In The Press

Interview with Elaine Lordan

Anything to decalre?

May 27th

Mo Battles with Cancer

Co-star saved my life

May 29th

Zoe's confession.

June 6th

Worse for wear

Sunday May 13

Sunday Mirror: Personal.  I am nothing like Lynne Slater: I want to have fun

Can this really be Lynne, the most grounded, most sensible of the Eastenders’ Slater sisters?  The one who works in the caff and whose biggest adventure is when a customer can’t get the brown sauce to pour?

It certainly looks like her- pretty, dark haired, slim figure- but Lynne would never wear a T-shirt like that.  Elaine Lordan, the actress who plays her would though, and then some.  The one she’s got on now says: “When I’m Good I’m very good.” She pirouettes to show me what’s on the back.  It reads: “When I’m Bad I’m Better.”  She roars with laughter at my reaction.  “Good innit?” she says.  “I like T-shirts, they break the ice.  I had one done the other day.  It says ‘My Mate Fancies You’.”

Elaine is the eternal sunny child, who at 34 has never seen the need to grow up, if by growing up you mean getting dull and serious.  How wonderful, after decades spent interviewing actresses scared of their own shadows, to find someone who treasures warmth and laughter above all else.  “Yeah, that Lynne,” she says of her character, “She’s a bit straight, isn’t she?  I wouldn’t fancy going on a night out with her.”

Kathy Burke however is quite a different matter.  Kathy- star of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme as well as playing Waynetta Slob and Perry the teenager in the Harry Enfield series- has been Elaine’s best mate since way back when.  They were out on the town only the other night.  “She got a fire extinguisher and sprayed everybody with it,” Elaine recalls.  “Mind you, we were at a theatrical party, we were among our own.  The other day she ended up being pushed down Oxford Street in a supermarket trolley.   I wasn’t with her then though,” Elaine says in self-defense, as though that would have made any difference.  They met at the Anna Scher theatre school 20 years ago.  “It was an after school thing and cost 25p a session.  It wasn’t one of those stage school places, all smiles and teeth.  “My dad who was a brickie. Couldn’t afford it and for that I say thank god” They taught us the reality of show business, like there will be times when you are out of work.  They were right.  I got a flying start when I was 15, playing Todd Carty’s girlfriend in Tucker’s Luck, but then in my early twenties, things tailed off.  I had a cockney accent and all I got offered were drug addicts and prostitutes.  I never got to play a grown up person with a mortgage.”

Playing Lynne is her second really big break, but it has done nothing to curb her youthful spirit.  “Me and a mate were on the waltzers at the fairground the other night,” she says.  “We like a good spin, but do you know they do it by pressing a button now?  When I came off I said in a loud voice, ‘I preferred it when the fair boys did it by hand.’  As you can tell, I’m a sensible person.” 

Her character is currently involved in a huge storyline.  Lynne’s boyfriend Garry Hobbs, played by Ricky Groves, is an out-and-out womanizer, who to prevent her from learning of his latest dalliance, suggest marriage.  “Lynne accepts because she is afraid of being left on the shelf,” says Elaine.  “There’s a dream sequence when Garry sees me in a wedding dress at the foot of his bed.  Then he wakes up and I’m in a nightgown with a towel around my head.”  Elaine has been in a relationship for 11 years.  She and her boyfriend see no reason to rush into marriage.  “It’s too stressful, isn’t it?  We’re happy as we are for now.  I’d like to have kids, but you can do it so much later these days.  Anyway, my fella has enough to put up with as it is.  I’m not easy to be with.  I like getting drunk on planes for instance. We went to Spain for a holiday one year and when we arrived in the hotel I was so far gone I took off all my clothes, dived into the pool and left him to carry the cases up to the room.”

Unlike Lynne, she says she’s been lucky in that most of the men she’s been with have taken care of her.  No bastards then?  “Well looking back, maybe just the one.  But I was never successful with, especially in my teenage years.  I was too mouthy, I frightened them off.  I was 14 when I was first asked out.  We all used to go to the launderette to have a smoke. This boy shoved me up against one of the dryers and said, “Well, do you want to go out with me? And I said, “Oh alright.”  We never used to talk; we’d go to the Greek caff and play the space invaders machine.  Then he’d walk me home and give me a snog.  That was the sum total of our dates.”

