Christine Baranski

This week we’re beyond excited to welcome the fabulous Christine Baranski to the table. Christine joined us fresh from rehearsals for her West End debut in 'Hay Fever' alongside Richard E Grant, so we had plenty to talk about. We heard about Christine growing up in a Polish-American family in Buffalo, her nana’s theatrical influence, the Christmas traditions she keeps alive with her own family, how she went from Broadway to becoming a television star in Cybill and also some fab on set stories from The Gilded Age and Mamma Mia - plus we get Christine’s take on whether a third film could be on the cards 👀 Thank you Christine for such a wonderful afternoon. You can see Christine alongside Richard E Grant in Hay Fever at the Wyndham’s Theatre. Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/ Follow Table Manners on: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcast Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcast YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and we're in Mum's Kitchen for, well, you are so excited, Mum.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  I'm so excited. I'm a super fan, burgeoning on Stalker.

• 0:14Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I think, because I'm so excited by meeting Agnes, Diane, Tanya.

• 0:23Jessie Ware?

  Oh my god, Mum. We've got Christine Baransky coming on the podcast.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  AKA Diane Lockhart, Tanya from Mamma Mia.

• 0:31Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  And Agnes Van Ryan from Gilded Age.

• 0:35Jessie Ware?

  Wow. First name terms. I just know she's going to be... Hair's looking great, Mum.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Now, I'm trying my best. Wait to see her hair, Jess. She has the biggest, best hair you've ever seen. And if she doesn't, I'm going to be really miserable and disappointed.

• 0:51Jessie Ware?

  Won't let her in?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:52Jessie Ware?

  Christine Baransky is coming on to talk about being on the West End with Richard E. Grant in Hay Fever at the Windham's. And that just sounds perfect to me. Noel Coward.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Noel Coward.

• 1:06Jessie Ware?

  Christine, Richard.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Perfect. We're going.

• 1:11Jessie Ware?

  I think I'm going to miss it because I'll be on tour.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  No, we'll find a spot.

• 1:15Jessie Ware?

  I'd like to. She's in rehearsals, so she's coming straight from rehearsals now. And we're very excited to have her. And Mum is on cooking duty. What have you made?

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Oh god. I've made salmon with turmeric, chilli, ginger and vermicelli noodles.

• 1:32Jessie Ware?

  Come and tell everyone where it's from.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  From our favourite cookbook of the year. 'Tis the cookbook of the year for me. It's the greatest dry-baked cookbook by our gorgeous John Gregory Smith, who's getting married soon.

• 1:45Jessie Ware?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  We need to send him a wedding present.

• 1:48Jessie Ware?

  It is the gift that keeps on giving. I think it's probably the cookbook that we've used the most.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  I haven't done a salad. Do you think I need a salad to go with the salmon? It's got vegetables on it.

• 1:58Jessie Ware?

  Does it have like beans and stuff in it?

• 2:00Speaker 01

  No, it has spring onions.

• 2:03Jessie Ware?

  That's not a salad, Mum.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Shall I do a little gem salad?

• 2:06Jessie Ware?

  I would have done it with like sugar snaps or...

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Well, he didn't say to serve it with anything because it's like with vermicelli, but I could just do some little gem lettuce.

• 2:16Jessie Ware?

  If you want.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Or broccoli.

• 2:17Jessie Ware?

  Maybe broccoli. Do broccoli.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:20Jessie Ware?

  I think broccoli with some sesame oil and lime and sesame seeds.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:24Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Fuck off. I haven't got, I haven't factored that in.

• 2:28Jessie Ware?

  Okay, don't worry then.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  I'll have to get my broccoli out.

• 2:31Jessie Ware?

  Christine Baransky coming up on Table Manners.

• 2:41Jessie Ware?

  Christine Baransky, thank you for being here.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:45Jessie Ware?

  As I told you at the door, you may not be allowed to leave.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Fine with me. I'm in good company.

• 2:50Jessie Ware?

  No, Mum, just tell Christine what you do when you go to the hairdresser.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  I take a photo of you.

• 2:56Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  I'd like that my hair, I want big hair like Christine Baransky.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Well, I lucked out. I do have nice, you know, I have nice, thick hair.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  You've got very thick hair. Can you do it yourself well?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  I can. My little secret, I have electric curlers. And what I do, it's good old fashioned electric curlers. And I put them in just for maybe 10 minutes, take them out and either put a Velcro in, like a big Velcro, then take it out and I get that sort of blow-dried look. Because I don't know, how do women blow-dry their own hair?

• 3:30Jessie Ware?

  I'm so bad at it.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Well, do you really want to spend that amount of time going like that?

• 3:37Jessie Ware?

  It's like a bar class. It's, you know, it's exhausting.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  So hair is an issue.

• 3:42Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  It's a real thing for, for women and for men now too.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  How are you going to wear it on Hay Fever?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I'm going to have a wig.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Are you?

• 3:50Speaker 02

  And it's 1920, so it's short and I want, I sort of love this look, but it'll, it'll be a bob. The women then had a bob with various hair ornaments and, you know, beautiful costumes.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Where are we up to in the Gilded Age in terms of time? Is it 19?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Oh no, it's, it's 18.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Still 18?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, we're still in there. We're still...

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Because there was a motor car in it.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Yes, but that was just the beginning of a motor car. No, this Gilded Age takes place shortly after the Civil War, when there was an economic boom in the North. And it was really the beginning of American capitalism. And you're seeing this extraordinary display of wealth because these robber barons were rather like the robber barons of today, these billionaires. They were just making so much money and they invested it in buildings and architecture and a way of life that imitated European royalty, really. They wanted to live like princes and kings.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  And so they imported all of this, all of this furniture, paintings, whole buildings from Europe to replicate palaces and villas and castles that the Europeans could no longer afford to maintain that. So they were selling off their, their houses.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean? And that's why...

