Lack of work for older female actors 'fair enough', says Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman has said older female actors are “thrown on the scrapheap” after a certain age but added: “That’s fair enough, isn’t it? The same thing happens to a leaf on a tree.”
In an interview with the Radio Times, the actor, who is working on Coronation Street, acknowledged there is “a certain amount of invisibility” at her age.
“Though Maggie Smith and Judi Dench have done all right, there’s not a lot of drama work out there for older actresses,” Lipman said. “And you have to understand that every older actress still thinks that she’s 34. Look at Joan Collins. And just because you’re 74, it doesn’t mean that you believe it.”
The actor added that there are other exceptions, such as Sheila Hancock, who is in her 80s and still appears on BBC Radio 4’s Just a Minute, and adopted a measured tone when discussing her own ageing.
“I don’t sit around thinking about my absence from society, because I’m too busy getting on with life,” Lipman said. “Yes, maybe we do get thrown on to the scrapheap after a certain age, but that’s fair enough, isn’t it? The same thing happens to a leaf on a tree.”
Lipman, who was born in Hull and became a stage actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company, before embarking on a big-screen career with roles in films including Educating Rita, said she plans to work for as long as possible.
“I’ve lost a lot of friends, and that really makes you realise that you should do the work while you can still get it,” she said. “When I was 71, I did panto in Richmond, flashing my legs and thinking nothing of it. So I’ll keep working for as long as I’ve got my health.”
The creative union Equity launched a campaign earlier this month to raise awareness about the plight of older actors and other creative workers, some of whom are struggling to get work during the Covid pandemic.
Equity’s petition particularly focused on the over-70s, who are not covered by the government-backed insurance scheme for the film and TV industries, brought in to get the industry working again after the pandemic forced productions to shutter.
Tony Robinson, who backed the campaign, said that being over 70 has often given performers “pariah status” because they are considered risky by producers.
The petition calls for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to “come to the table and work with Equity on a solution so older creative workers can safely return to work”. The DCMS said it would work with Equity “to understand the challenges facing the creative and cultural sectors”.
Lipman, who was a lifelong Labour supporter but distanced herself from the party, first over Ed Miliband’s support for recognising the Palestinian state in 2014 and again during the antisemitism row, said that by withdrawing the whip from its former leader Jeremy Corbyn, the party has “turned him from a spent force into a martyr”.
Watch: Maureen Lipman launches scathing attack against Labour leader
She added that Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, has “hit the ground running, and has certainly been saying the right things. I think the main thing is that Starmer is excellent in the House of Commons, and Corbyn never was.”