Her mum and dad, Gareth and Bernadette, are both from Ireland.  Gareth worked in the building trade but sadly now is chronically ill.  Bernadette was a barmaid and Elaine has inherited not only their earthiness and sprightly humour, but also their capacity for hard work.  “Work teaches you things about life.  How people are and how through your efforts you can make a place for yourself in the world.  I’ve worked ever since I was a kid at school.  I used to paint stones blue and sell them to passers by saying that they were lucky stones and my dad had won the pools with one of them in his pocket.  “When you’re that age all you want is a job so you can say you’re grown up.  I was small for my age- I’m only 5ft 3in now- and that made it more difficult to get work.  Eventually I got a job on a curtain stall in the local market.  I worked all day humping heavy rolls of cloth.  The in the evening they sent me for a can of coke.  When I brought it back, they gave it to me.  It was my wages.  What made it worse was that I actually said thank you.  But I never went back.  Then I got a job in a skirt factory outlet.  It taught me the gift of the gab.  I used to say to customers, “They’re £5 each or two for £10” and they’d think they were getting a bargain.”  But it was only marking time.  Acting was the only thing Elaine wanted to do.  “I have absolutely no idea where it came from.  All I know is that from the age of 6 I was walking around the house with a tea-towel on my head repeating, ‘come quickly sire, the town needs you.’  It must have been a line from a film I’d half seen on telly.”

Even in her wildest flights of fancy, Elaine could never have imagined the impact Lynne and the other Slater sisters would make when they arrived eight months ago.  “When people see you in real life, they think you’re a hologram, not a real person.  I was at a shopping center the other day and I overheard his woman say, ‘that’s the one from Eastenders.’  Then she raced past pushing her baby buggy, stopped looked me in the face and said, ‘no it isn’t.’”  Since Lynne has been involved with the cheating Garry, Elaine has found herself taking on another role- that of unpaid agony aunt.  Women have written to her in their hundreds telling her of their own experiences at the hands of unscrupulous men.  “Not just women either.  I had a letter from a 13-year old boy taking a very snooty tone.  He said as the oldest Slater sister I was supposed to be sensible and I should know better than to put up with a philandering rat like Garry.”  There’s a young man who’s obviously never seen Elaine on the razz with Kathy.  She’s been in scrapes ever since she can remember. “My parents nick-named me Norman Wisdom when I was a kid because I was so accident prone.  And the local shopkeepers where I live always call me Hurry-Hurry because I’m always in a rush.  ‘Careful’ they’d say ‘ you’ll give yourself heart attack’.”  If I were she, I wouldn’t worry too much about that.  It’s a big heart.  It’ll take some attacking.

Anything to declare?

Name: Elaine Lordan

Age: 34

Born: North London

Lives: North London

Biggest fear: Heights.  “I can’t bear roller coasters.  I went up the Empire state building in New York though and I was okay because it had a fence around it.  I think I’m afraid that for a split second I’ll get this uncontrollable urge to jump and actually do it.”

The last thing I bought: A T-shirt with ‘Attention Seeker’ on it

Have you ever stripped for a part?  I was supposed to take my bra off for a Play for today, but I was so nervous they eventually said, ‘Oh let her keep it on’.  The nice thing about working on Eastenders is that they’ll never ask me to do it.

Thing you most want:  My contract to be renewed.

My first telly snog:  With Todd Carty in Tucker’s Luck.  It was very nice.  He was a huge heartthrob at the time.  Everyone wanted to kiss me after that.

Most vivid childhood memory:  Art lesson.  I was absolutely crap.  So bad that my Art teacher used to give

me his dog to walk while he taught the rest of the class.

Sunday 27th May

The Sunday People Eastenders Mo battles with Cancer

Sunday Mirror - Co-star saved my life

I FOUND A LUMP THE SIZE OF A PING-PONG BALL .. IF IT WASN'T FOR WENDY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TOO LATE
EXCLUSIVE: EASTENDER MO REVEALS HOW CO-STAR SAVED HER

LAILA Morse lifts up her peach-coloured jumper to show me the five-inch scar across her left breast. There's another one a couple of inches longer nestling inside her left armpit.

Both are red and fiery reminders of the soap star's battle with breast cancer, a battle she knows now she could so easily have lost.

But far from being self- pitying or scared Mo, as she's called by friends and family, talks about cancer the way other women might talk about having a cold, and even though she is still undergoing gruelling radiotherapy sessions she is carrying on filming.

There's not much rattles this tough, warm-hearted woman who was brought up in South London and was taught that, if you're ill, you don't moan about it, you don't have histrionics, you don't talk about dying. You get on with living.

"My first thought when I was told I had breast cancer was that I might get sacked," says the 56-year-old EastEnders star, puffing on a cigarette.

"I've been working on the show since September last year and I love it but I didn't want to tell my bosses about the cancer because I didn't want to put them to any trouble."

So much so that when her GP made an appointment for her to go to London's Guys Hospital, Mo who plays the show's matriarch Mo Slater, told her bosses she was quite happy to put it off if there was work to be done.