• 5:15Speaker 01

  So they were buying it all up.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  In the Gilded Age, the, you know, we called them million dollar princesses. The mothers gave, wanted their daughters to marry European royalties. So they, they had the money, the American families had the money, the Europeans had the titles.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  So that's the story of, you know, Consuela Vanderbilt, you know, she didn't want to marry the Duke, but she did. And then she wound up having a rather really worthwhile life because she became someone who was very active politically for women's rights. Anyway, it's a fascinating age and so many Americans and probably English as well, do not know about this period in American history.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the old money. You're old money, aren't you?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I'm very old money.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Old no money now.

• 6:06Jessie Ware?

  Of course she's old money.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  No, she's old no money.

• 6:09Jessie Ware?

  Oh, oh, oh, oh, because I lost money.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  She lost all her money with her reckless son.

• 6:14Jessie Ware?

  How many seasons?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  You're on to four now, aren't you?

• 6:16Speaker 02

  You, have you seen the fourth season?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Maybe you haven't. It's, oh no, of course you haven't seen it. You've seen, the public has seen three seasons. The fourth season will be released in November in America, but I don't know when.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I think it's January here.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, you're going to love it. It's so extraordinary. And we're, we're hoping for a fifth season because it's become so popular.

• 6:41Jessie Ware?

  I haven't watched it yet. I am desperate to, I'm going on tour soon and I'm going to be in America, so I'm going to, I'm going to enjoy this. But my mum and everyone that I speak to that has watched it is obsessed.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  And you have a huge gay following.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I think we've got a lot in common.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  We do.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  And also, we have something else in common, that we go to Skopulos. That's where I've got a little house.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  No, no. Was this before Mamma Mia?

• 7:10Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I loved Skopulos.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  I was just coming back.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Was it spared all the fires and all from, you know, coast to coast?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Skopulos wasn't hit by fires.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Thank god. We shot Mamma Mia one in Skypos.

• 7:25Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  And Skopulos, but Skopulos, all that green, all those beautiful evergreen trees. It's gorgeous. That's where I shot Does Your Mother Know on the beach.

• 7:36Jessie Ware?

  Castani Beach is now a big kind of party beach. And I feel like you're responsible for that.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 7:46Jessie Ware?

  It wasn't a beach before. They kind of created it for the, for the film. And then it became the Mamma Mia Beach.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  But Jessie also was in a Mamma Mia, choosing someone to appear in Mamma Mia. So she knows Judy Kramer very well.

• 8:03Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Judy Kramer.

• 8:04Jessie Ware?

  I know. Well, I mean...

• 8:05Speaker 02

  She's now my girlfriend.

• 8:06Jessie Ware?

  She's fabida.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  She is fabulous. I have a beautiful place to live in London, thanks to Judy Kramer, because I said, Judy, I'm, I'm coming to London to do this play. Any ideas? I think I'd like to live kind of Chelsea Kensington. She had a friend who rents out a townhouse. I'm now in this beautiful, beautiful neighbourhood in Kensington. But Judy and I, she's Tanya one, because she was the orig, she identifies with...

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Tanya.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Tanya, of course, Judy Kramer. Anyone who knows Judy Kramer would know she's Tanya. And so she's T1 and I'm T2. So when we do emails, like, hi, T1, T2 here, do you know, she put me onto hairdressers, reflexologists, physio, colour, you know, I have Judy Kramer's team for, you know, while I'm in London. Not a bad team.

• 9:00Jessie Ware?

  I, we're going to talk about many things, but I do feel like we should talk about Mamma Mia 3. What do we feel?

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Well, everybody asks about it. Judy is working on it. I can only say, you know, I've always been reluctant to say anything because it goes viral and it spreads like brush fire, even if you say maybe. Everybody, especially the gays, say, oh, no, it's happening. I don't know if it's happening, but Donna Langley, who is, you know, the head of Universal Studios, she greenlights projects. She actually was on a red carpet saying, yes, there will be a Mamma Mia three.

• 9:35Jessie Ware?

  So we're campaigning for Skopulos.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Oh, I know.

• 9:39Jessie Ware?

  We finish your return back, yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Oh, that would be so great to go back to Greece. We had so much fun.

• 9:45Jessie Ware?

  Um, can we go back to where you grew up? And who was around the dinner table and what was a memorable dish from your childhood?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Oh, it's so sweet. As I was driving here, I was looking in the neighborhood. I thought, this is somewhat like where I grew up because it was a real neighborhood. It was a Polish-American neighborhood and all the houses were all close together. There was, everybody had a little narrow driveway. My best friend was right across the street. The town park was right down the street. The public pool was there. I walked to grammar school. I walked to church. I grew up in a Polish Catholic setting and it was a, a blue collar neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. And because it was Polish-American, my grandmother, my nana, lived with us.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  She was my father's mother and she lived with us until I was eight years old. And it was a very happy childhood up till then because we celebrated Polish traditions and my grandmother and my mother were wonderful cooks. And I remember growing up with Polish cooking and Christmas was Polish mushroom soup and pierogies and beautifully prepared food. And we would sit at Christmas Eve for what's called vigilia and have the Christmas Eve and then go to midnight mass. Much of what my upbringing was based on Polish Catholic traditions. And as I said, I, I went to Polish Catholic school.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  I mean, we didn't speak Polish in the school, but, but it was Polish-American. And we had to go to mass every morning and certainly every Sunday. And then I went to high school at a all-girls Catholic high school. So my upbringing was very much influenced by a Polish-American background and by people who loved Polish cooking. The sad thing is, uh, my dad died when I was eight years old.

