Christopher Biggins pays heartfelt tribute to Upstairs, Downstairs star Jean Marsh

GB News

Broadcaster Christopher Biggins has shared "extraordinary" details from behind the scenes of iconic British series Upstairs, Downstairs - following the death of one of the show's co-creators.Jean Marsh passed away at her home aged 90 on Sunday, following complications from dementia.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00I want to talk about Jean Marsh, first of all.

00:02Yes, very sad that Jean...

00:03She's 90 years of age.

00:05I know.

00:05She's had good innings.

00:06A very good innings.

00:08And I was privileged to do an upstairs, downstairs in my career.

00:12And I played... I was in the middle.

00:14I played a car salesman and selling them a car for the chauffeur.

00:21It was played by John Alderton.

00:22And it was great fun.

00:23However, what was interesting was in rehearsals,

00:26one end of the rehearsal room was the upstairs people

00:30and the other end was the downstairs people.

00:33And they didn't mix.

00:35It was the most extraordinary thing.

00:37So if you were an upstairs, you sat there and, you know,

00:41very grandly talked about, you know, lovely things.

00:44And then downstairs, it was all cold blimey, you know.

00:47It was bizarre.

00:49But very good thing to do.

00:51As Tim said, was it part of maintaining, as actors do,

00:56this sense of who you are and the character?

00:59Well, I think it must have been.

01:00I think, you know, it was sort of setting out, you know, who was who.

01:05You know, that you were the downstairs common people

01:08and you were the upstairs grand people.

01:09Well, the fascinating thing is, in real life,

01:11your father was a car salesman.

01:13He was.

01:14Would you have followed Dad?

01:16Would I follow Dad?

01:17Could you have?

01:18No, no.

01:19No, I was very bored.

01:21But I remember when I first passed my test,

01:24I got through, in the first year, eight cars.

01:27Because I kept going in and saying,

01:29well, that looks a nice one, Dad.

01:30Can I have that?

01:31Or I'd smash one.

01:32Oh, my goodness.

01:33You know, I always said,

01:34so the insurance company weren't very pleased with us.

01:36But Jean Marsh was a great, great girl.

01:40I mean, she was.

01:40And what a, you know, I think accolade to have done

01:44a wonderful series like Upstairs, Downstairs to create it.

Category

Transcript

Recommended