"They've been totally and absolutely wonderful," says Mo.

"But there's one woman who's been a bit more than wonderful. In fact it would be fair to say she probably saved my life."

That woman is Wendy Richard, EastEnders' moaning minnie Pauline Fowler, who had breast cancer herself six years ago.

"I'd found the lump back in February. I'd been in the garden and had come in because there was something I wanted to watch on TV. But the programme had already started and because I didn't have time to wash my hands I just brushed them against my jumper.

"It was then I felt it," she says quietly. "I ran my hands over my chest and I felt this huge lump. I'd never noticed it before but it was about 3cm across, almost the size of a ping pong ball."

AT this stage most women would have panicked. But not this resilient mother-of-two who used to drive lorries, and who just five years ago was running a cafe in London's New Cross.

Typically, the woman, whose brother is Hollywood star Gary Oldman, wasn't the least bit worried.

"I'd always been told that cancerous lumps are hard, like little peas, so I just assumed this big thing was just a cyst," she says. "I'm a strong woman. I've never been ill in my life. I suppose that's why I never believed I could have cancer."

Mo thought no more about the lump until she saw Wendy in a corridor at the EastEnders studios in Elstree.

"I knew Wendy had had breast cancer and even though I didn't believe that's what I had, I told her about it."

It was a decision that undoubtedly saved Mo's life.

"Wendy couldn't believe I hadn't been to the doctors," she says. "She went mad at me. She was going on holiday that day but she made me promise I'd go and have it looked at."

"And so I promised her, but I never did anything about it. I know people reading this must think I was mad but I just tried to put it out of my mind.

"Maybe I was subconsciously trying to pretend that none of it was happening," she says. "Maybe deep down I didn't want to know I had cancer. I just thought if I kept telling myself I wasn't ill, then I wouldn't be."

It's only now you begin to sense Mo's fear, to see the anxiety that still lurks behind her dazzling turquoise eyes. This is a woman who has spent her whole life being the strong one, the rock everyone else leans upon in times of trouble. Because like she says, being ill just isn't what she's about. Mo's the one who tells the jokes, who makes people laugh. Being ill just doesn't fit the profile.

"Nothing gets me down - not even cancer," says Mo, who was brought up in New Cross, South East London. Dad Lenny was a pipe fitter and mum stayed at home to look after Mo, sister, Jackie, and brother Gary. Life, she says, was hard but happy.

Mo says it was only when Wendy Richard came back from her holiday and realised she still hadn't been to the hospital that she swung into action.

"I'd seen the GP and had a referral letter to go to Guy's, but I was looking for an excuse not to go. Wendy knew that and she just frog-marched me up to the bosses' office at the studios and stood over me while I told them. And since then they have been fantastic .

"They have changed the schedules, re-written scripts. They even told me they'd write me out for a while but I said I didn't want that because they might not let me back in!"

That afternoon Mo went to hospital and tests confirmed she had cancer. "I watched the doctor put my X-rays onto the light box. Even I could see the lump. He turned to me and said 'If that lump had been black it would have been a cyst, but it's grey. That means you've got cancer.

Mo's best friend Jan, who was holding her hand, burst into tears.

"All I could think of was that I had to make Jan feel better," says Mo. "So I just laughed out loud and said to her 'Shut up. If one of us had to have cancer it had to be me.'"

The two women just stood holding each other while the doctor told Mo that she had to come back in a week's time when he would tell her what kind of cancer she had.

When Mo went home that night she told her husband of seven years, van driver Jim, the bad news. "I just said to him 'If you start crying on me you can go back and live with your mum - I won't have that.' I told him that just because he knew I had cancer he wasn't to treat me any different to the way he'd treated me when he didn't know.

"He's been wonderful. He can't help fussing a bit, but that's OK as long as it doesn't get out of control.

"I suppose that was the first time I'd had to confront the fact that this was serious. And that's when I realised I wasn't scared of dying. I just kept on thinking how I'd miss my family and how I'd never see my granddaughter Brooke again.""

When she talks about the little girl who is patently the light of her life, Mo's face shines with pride. "She's 10 and she's my idol," she says. "She's a mini-me and we shop for shoes together. She's got more shoes in her wardrobe than Ravel.

"Seriously, it was never dying that I was afraid of. Pain is what I'm afraid of. Being without the people I love is what I'm afraid of."

Six days later Mo went back to see her surgeon. "He told me I was lucky," she says. "He said that if I had to get cancer the kind I had was the most treatable.

"He said I wouldn't lose my breast, that he would do a lumpectomy and remove five of my lymph nodes to make sure it didn't spread. I admit that as he was talking I felt the first stirrings of fear.