• 11:44Jessie Ware?

  Oh, that's very young.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  And my mother, who loved cooking and she was a wonderful baker. She could follow a recipe precisely and she made wonderful cakes, pies, doughnuts. She loved being a housewife. When my dad got back from the war, they got married. And she was one of those 50s housewives. She wanted to stay home and have a family. Well, he died suddenly of an aneurysm and suddenly she had to be the breadwinner. So after that, I became like a latchkey kid who came home and I knew mom was going to come home from work and she would, she wouldn't have time to prepare a nice meal. So it was canned food and frozen food and, and, you know, food that was quickly prepared.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  And she'd come home from work usually in a bad mood from having a stressful job. So my, there were two parts of my childhood. One was before my father died. And then after the age of eight, uh, we moved away from my beloved grandma. And then it was another, we moved into another house and I had another kind of childhood without, without my dad. With my mom having to be, you know, the single mom raising kids.

• 12:58Jessie Ware?

  Was it just, were you an only child?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  No, I had an older brother.

• 13:02Jessie Ware?

  And what, so take us through that Christmas Eve Polish dinner. Is it lots of fish?

• 13:09Speaker 02

  It's fish. It's a day of fast. So we had breaded, it was usually breaded, flounder and homemade pierogi and cabbage. But the pièce de résistance was the Polish mushroom soup. And that was made with imported, they called them gzybe, Polish mushrooms. And they would usually, we'd have to go to the Polish market to get the Polish mushrooms. But it took a few days to make this soup and so the house smelled. I mean, I still, it's, I can, I can, you know, just recall how the house felt. And, you know, when there's cooking going on for days in a house, the vibe in the house is just so beautiful.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And, um, there was great care taken with the setting of the table, the white tablecloth and the candles and the decorations. And I was a little girl and I remember just loving, just the atmosphere in the house was so happy. And then after dinner, we went into the living room and sang Christmas carols. Some of them were Polish Christmas carols, some of them were, yeah. But we all sat around and sang Christmas carols and then opened presents. So Christmas for me is the happiest memory for me as a child was the Polish Christmases. And then, and then not having them after my dad died. It was never quite the same.

• 14:35Jessie Ware?

  I'm sorry.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Oh, that's all right. Things, every life has some, some story.

• 14:41Jessie Ware?

  When did you start acting then? So you, did you go to an after-school club or was it later?

• 14:48Speaker 02

  So this grandmother that, that lived with us, she was an actress in the Polish theater in Buffalo.

• 14:55Jessie Ware?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  And she married my grandfather. I did not know my paternal grandfather. He died before I was born.

• 15:04Jessie Ware?

  Was he Polish as well?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, he was Polish. And they acted in the Polish community theater in Buffalo. And my grandmother also sang. She sang in operettas. And she had a beautiful singing voice, but I remember growing up with a woman. We shared a bedroom. We had twin beds and she, she and I shared a room in the back of the house. And she was warm and emotionally generous and eccentric. And she, I always said she was like my Auntie Mame, you know? She was, um, kind of worldly. She had European friends, you know, friends who definitely were, were Polish and they came. And sometimes they would party late into the night and Nana was there singing and making a lot of noise in the living room with her friends.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  But she, she had a great influence on me. She had a, a real theatricality to her. And I think she also loved performing. She loved singing. She loved Polish dance. My fondest memory of my father was going to see a Polish dancing and singing troupe called Szlonsk. And they performed in, um, Kleinhand's Music Hall, which was like the Carnegie Hall of Buffalo, still is. And he took me, and this was shortly before he died. I was a little girl. I must have been seven or eight. And I was on a date with my dad. He was a very big man, tall man. And I was sitting on the aisle and he was sitting next to me. And it was all of this Polish folk dancing, right?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  And they, beautiful, beautiful costumes and twirling dancing and everything. And at the curtain call, this, this troupe of singers and dancers, they had these beautiful long scarves. And they waved scarves at the audience to say goodbye. And suddenly I heard my father, because the audience was applauding, and I heard my father shouting, bravo, very loudly. And I looked up and tears were running down his face. And he was shouting and I was so embarrassed that my father was, you know, I'd never heard such a thing. And I said, tatush.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Tatush means father in Polish, tatush, you know, stop. And, uh, he was so moved by the performance. And I will never forget that because I thought, wow, my father had such a love of the performing arts.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  That I think that lasted me my whole life. That my father and my grandmother loved music. They loved ballet. They loved certainly Polish folk music. And so I grew up with people who loved, who appreciated performance. And my dad wanted me to study ballet. So from a young age, I went to ballet class. My mother, then after my dad died, she said she couldn't afford it. So I'd go one, one day a week on a Saturday morning, I would go down the block to Eugenia Zostempovski's dance studio.

• 18:14Jessie Ware?

  Wow, that's so helpful.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And she married someone named Smith, so she became Jeannie Smith.

• 18:21Jessie Ware?

  Well done.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  From Eugenia Zostempovski, may she rest in peace. And I took a half hour of ballet and a half hour of tap dancing. That was my first training as a performer. How much can you learn in a half an hour? But we had a dance recital and we did tap and we had ballet. And from there, I entered high school. And there was a wonderful drama teacher. And I finally maybe auditioned for her or something. But by the end of my sophomore year, I started doing plays. And I think she recognized that I had talent. And so then I started doing more.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  And by the, my senior year, I played Mame in Mame. So that was our big school play. And so that's, that's the beginning of the story. But then while I was in high school, I read an article in Buffalo Evening News, our, you know, local paper, that Juilliard was opening an acting division. Uh, cause the Juilliard School was known.

