We are only a fortnight in, but I’m already out of patience with the ‘cute’ videos, the ‘musical’ videos and, particularly, the ‘hilarious’ videos now being shared online.
If I have to read one more diary of a selfisolated, self-deprecating soul, I’m going to head out and queue up, too close, to someone as vulnerable as me.
They’re nothing but Smugness Diaries: ‘Here I am in my PJs eating cinnamon porridge and watching a box-set of The Wire. The kids have gone feral, Anoushka’s re-lined the cutlery drawers. We’ve got a Sainsbury’s slot for 6.30 on Wednesday week…’
I’ve stood in my little courtyard clapping for NHS workers at 8pm on Thursdays, feeling as intensely moved as others, yet wondering why don’t we just donate a pound a clap instead?
Maureen Lipman attends the Inside Soap Awards at Sway on October 07, 2019 in London, UK
But dystopian and disturbing though this lockdown is, being in self-isolation is not that different from being a resting actor. Which is what I am now Coronation Street (in which I play the acid-tongued granny Evelyn Plummer) has put filming on hold.
Should my innate masochism kick in, I can still watch my episodes a couple of times a week, looking haggard yet feisty, but I choose instead to settle down a French series on Netflix.
This week, my partner – self-isolating in Gerrards Cross – phoned to tell me I had turned up on his TV in an episode of Midsomer Murders.
It was a minor role and one of my forgettable lines was: ‘Be immortal for as long as you live, Sergeant, because nothing is more certain in life than that it will end in death.’
Like all the jobs I’ve got badly wrong, Midsomer Murders seems to be screened at least once a month, just to taunt me. The worst of these roles has to be in National Lampoon’s European Vacation, starring Chevy Chase – and momentarily featuring me.
It was the mid-Eighties when I spent one depressing afternoon in bed with the great man in a blonde wig – me, not him. In the script, his character hits the sack with the wrong woman, only to realise his mistake when he catches sight of my beaky little face.
Chase was not best pleased when I, scenting extra comedy, wrapped my legs around him as he tried to get out of the bed. He told the fragile director that it was unacceptable. She mumbled something about it being quite funny, but he extricated himself rapidly and words were hissed.
It was so embarrassing. Particularly when I did it again on the next take. I can’t remember what happened after that and I’ve never seen the film. But everyone I’ve ever met in a bus or at an airport most definitely has: ‘Saw you in National Lamp…’ ‘Yes! Thank you.’ ‘I love Chevy Chase – what was he like to work with?.’
Maureen Lipman ‘This Morning’ TV show to talk about why her character is set for an epic showdown with Fiz, how her husband sent her a message from beyond the grave
‘Fabulous! We’re still in touch. Best buddies! Bye.’
Enough digressions. How am I keeping myself busy? Well, without describing my Himalayan salt-gargling routine, so turning this into another smug-fest diary, I can only tell you that, aside from missing my kids, I have found freedom from ambition is very liberating.
I’ve seized on this period of house arrest to make some videos for my grandchildren, aged seven and five. It all started on a recent solitary walk, when I accidentally took a selfie and realised that, thanks to the unusual angle, it looked like I had a tree growing out of my head.
And so I sent a video message to my grandkids: ‘I don’t want to worry you but I have a big tree growing out of my head. Can you advise me what to do, because it’s really heavy and I don’t know how to get home?’
They replied with their own video. Sacha, aged five: ‘Er Momo… The tree is not growing out of your head! Just get up and walk away.’
And so it began. I soon found myself in another perilous situation: trapped in a yoga mat. ‘Momo, there is a solution,’ responds Sacha. ‘Put one hand on one end of the mat and the other on the other side and just pull them apart…’
Cue truly helpless giggling from his sister Ava. It’s hard to believe that, even in the face of imminent doom, one can still wake up funny.
Funny videos apart, contact with grandkids is restricted to a nightly conversation on the video-conferencing app Zoom.
We all sit neatly in our screens, with our hands in our laps, and everyone looks extremely beautiful – particularly me, because I hide my glasses in the bread-bin before dialling in.
Sacha and Ava haven’t yet responded to my latest video, in which my face is trapped in a toiletry bag. But I fear they’ll soon be as bored with my comic offerings as I am by friends sending me daft images on the internet. And then, oh Lord, how will I entertain them?
What will I think of next?