"I wouldn't even have been worried to lose my breast. Jim and I have known each other long enough for it not to matter.

"But I did tell my friend Jan to tell the doctors that if they opened me up and decided the breast had to come off then they had to take both of them off. I couldn't have coped with being lop-sided."

Mo says she's only cried once since she was diagnosed. "It was when they were wheeling me into theatre. Jan walked to the theatre doors with me. She'd have come in if they'd let her," she says.

"But I looked into this woman's eyes, this woman who has been such a friend to me, and I cried. She did too. Then she leaned over, kissed me on the cheek and said 'Ta Ta'."

EVEN as she tells the story the tears spring back into her eyes. "The last thing I remember is shouting 'I'll see you later,' even though I wasn't sure I would."

"I lay on that trolley staring at the bright lights on the ceiling and thinking 'Please God let me get through this.'

"Then just before I passed out I heard the anaesthetist say to me: 'Do you know, you look very like that woman Mo from EastEnders?'""

When Mo came round, Jim, Jan and sister Jacqui were at her bedside.

"Until then I'd kept it from the rest of the family," says Mo.

"Even from Gary and my Mum who is 82 and has moved to Los Angeles to be near him. I didn't want to worry people.

"After the op I rang him and just blurted it all out. I said "Look I've got cancer but I've had the operation and everything is OK. Don't worry and don't tell Mum'."

Mo says it took Gary a few seconds to catch his breath and when he did he said 'I don't believe you. Why didn't you tell me?'

"Even on EastEnders I only told Wendy, Derek (Derek Martin who plays Charlie Slater) and Kacey (Kacey Ainsworth who plays Little Mo). Even now the rest of the cast don't know about it. God knows what they'll say when they read this."

A couple of weeks ago Mo and Jim got on a plane and flew to Gary's home in LA for a holiday.

"It was lovely," she says showing off her tan in blue cut-off jeans. "I always have a lovely time at Gary's. I've met Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Sean Penn, who's great company. Even though mum loves living out there, I couldn't. I like being in the area I've always lived."

Doctors have told Mo that the operation was a success, but she still faces two months of radiation therapy before she can be given the all-clear. She insists there have been no side-effects so far, no sickness, no burning, but then with Mo you'd never really know.

"This is a very private time for me but I wanted to speak out now to tell women not to be as damn silly as I was, not to wait as long as I did.

"If Wendy Richard hadn't forced me to go to the doctors when she did I truly believe I'd never have gone - at least not until it was too late.

"I want to tell women out there not to do what I did - don't try and pretend it isn't happening. Because it might be too late by the time they DO decide to do something.

"Yes, I was petrified in the end but I know now you can't run away from cancer. It won't let you.

"I can honestly say I'm not worried about the future, about the cancer coming back. It's been just a few weeks since the operation but I hardly think about it now. The only time it pops into my head is when I realise it's the day for my radiotherapy session and I'd planned to go shopping with Brooke. Then I get mad.

"I just want to reassure women out there that there IS life after cancer. I'm amazed myself and the way I've dealt with it, and they will be too.

"I've always known that life is for living. But I've never been quite as sure of that as I am now."

Tuesday 29th May

TVquick issue 23 - Zoe's confession

Zoe was delighted when she lured Jamie into bed in Brighton.  But her joy was short lived when he told her he had made a mistake.  Trying to cover up his betrayal, Jamie tells Sonia that he thinks Zoe has a crush on him and that the feelings are purely one-sided.

On Monday, Zoe starts to feel angry about being rejected so cruelly.  She goes for a meal at Jamie's with Robbie and Sonia and the evening doesn't turn out to be very amicable.  When Jamie and Zoe are doing the washing up, Sonia walks in and the atmosphere is so tense Jamie runs out immediately.  Sonia asks Robbie to go after him and confronts Zoe about her behaviour.  Unable to contain herself any longer, Zoe blurts out that she slept with Jamie.

Later, Zoe tells Jamie what she's done.  And when Sonia tackles him about the accusation, he denies it. Sonia's relief knows no bounds and when she sees Zoe, she makes a point of kissing Jamie in front of her.  And in a further crushing blow, Sonia tells Zoe she's prepared to forgive her for her stupid fantasy.

"Zoe was devastated when she was cast aside by Jamie, as she thought she stood a chance of having a proper relationship with him," says Michelle Ryan, who plays her.  "It pains her to see Jamie and Sonia getting on so well and, in the end, she can't contain herself.  She knows she should have kept her mouth shut about what happened, but she couldn't help herself.  And now she's left feeling small by Sonia."

Wednesday 6th June - The Sun Online- worse for wear

THE ENDER MICHAEL ELPHICK