• 19:28Jessie Ware?

  What was it before?

• 19:28Speaker 02

  It was strictly music.

• 19:30Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Juilliard didn't have dance and acting until the late sixties. So in nineteen sixty-eight, it opened up the drama division. And I read about this and I thought, oh, I'd do anything to go to New York and to study. And so I put the article on, on my wall and I said, that's my goal. I really want to go there. So it's a long story of how I got in, cause I was waitlisted. But I did, I got into Juilliard. And then that was really the beginning of a very nice, long trajectory. Cause it was really good training.

• 20:06Jessie Ware?

  Can we talk about hay fever?

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:09Jessie Ware?

  So you've just come from rehearsals.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  I know.

• 20:11Jessie Ware?

  How's Richard E. Grant?

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Oh, he's divine.

• 20:13Jessie Ware?

  You two together.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  He should be here with me.

• 20:16Jessie Ware?

  Oh, we love him. Please have him in a good word.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Oh, God. I, I love, I do interviews, but I, my favorite is to do interviews with Richard E. Grant. Uh, he is.

• 20:26Jessie Ware?

  You could have brought him.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Could I?

• 20:28Jessie Ware?

  He'd be so welcome.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  I'm going to, I'm going to tell him that.

• 20:31Jessie Ware?

  How, yeah, how many, how long have you been rehearsing for?

• 20:35Speaker 02

  I think we're in our third week, but I'd started working on the script months ago. I would take this script, which I have in my purse, onto the set of The Gilded Age. And in between takes, I would just be working, working, working on, on Judith Bliss to learn the lines because it's an English role, of course. And I'm doing this on the West End with all English actors.

• 21:01Jessie Ware?

  How's the English accent going?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  I'm trying. I'm, I'm, I'm, and it, you know, it's tedibly, tedibly. It's, it's Noel Coward English. It's, you know, it's that.

• 21:10Jessie Ware?

  You sound perfect.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Oh, you see.

• 21:12Jessie Ware?

  If you want to do the whole of this episode, it practicing, you're, you, you're very welcome to go into that.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Oh, but then people would write in and say the certain sounds were wrong. So I sort of drop it. But no, it's, it's challenging. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do it is because I have always, from the time back at Juilliard, uh, no, back in Buffalo, I remember getting recordings of Olivier doing Hamlet or seeing Olivier's Othello in the movie theater in Buffalo, or going to Stratford, Canada and seeing Shakespeare. I've always been utterly captivated by classical acting and certainly by British actors. I'm, I have a crush on so many English actors, but so many great English actresses.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, you've got Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. And you've got Helen Mirren and the Emma Thompson and Leslie Manville and Eileen Atkinson and Julia Walters. I mean, they're just one after another of these marvelous actresses. And, and there's an English acting, acting tradition that I find just, I love it. I've been inspired by it. So my desire to do this is somehow like a, a wanting to just enter that, that terrain of being on the West End with English actors, doing a Noel Coward play as an American actress, but just sort of upping my game and trying to, you know, do this. So, so it's wonderfully challenging.

• 22:48Jessie Ware?

  So do you live in, um, do you live in New York?

• 22:51Speaker 02

  I spend most of my time in New York. My, my family home and where I raised my two daughters is in Connecticut.

• 22:57Jessie Ware?

  Oh, are you near like where Gilmore Girls is at?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  That's where I, yes, that's where.

• 23:05Jessie Ware?

  Stars Hollow.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:06Jessie Ware?

  Stop.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yes, that's my town.

• 23:09Jessie Ware?

  That's my dream.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Well, come and stay at my house.

• 23:12Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I absolutely will.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  A lovely house on a lake. And yes, we have Gilmore Girls stuff all over the place because, yeah. Can you imagine?

• 23:21Jessie Ware?

  See, well, so I've just introduced my daughter to Gilmore Girls. She's ten and I felt like it was okay to, at the age. And I'm like, isn't it the best place? And I know you can go around there and like do tours.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 23:35Jessie Ware?

  But I don't know whether people that are residents appreciate that. But I really want to take my daughter when she's watched the full series. We'll go and we'll go and fall and we'll go and like pick pumpkins. I don't know.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  But I'll, we get my, we'll exchange information.

• 23:48Jessie Ware?

  You can be our tour guide.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yes, you come to my house. I'll feed you.

• 23:52Jessie Ware?

  Okay. Okay. Yeah. It sounds great. It sounds perfect. So Connecticut, was it a gorgeous place to bring up your daughters?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Beautiful, beautiful. And the reason we raised the kids there is because my late husband inherited his childhood home, which was an eighteenth century farmhouse in this little rural town of Bethlehem, Connecticut. And that's not the Gilmore Girls town. The Gilmore Girls town, I think, is Washington, Connecticut. But don't, I'm not exactly sure. I just know that there's all kinds of Gilmore Girls vibes in the town and notices of tours and all. So I think that's Gilmore land.

• 24:30Jessie Ware?

