Maxine Peake, actor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Maxine Peake is an actor and writer who first came to public attention in 1998 as Twinkle in the Victoria Wood sitcom Dinnerladies. She went on to play Veronica in Paul Abbott’s series Shameless and later became known for playing real people, including the Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams, and Sara Rowbotham, the former health worker who exposed the sexual abuse scandal in Rochdale in 2012. Maxine was born in Bolton and after a rocky start at college – she was asked to leave her performing arts course after just two weeks but stuck it out – she won a scholarship to study at RADA. Three months before she was due to graduate she auditioned for Victoria Wood and won her first television role starring alongside Wood, Julie Walters and Anne Reid. Victoria Wood advised her to take on a diverse range of roles in order to avoid being typecast as what Maxine calls the “fat, funny northerner”. She took the advice to heart and extended her range playing Myra Hindley, Martha Costello QC in the legal drama Silk and Hamlet in a critically acclaimed production at the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester. Maxine has also written plays including Beryl: A Love Story on Two Wheels about Beryl Burton, a Yorkshire woman who dominated 1960s cycling and held the record for the men’s 12-hour time trial for two years. DISC ONE: Mersey Paradise by The Stone Roses DISC TWO: Puff the Magic Dragon by Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Red DISC THREE: Joe Hill by Paul Robeson DISC FOUR: The Four Horsemen by Aphrodite’s Child DISC FIVE: Evening of Light by Nico DISC SIX: Promised Land by Joe Smooth DISC SEVEN: A Whistling Woman by The Unthanks DISC EIGHT: I Saw the Light by Todd Rundgren BOOK CHOICE: One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard LUXURY ITEM: A solar-powered epilator CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Joe Hill by Paul Robeson Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.9	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them
0:13.9	if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.5	And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:21.2	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:46.0	My cast away this week is the actor Maxine Peek.
0:49.4	She was born in Bolton and broke through by making us laugh.
0:53.0	First as the surly twinkle in Victoria Woods sitcom Diner Ladies,
0:57.2	then in Channel 4's shameless. Seeing her potential would warn her to try to avoid being
1:02.8	typecast. She did. In fact, you might say she overshot.
1:07.0	In the stellar career that followed, she's played everyone from Hamlet to Hillsborough
1:11.2	Campainer Anne Williams, not to mention Rebecca Brooks, Blanche De Bois and Moors Murderer Myra Hindley.
1:17.4	All that success, however, has been hard one. Early on, the Sulfide College she attended
1:23.3	quietly suggested she should leave her drama course, as she wasn't a natural fit.
1:28.4	After that, she was rejected from every theatre and education company in the North West.
1:33.0	Then, when she won a place at Radar in London, she initially couldn't afford to take it up.
1:38.0	Looking back, she says, sometimes I wish I'd been that bit bolder when I was younger.
1:42.9	I was always so self-conscious. It used to eat me up, but now I think, oh, nobody cares.
1:48.3	They're not bothered whether you're making a fool of yourself or not.
1:50.9	So why worry? Maxine Peek, welcome to Desert Island Discs.
1:54.3	Thank you, Lauren.
	...

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