the girning Gaels next week.
Today's Doric translation is: Accountable — 'fa's heid's on the block if a'thing gings erse ower tit.'
Messrs Hay and McKerron, please take note. You are nothing, if not expendable.
Cheers for now.
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Posted by Bonnie on 1 April 2007 at
12:00
Feisty, independent and determined, actress and Kensal Rise resident Rachael Stirling is not unlike the next character she's about to play, as Alistair Duncan discovers.
Rachael Stirling is wolfing down a chicken salad and showing me her 'knuckleduster'. "It's from India," she explains, clenching her first to reveal an enormous ring, spanning her middle, index and ring fingers and studded with 20 pointy fake diamonds. It looks like it could deliver a scratch a panther would be proud of.
"I imagine it would come in handy if I had to swing a punch," says the 29-year-old actress who shot to fame as Nancy Astley in Tipping the Velvet, arching two jet-black eyebrows, in a way that offers glimpses of her mother, Diana Rigg.
It's a fashion accessory, of course ("My bling ring"), but she reckons that it would come in pretty handy for self-defence. So does Rachael Stirling need to watch her back? Actually, yes. The other day she was wandering down Westbourne Grove, she tells me, when a "little shitbag" raced up behind her on a motorbike.
"He came up on the pavement at about 10 at night," she says with polished vowel sounds that hint at her Wycombe Abbey education.
"I remember thinking: 'What's he doing driving so fast?' But before I knew it, he whizzed by, grabbed my phone and tried to dash off at 100 miles per hour. Of course, the stupid arse dropped it, so I picked it up and shouted abuse at him. Anyway, the moral is, do what they say on the posters. Don't bring your phone out after dark."
This story, albeit a fairly unpleasant one, brilliantly captures Rachael Stirling. It's not that she's prone to being bullied or that she walks around with 'Victim' branded on her forehead. Far from it. It's rather that she gives as good as she gets. In the boarding school vocabulary that peppers Stirling's upper-crust (and often expletive-heavy) speech, she's 'plucky'. Sitting opposite me in a black, frilly boiler suit from Nancy Pop on Kensington Church Street, her china doll complexion belies her ballsy demeanour.
So, it's only fitting that the latest role she has bagged is Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew — Shakespeare's feistiest female by a yard. "It's a delicious part that I absolutely identify with," she says, "independent, determined — and fiercely so. She vents her frustration through anger, she has no other way of expressing it. She's part Miss Piggy and part Tank Girl. But, of course, she meets her match in Petruchio and they fall in love."
The play is at Wilton's Music Hall, in the heart of Dickensian East London. This involves quite a schlep to work for Rachael as she is and, by the sounds of it, always will be, a West London girl.
She grew up in Earl's Court, where her parents, actress Dame Diana Rigg, Sixties pin-up and star of The Avengers, and Scottish landowner and former Scots Guard officer Archie Stirling owned a townhouse. She studied History of Art at Edinburgh University, but soon migrated back to London and set herself up in Notting Hill.
"But reality dawned," she concedes. "I was living in rented accommodation and I couldn't afford it. So, I moved to Kensal Rise. I found this artisan cottage, in this area built for railway engineers and their families in the 1880s. It's a wonderful area. It's got a proper old-fashioned sense of community to it, a very rare thing in London. I know my neighbours and I know the lady who lives at the end of my street. She needs looking in on every once in a while." She admits that she would still love to own her own mansion in Notting Hill ("I'm hoping to make a killing in voiceover work!") and it's fairly clear this area is still her main stomping ground.
"Sometimes I meet pals for cocktails at E&O. Also, I go to The Cow a lot. Also, The Fat Badger, and The Salusbury in Queen's Park. Sometimes, it's The Mason's Arms on Harrow Road. But my favourite pub in the world is the Cock & Bottle: mainly because Richard the barman has put up with my drunken antics so many times. I owe him several pints."
I mention it's meant to have a legendary pub quiz, which Rachael confirms with a knowing chuckle. "It's great. I did it because Christmas, but everyone was getting on the internet on their mobile phones. I said, OK then. When it came to the music round, I called up my DJ mate. He told me the answer. Ha ha. Who takes pub quizzes seriously, anyway? People are so anal."
She says her favourite restaurant is Osteria Basilica ("Delicious — it's the best Italian in London!") and also rates Oporto Patisserie on Golborne Road ("Great for coffee and a snack.")
Tipping the Velvet was the making of the actress. The BBC drama about a lesbian relationship in Victorian times generated predictable tabloid titillation. Rachael got harassed by swarms of paparazzi, which annoyed her because she can't be dealing with "that aspect of our culture, celebrity obsession — not my job". Also, it led to a rather unsavoury fan base.
"One man traced his cock on the back of an envelope and wrote, 'actual life size'. Another said, 'I only work in Tesco's in Wolverhampton but I do have very firm buttocks. Please feel free to stop by and have a feel.'"
Inevitably, throughout Rachael's career comparisons with her mother have loomed large. Initially, it used to rile her that the question journalists pose would always be, could she step out of her mother's shadow? But now she feels that she has done enough. Often, her mother never even comes up in interviews. But Rachael is more than happy to speak about her 'Ma'.
"Ma is, after all, an integral part of my life. And the thing is that we have this common language, this shared profession. It's a real privilege to have someone in your family who does the same thing as you. Quite often, we compare notes and ideas. She'll be in a play and I'll say: 'you're meant to be playing an old woman. You looked a bit too agile going up those steps.' And she'll give me some ideas, things that I haven't thought of before."
Rachael starts eyeing her watch and suggests that we better hurry up. I decide I might as well get nosy. "Is there anyone special in her life at the moment?" I ask, hoping to elicit some juicy titbit. But what I get is a verbal slap in the face.
"You cheeky sod!" she hoots. "Even if there was I wouldn't tell you." Oh well. Worth a shot.
As we settle the bill, leave the pub and shake hands, that fake diamond ring glistens in the morning sun and I think: I got off lightly.
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