  It's Harvard and Yale in Connecticut.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:32Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  It's another part of Connecticut. But he, when I got pregnant with my second daughter, Lily, it was clear because we were theater actors, that it was really hard to find a place to live in New York where we could afford, you know, an apartment. It was getting very expensive in New York. And we were basically theater actors. This is before I had a television career. So he had this house in a lovely rural part of Connecticut, forests and ponds and winding roads. And it was so beautiful. And it was a house with no mortgage. And the, the price tag was that it was two hours from New York. And so I would commute when I did plays.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  I would get on a bus at four, I'd get on the four fifteen bus from Southbury. And Southbury was a half hour from where we lived. So I'd drive to the bus station, get on a bus, be on the bus for two hours, get off at the Port Authority in Forty Second Street, walk to the theater, do the play, and then go back to the Port Authority to get the eleven fifteen bus home, which got in at one in the morning. Then I would get home and then I'd get my sleep and I'd wake up and take the kids to school. And that was my life for quite a while.

• 25:53Jessie Ware?

  You must have loved this person a lot.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  I love, well, you know.

• 25:57Jessie Ware?

  Oh, your life in Connecticut.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  I did. And also it was, you know, a choice we made that, no, we were going to raise our kids outside the city. So, yeah, it's a lovely place to raise children.

• 26:09Jessie Ware?

  And it's supposed to be, autumn is your best time.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Well, we have tourists come in autumn because it's so.

• 26:14Jessie Ware?

  It'll be me and my daughter. I'll say, "Tat, tat."

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Oh, you'll, you will come.

• 26:18Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I can't wait.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 26:20Jessie Ware?

  Um, I used to watch Sybil so religiously.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:25Jessie Ware?

  Was that the kind of break for you in television?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Yes. And I didn't, you know, I had this theater career with the buses, back and forth, back and forth. And I'd be approached about doing a television show. And I'd say, don't want to raise the children in L.A. My husband and I didn't want to move to Los Angeles. I didn't want to uproot them.

• 26:48Jessie Ware?

  You're so East Coast, though. That's like so New Yorker. That's so kind of, yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  And also being, being someone whose childhood was rocked by having to move and change schools and change houses. And I know that that's a big deal for, for kids to be uprooted. And I didn't want that and neither did Matthew. We didn't want to uproot them and we weren't, I, I was not keen on a Los Angeles life with all that and cars and all. It's just not my kind of town. So we didn't, and I resisted doing anything that's shot in L.A. So I'd say, if there was a comedy that's shot in New York, but at that time, this was the eighties, they weren't shooting shows in New York. They were shooting Law and Order. That was the television show.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  And every theater actor was on Law and Order, but they weren't doing, it's not like it is now where they do so many shows in New York. Finally, though, um.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Carce Warner, the people who produced The Bill Cosby Show and Roseanne, they were big, big producers. They actually asked if I would be interested in reading for an American version of Ab Fab, Absolutely Fabulous. And that perked up my ears because I thought, well, that really could be fun. And then they said, but we're also casting the role of Sybil Shepherd's best friend in this sitcom. And I was really reluctant, really, really reluctant. But it seemed to me a time in my life, when, in our life, where it was like we were looking

• 28:29Speaker 02

  at school tuitions and what the cost of raising the kids would be. And it's like, okay, well, I'll, I'll go to LA and I'll meet and I'll, you know. But I read the script and it was written by a man named Chuck Lorre, who now is maybe one of the top, most successful television producers, writers in Hollywood and maybe in history, you know, the Big Bang Theory. And I read for it and they really, really wanted me to do it and Sybil approved and the network reluctantly approved. And so I thought, well, we're just, Matthew and I talked about it and said, look, why don't I just commute for the first year?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  We'll see how it goes. And so I, I wound up commuting on that job too, which was much longer commute because I would, you know, I would finish the show and get on a red eye and get home and have the hiatus and then go back. But that lasted for three and a half years, which was enough for me.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  It's a big success.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Yes, it was a big success. And if you watch the first, the first half year, the first 13 episodes, I mean, I won an Emmy after only a half year of being on that show, just because it was so good and that character just popped. And, you know, he wrote wonderful lines for me and she was sort of a perfect character for me at the time because I had been playing roles like that in, in the theater. So I knew how, how to do that kind of comedy. So it was indeed, it changed my career. It changed my life.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 30:07Jessie Ware?

  Oh, it looks lovely, Mum.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Gorgeous.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Gorgeous.

• 30:14Jessie Ware?

  Mum, what have you made?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I've made salmon with chili, turmeric, dill and the spring onions and ginger and all sorts of things on it and I hope you like it.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  I'm so impressed with people who can cook.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Don't be impressed. It's not hard. Are you not a cook then?

• 30:32Speaker 02

  I can cook. It's just, you know, I need to cook for people. And when I was a working actress, didn't have a lot of time, but on my day off, I loved to cook. The time when I became a really good cook was when I was pregnant and I had a huge appetite. And I would spend, I was doing a show with Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, Tom Stoppard play called The Real Thing, and it was a red hot hit on Broadway. And yet, when I would go up in between scenes, when I wasn't on the stage and I'd be looking at cookbooks, what I was going to make. And then I'd spend my day off cooking because I had a wonderful appetite, a robust pregnant lady. Yes, please. Then I became a good cook, but I don't, you know, unless I have, oh my God, that looks good.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Unless I have people to cook for, I'm really not going to bother just to cook for myself, you know? Also, it takes a lot of time and then I usually have other things to do. So that said, I did a Be My Guest episode with Ina Garten.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Went to her house, thought, okay, well, you know, Ina Garten and Be My Guest.

• 31:38Jessie Ware?

  Mum, do you know who Ina Garten is?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  I know her name.

• 31:41Jessie Ware?

