The conclusion of the 1999 interview Barbara gave to the Rainbow Network (www.rainbownetwork.com), the UK's largest Gay and Lesbian website.
In "Trouble At The Top", it showed a conversation on opening night in Plymouth, between you and the producer Andre Ptaszynski in your dressing room, and you said, "That Jeremy (Sams - Director) keeps on changing things".
I said at one point that it was a nightmare because things kept on changing, but they focused on it and made it look like I don't get on with Jeremy when I get on perfectly well with him. He had a job to do and change the show as required. Very often it was not Jeremy's idea when things were changed. Steve Brown was resident in Plymouth a lot of the time, rewriting and rewriting. He came up later with "Pieces of Me", which is my big song in Act Two. That did not exist before.
How did you feel having the camera from the BBC for "Trouble At The Top" following you during the rehearsals?
When I did "Trouble At The Top", and I contributed to it, I thought that it was something very different to what it was to become. I did not realise that it was a programme about how difficult it is to raise money to put on a West End show, and neither did Andre Ptaszynski think that either. It was horrid the way they totally focused in on the money. There was no footage of us rehearsing and getting it right.
I also found it very strange that the first time I met Viv was on camera, and I did not really agree to that, as nobody had really asked me if that would be OK. I felt that they should have let me meet her, then film us. She was very overwrought; I did not know quite what to say, it was very difficult for us both.
Viv is very extraordinary - she is very open, she says what she thinks and she is able to be very honest, which I think is where some of her problems have come from, but I do think that she behaved very well, and that bit worked fine. She said something like, you must disapprove, and I said why would I disapprove, there is absolutely nothing that I would disapprove of, these things happened to her. There is no point in us being judgmental.
You are playing Viv in "Spend", you played Mrs Johnstone in "Blood Brothers", Anita in "Band Of Gold", and you were in the original radio play of "Dinnerladies". Why northern working class women?
I do not know. I have not been asked to be a Scottish working class woman yet have I? Anita was the nearest thing to that and she was a different kettle of fish. I do not really know is the answer to that one. Everything I have been asked to do has been funny and interesting.
When I first read the script to "Spend" and heard the tape of the West Yorkshire Playhouse production, I was captivated by it. It really is a great show. The music and the lyrics are the best I have come across for years. It is a morality tale like "Blood Brothers". Personally I am not a fan of musicals - I am not a "Cats" person!
I am a folk singer who has done well. Musical theatre in general is not my kind of genre. I would be happy being in "Mother Courage" or something, that is my kind of show, some gloomy German piece where everybody is slashing their wrists. I am rather a serious individual.
I have a perversity in doing dark things in musical theatre, subverting what is considered to be the norm in musical theatre. Kind of tunnelling under it to find something that is there. My favourite musical apart from "Blood Brothers" and "Spend" is "Sweeney Todd", so that gives you an idea of the sort of things I like. I sang "The Worst Pies In London" when I did my one-woman show - "The 7 Ages of Woman.
How do you feel being a gay icon?
I'm used to being a gay icon now. It is absolutely marvellous, all my gay friends are marvellous to me. If I am sitting waiting for the phone to ring, one of them invariably rings me up, some of them must be telepathic!
I like being a gay icon because I do feel that they are discerning when it comes to actresses and musicians. So I think it is a great compliment in a way, but I also think it is rather funny, because I am a survivor - I have been around for hundreds of years. Gay men love this. I have come out and I have managed to have a career and juggle with the other things and I am still around. Also I play these rather camp parts. I love it and I love being appreciated by any section of the community - therefore may I thank the gay community and say it is absolutely fantastic. I think that Lily Savage managed to seal that for me when I sang "I Know Him So Well" with him. He is so great.
He came recently to see the show with Cilla Black. They have become a bit of an item recently. What a laugh - Lily and Cilla. I love being a gay icon!
What next after "Spend"?
"Spend" will be on for the majority of the year, but I am only contracted until July. If I stay what will happen is that I will go off to Canada for three weeks and spend the rest of the summer with my children. It is important to me that these holidays are not interfered with. I will come back all being well at the end of September and do another stint.
Will they get a 'Guest' lead in to cover for you like they did in "Sunset Boulevard"?
They will put someone nice in to hold the fort for me, and then they will buzz off and I will come back, but I do not know who they are approaching. But I will need to rehearse it all again, because after eight weeks I will have forgotten it all!"
