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Alison Steadman has revealed the scene that convinced her to sign on to the hit sitcom Gavin and Stacey, in which she starred as Gavin’s neurotic mum Pamela.
The 78-year-old actor has reflected on receiving the script for the hit sitcom in 2006 and immediately hearing Pam’s Essex accent when she read the lines.
Steadman revealed it was Pam’s first-ever scene when she’s lounging on the sofa with cucumber slices over her eyes, as she recovers from watching a tear-jerking wildlife programme, that made her fall for the character.
“I could hear the voice, and it just clicked with me,” Steadman toldThe Sunday Times. “She’s lying on the couch with cucumbers on her eyes. Gavin comes in and says, ‘You all right, Mum?’ and she says, ‘I’m not actually. I’ve been crying all afternoon, I’ve been watching this programme, this mother badger was crying because her babies had died.’ ‘Mum, badgers don’t cry.’ ‘Gavin, I know what I saw.’”
Steadman said that scene made her think: “I’ve got to do this.”
The Life is Sweet actor went on to portray Pam, known lovingly as “Three Steaks Pam” to avid viewers, alongside her on-screen husband Mick (Larry Lamb) until the series ended in 2010.
Writing about Gavin and Stacey in her new memoir, Out of Character, Steadman wrote that “Pam, aka Pammalarr, was a gift of a part for me”.
“It wasn’t until I did a chemistry test with Larry Lamb that I knew who’d be playing her husband, Mick. The scene that we had to do together is one of my favourites from the first episode, let’s just call it the Three Steaks Pam scene.”
In the scene, Pam has three steaks on her plate as part of her Atkins diet plan and explains to a perplexed Mick and Gavin that one is the actual steak and the other two are substitutes for chips and peas.
“Larry and I had such a laugh, we were easy company with each other and all of us knew this was a relationship that would work on and off screen. We had worked together years before and had become friends.”
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Steadman also listed some of her favourite silly one-liners that Pam says in the series, such as “What you said then was really boring, I switched off after banana” to Stacey; “You’re a leek-munching sheep sh*****” to Stacey’s mum Gwen and, “My little prince, you’re the victim of a victimisation” to Gavin.
She added: “Then there’s the phrases that are in her DNA such as ‘Oh, my Christ’ and ‘You and me are going to fall out today, Mick, Michael.’”
Created by James Corden and Ruth Jones, the series stars Mathew Horne and Joanna Page as Gavin and Stacey, an Essex boy from Billericay and a Welsh girl from Barry Island, who fall in love from afar, and tracks how their families unite as their romance develops.
Gavin and Stacey will be returning for one final episode on Christmas Day, which will mark the official finale for the series.
It will pick up after the 2019 Christmas finale, which saw Nessa and Smithy’s long-running love-hate relationship hit its climax as Nessa declared her love for Smithy, before proposing to him.
Fans have been waiting nearly five years for Smithy’s response, since the episode ended before he had the chance to reply.