  Christine, will you explain to Mum who Ina Garten is?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Well, she's just one of the great, most well-known ladies in America. She, you know, started a business called The Barefoot Contessa.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I know of that.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Okay, in East Hampton, went on to become a world famous, highly successful cookbook writer. Now she's, she's just an icon and she, she had her own, she has her own TV show called Be My Guest, where she has people like, you know, come into her kitchen and she will cook with you. She'll say, what, what do you want to cook? And because I love Italian food, I said to her, I'd love to learn to make a bolognese sauce. And she taught me to make this bolognese sauce and I make it for my grandsons and they love it. And now I make it over and over. So it's one of my great joys is making Ina's bolognese sauce.

• 32:36Jessie Ware?

  What's the secret? Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Very basic, basic.

• 32:40Jessie Ware?

  Milk? Is there milk in there?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  No, to the bolognese sauce. There is cream.

• 32:48Jessie Ware?

  Ah, okay.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  There's red wine in it and cream.

• 32:52Jessie Ware?

  Yum. What's this for, Mum? This dipping?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  It's to go on top.

• 32:56Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Go on top of this.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you like it.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Lovely. Thank you.

• 33:02Jessie Ware?

  Thanks, Mum.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  That's great. I hope it's okay.

• 33:05Jessie Ware?

  It looks perfect.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  So maybe with Ina as a friend, I mean, how can you have Ina Garten as a friend and not be a cook? She's going to get me to cook.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  This is great.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  This is great. And it's so healthy.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  I like it. Love salmon. I also love really thin noodles. I mean, vermicelli.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're really nice.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Mmm. Well, they're like Asian noodles, aren't they?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  This is a great recipe.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Great recipe.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  And it looks great.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  It's just hard to eat it gracefully. So if you see a noodle going.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  I'm shoving it in my mouth.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  You know how when you were a little kid and you did that thing with noodles? When they told you how impolite it was?

• 33:56Jessie Ware?

  So you said that Italian is your favorite. So I'm interested, we ask everybody their last supper. Start a main, pudding, drink of choice. You don't have to die, you can go to a desert island. And what would be your last supper?

• 34:15Speaker 02

  It'd probably be a very, very cold, very dry Grey Goose vodka martini.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Dirty or?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Oh no, so dirty, no vermouth, just a twist.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  See, I told Jessie this, but none of us felt confident enough to.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  No, I can't do it.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  You wouldn't have had one now.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  No, couldn't, no. But I will on a, on a night off, I do.

• 34:44Jessie Ware?

  Have you had a good one since you've been in London?

• 34:46Speaker 02

  London has wonderful, and I'll tell you why.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Oh, tell us why.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Oh, well, the famous Duke's martini, of course, but they're renovating, so I don't know what's going to happen.

• 34:55Jessie Ware?

  They're so strong. I know it's like.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  No, you know what? That is like rocket fuel. It's called Potaki. I don't even think they carry this vodka in the States, but there is a Polish restaurant, you know, Ognojko.

• 35:13Jessie Ware?

  Here?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, in London.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 35:15Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  There are two great Polish restaurants in Kensington when I was doing Mamma Mia.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  There's a Polish club.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Oh, it's in a Polish club.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  It's in the Polish club.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  It's, we've been there, Jessie. It's beautiful. It's fabulous.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  It's right next to the Victorian.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  It's next to the V and A, near the Albert Hall. It's on that road. You can rent it out and the food is great and it's like shabby chic, isn't it?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Yes, it's wonderful. It has an old world quality. But they serve that vodka.

• 35:47Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  And I had.

• 35:49Jessie Ware?

  Which one is it?

• 35:50Speaker 02

  I think it's called Potaki.

• 35:52Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  It's like rocket, it's, it's, it's not like other vodkas and it's so strong, you think, okay, this can't be good for me. But you have it anyway. What I love about a English martini is it's half the size of an American martini. And I think what you want from a martini is enough of it to just get your, I always say it just brings my shoulders down. So that's like, how many sips do we need? Four, five sips?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  I don't drink martinis. I love them. Jessie knows.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  They're great.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  But you can't have more than two.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  No, I'm good for one and a half. But an American martini, because in America, everything's super size. Oh, they're huge. But the thing is by half, you know, halfway through that martini, it's already getting warm. You never drink a warm martini. You need an ice cold brisk martini.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Even at the Carlisle, where they serve it in a carafe, do they?

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do that.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Anyway, I love, I love the English martinis. They're wonderful. So you asked me about my last supper. So it would probably be a simply great steak au poivre with the most gorgeous French fries. See, I'm, I'm very basic, so I don't, I don't need fussy, fussy.

• 37:07Jessie Ware?

  Okay, we've got the steak au poivre, we've got the dirty martini. Is the martini the starter or are we?

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it happens well before, well before the entree.

• 37:17Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Because, because we just have to get, we have to get the shoulders down and a bit of conversation and then, and then we can.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  And then would you have wine with your meal? Okay.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Probably a great French.

• 37:32Jessie Ware?

  Nice red.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Sauvignon.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  And then put you into dessert.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  You're gonna laugh.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  You better be.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  No matter where I go. I could be in the fanciest French restaurant. And I'll say, do you have chocolate ice cream?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  And if they have chocolate ice cream, I just say, I just want one scoop of chocolate ice cream.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  This is like my mum.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  One scoop of chocolate ice cream, which probably reminds me of when I was a little girl and we had chocolate ice cream. And it remains my favourite dessert. So maybe for my last supper? Two scoops of chocolate ice cream, maybe three.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Sure. See, it wouldn't be the one I choose, chocolate.

• 38:16Jessie Ware?

  Which one do you go for vanilla?

• 38:18Speaker 01

  I like cassata, which is that it's kind of, it's almost like a cake and you slice it and it's got like tutti fruity in it.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  What you put in panettone, it's cassata.

• 38:30Jessie Ware?

  Where'd you get that?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Well, we used to get it at the Italian near Clare, now that they've changed hands. But I like vanilla, to be perfectly honest.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  A great vanilla is wonderful.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  And I've got vanilla to go with the dessert if you want vanilla, but you can have crème fraiche.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Have you ever put maple syrup on vanilla ice cream? Oh, it's wonderful.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Oh, there we go.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely wonderful. If you don't have chocolate sauce, it's just as good.

• 38:54Jessie Ware?

  Oh, that's a good trick. Okay. Now, can you tell us, tell everybody about Hay Fever, the play and who you're playing?

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Noel Coward wrote it when he was in his twenties, which is hard to believe. It's one of his earliest plays. It is about an eccentric English family. The woman that I'm playing is Judith Bliss, a retired stage actress, very well-known stage actress, who's getting a bit restless and living in the country, uh, longs to get back on the stage. She's married to a novelist and he's upstairs writing his books. And I have two uh, children, grown children, living in the house with us. And it's the story of a Saturday into a Sunday with all of us inviting a house guest

• 39:46Speaker 02

  that the other people did not know. Other people were being invited, so it's a clash. It's a situation comedy, basically. And it's, well, it's very funny. It's Noel Coward, but it's, it's a showpiece for, for actors. It's an ensemble piece and, and it's a wonderful role for an actress. I'm surprised it's not done more often.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Have you played it before?

• 40:09Speaker 02

  No, no. But I've done Noel Coward before. I've done three other Noel Coward plays, of course, in America. I had the pleasure of doing Private Lives back when I was in my twenties. I played it. And I did Blythe Spirit also and a play called Fumed Oak. But this is a real showpiece for an actress, perfect for at my time of life because she's, she feels that she's getting old and she's not quite ready to retire. And she has one more play in her and, and so I always say, if this is my last play, it's the perfect play to say, okay, bye.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  It won't be your last play. Can I, you, you've played in The Good Wife and The Good Fight.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  You played quite a political person.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  I did. She was, she's a, yeah, she was a very passionate feminist and that, that arc, well, certainly Good Wife, not so much, but by the time we got to Good Fight,

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Donald Trump was president and the writing became a lot about Diane, this, this passionate feminist lawyer trying to live through an era that was, you know, just making her feel insane.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  And how's that going for you?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Oh, we won't get into that, but I don't know where Diane would be now.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Crikey.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Banging her, banging her head against the wall. I thought, I always thought that that show really was the best reflection of what people were living through at that time and it, and it had to end. And the Trump administration has continued, but for anyone wanting to know kind of what the era was like, that, that show was so brilliantly written.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Wasn't that his first term though? We didn't know he was coming back.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  No, but if you look at the la, our very last episode that Audra and I play outside and we look, we see him coming down the escalator again as he announces that he's going to run for a second term. And that's where we end.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  End the show.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Should I get some dessert?

• 42:23Jessie Ware?

  That was really delicious. I loved it.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  It was sublime.

• 42:26Jessie Ware?

  Whilst mum just sorts bits out, have you got any food combos where it's so wrong, it's right?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:35Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm thinking, because I'm so not a foodie.

• 42:41Jessie Ware?

  Well, no.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  I think if you put bacon into anything, it's probably good because it's so bad. Do you know what I mean?

• 42:48Jessie Ware?

  I, I know. Have you tried bacon ice cream?

• 42:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 42:52Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I tried it in Portland years ago.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  How does that work? How can you have ice bacon? And bacon has to be?

• 42:59Jessie Ware?

  It kind of, I think it was either like a crumbly bit. They also had turkey skin, like chicken skin. It was delicious, to be honest.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  They can make ice cream out of anything now.

• 43:13Jessie Ware?

  I think.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Or pizza.

• 43:14Jessie Ware?

  But I think a bit of bacon, like on top of crispy bacon on top of the chocolate could work.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 43:20Jessie Ware?

  You know. Okay. Oh, lovely mum.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  God, that's gorgeous. Did you bake this?

• 43:25Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  You're the cleverest girl.

• 43:28Jessie Ware?

  Good.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'm not good. Would you like ice cream with it or crème fraiche?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Crème fraiche, thank you.

• 43:35Jessie Ware?

  Mum, will you tell everyone what it is?

• 43:36Speaker 01

  It's um, a plum and frangipan tart.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  And that looks great. Shall I give myself the crème fraiche? Thank you.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Jessie.

• 43:44Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, perfect mum. Just, that's perfect for me as well. Thanks mum. What do you think Christine?

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Oh, this is so good. I mean, it's better than chocolate ice cream.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Oh, stop it.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Almost.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  You know I love you, don't you?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Almost as good as.

• 44:00Jessie Ware?

  Mum, this is heavenly.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  So the crust is cake.

• 44:04Jessie Ware?

  She made, did you make your own pastry?

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:06Jessie Ware?

  Mum.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  It's a patty sucré.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Really impressive. Tell me the fruit again?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  It's just plums.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  Plums.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  But it's with, from Japan, which is almonds, so.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yes, that's what it is. My mum made almond pastry and we made, we did the almond pastry for Easter.

• 44:29Jessie Ware?

  Actually, it does have ground almonds in the pastry, yeah. You did it for Easter, go on.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:36Jessie Ware?

  What would you be having at Easter?

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Easter, we would do coloured eggs, of course. We'd do Polish sausage. And something called shon, which is ground beets with horseradish.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  And we would put together this meal and then put it in a straw basket and then take it to the church on Holy Saturday to get it. And everybody, all the, the whole neighbourhood would show up in the church auditorium and get the food blessed. And then we'd have the food the next day for breakfast after mass. So sweet, these traditions. But um, the almond pastry we would make either for Easter or Christmas. And that's where you, you hope that the dough rot, you know, that it puffs and sometimes it doesn't puff. So you just, it's like a flat croissant, you know,

• 45:37Speaker 02

  that didn't quite work. So, you know, I've made successful almond pastries and not so successful almond pastries.

• 45:44Jessie Ware?

  So you have kept up some of the traditions with your girls?

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, very much so. Yeah, we still do Polish Christmases. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I would like my grandsons to know what a Polish Christmas is. Yeah, I think people that are, are longing to get back to traditions.

• 46:02Jessie Ware?

  Before we let you go, and you may have already answered this, because there was this moment when you talked about the mushroom soup. Is there a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere?

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, the mushroom soup, I'm afraid, the, the taste of the mushroom soup.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  A warm chocolate chip cookie.

• 46:24Jessie Ware?

  Where was that?

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Chocolate.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Chocolate. You love chocolate?

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Do you like English chocolate, like Cadbury's?

• 46:31Speaker 02

  No, what's English chocolate?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Well, English chocolate, Cadbury's chocolate, which is.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Oh, Cadbury's, yes, yes, yes.

• 46:38Jessie Ware?

  You make it sound so much more regal. Cadbury's?

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Oh, Cadbury's, darling. Oh, I see Cadbury's.

• 46:47Jessie Ware?

  Um, do you, do you like a Cadbury's Dairy Milk?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  I like dark chocolate. I like bitter, bitter, the bitter, you know, like eighty percent dark chocolate, that sort of thing.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I don't go to sleep at night.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  I don't do milk chocolate. It's like a vermouth and a martini.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Wine crust.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  It's like non-alcoholic wine. No.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Do, do, if you have a dinner party, what would you cook for people?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  My new recipe of sauce bolognese, my aina garden. It's if my four grandsons, the last time I made it for my grandsons, they had a second helping and one of them had a third helping. And then they asked for it later on while we were watching a movie, if there was any bolognese left. That's how good it was. And I take no credit for it.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna look up that recipe.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Yes. It's like an everyday recipe.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Do you like music in the background when you're eating?

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Yes, I like music in general, anything.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  So what would you have?

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Oh, while, while people are eating, maybe some French café music or something just nice and easy. Uh, not too, not too, too classical, that because then it seems a little snooty, but just relaxed, jazzy.

• 48:05Jessie Ware?

  Christine, you're such a joy. We, I mean, we knew this was gonna be the, the way, but you've absolutely.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  I'm a little, I'm a little tired from after rehearsal.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Oh, don't seem tired to us.

• 48:17Jessie Ware?

  You're fantastic and we appreciate you so much for coming over.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  You're so sweet to have me.

• 48:22Jessie Ware?

  We're definitely going to.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Cooking for me.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Oh, such a pleasure. Such an honour, really.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  I really admire great cooking.

• 48:45Jessie Ware?

  Christine Baransky, what a gal. And the hair, the face, the suit, the voice.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  So classy, just gorgeous. You see why I've got a crush on her.

• 48:56Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I, I mean.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Have you got a crush on her now?

• 48:58Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, but, but I feel, lucky me, I've got The Gilded Age and Good Wife and Fight to watch.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Have you never watched them?

• 49:05Jessie Ware?

  No, I don't know where I've been.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Good Wife is like the best thing on TV.

• 49:09Jessie Ware?

  But she's just so fantastic.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  She's amazing.

• 49:12Jessie Ware?

  She's, I just, it was an incredibly camp moment when you got your fan out and you're sitting, fanning whilst chatting to Christine Baransky.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 49:22Jessie Ware?

  It was camp and fab and I liked it.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Why was it camp?

• 49:24Jessie Ware?

  It was camp.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  It was hot. I don't know about camps.

• 49:28Jessie Ware?

  Christine Baransky and Richard D Grant are in Hay Fever at the Wyndham's Theatre in the West End. Go see it, no doubt. She'll be fantastic. And we know her English accent.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Is it Judith Bliss?

• 49:39Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, Ju- Judith Bliss, daughter, daughter.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Daughter.

• 49:44Jessie Ware?

  The food was so good.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Oh, good darling.

• 49:46Jessie Ware?

  I'm doing that for a dinner party.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  That was so easy.

• 49:49Jessie Ware?

  Delicious, tasty, yum.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:53Jessie Ware?

  John Gregory Smith, he's done it again.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Jessie, we need to send him a wedding present.

• 49:57Jessie Ware?

  Yes, we do need to send him a wedding present. Absolutely.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  At least a bottle of champagne.

• 50:01Jessie Ware?

  That, where was the plum and frangipan?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  It's a combination of different recipes that I put together.

• 50:07Jessie Ware?

  Can you say?

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I can replicate it.

• 50:10Jessie Ware?

  No, but which?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  I can't even remember, darling, so, some of the internet.

• 50:13Jessie Ware?

  You're that gal now that you can do.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Just, yeah, just merge them.

• 50:17Jessie Ware?

  Mum, there was not a soggy bot in sight.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  No, it was so crisp.

• 50:20Jessie Ware?

  How did you do this?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  I don't know, darling.

• 50:23Jessie Ware?

  It's because you had Christine and you just knew you had to nail it.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I, I, it was.

• 50:27Jessie Ware?

  She loved it.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  It was delicious. It was just one of those recipes that worked.

• 50:31Jessie Ware?

  Delicious.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Good, it was good.

• 50:33Jessie Ware?

  Thank you to everyone for listening and uh, we'll be back for more Tapmanas, season nineteen, next week.