Actor Amanda Redman has revealed her pain at losing lifelong friend Dennis Waterman in May saying: “He just was so charismatic and the life and soul of the party. I don’t really accept he’s not here anymore.”
The close pals had known each other for 40 years and worked on huge BBC hit drama New Tricks together for a decade.
When Dennis died in May from lung cancer in Spain aged 74, Amanda’s daughter Emily posted on social media: “She(Amanda) has seen and is grateful for your messages but can’t respond – the grief is too personal and private.”
Speaking about losing Dennis for the first time, Amanda said: “It knocked me sideways, no one knew he was ill to that extent.
“His wife phoned me, it was incredibly difficult. I was very lucky because my daughter was staying with me at that point. So thank god she was there.
But, the following day, I had a memorial service of another very, very close friend and I had to make a speech. That was a tricky weekend, I have to say. Hard.”
Turning to pay tribute to her friend, she added: “Dennis was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the loveliest men I have ever known in my life.
He was incredibly kind and incredibly generous. He was a gentleman through and through. And not just a wonderful friend, but also a fantastic colleague as well – to everybody. He was great to everyone. He really was one of the top blokes. A team player.”
Amanda has previously told how they had all night karaoke sessions with their partners including Dennis’ wife Pam.
Amanda recalled: “It was great fun. And we had so many of those wonderful,
wonderful times. There’s just so many of them, as you can imagine, in all these years. The thing about Dennis is that he was a very strong presence.
He was a very shy man, but amongst people that he knew very well he just was so charismatic and the life and soul of the party. I don’t really accept he’s not here anymore.”
She also told how she had recently spoken to James Bolam, who also starred in New Tricks alongside Amanda, Dennis and Alun Armstrong and their memories of that time came flooding back of the work on the drama from 2003 for ten series.
She said: “It’s really strange now, looking back on it, but it was an incredibly close-knit bunch, the four of us. We were so close. We never disagreed about things. We never rowed. We all agreed with each other over everything and laughed and laughed and laughed every single day.
“There wasn’t one day of filming where we weren’t in stitches. It was just… it was joyous, actually. We were all kindred spirits. We all kept in touch.
You know, James Bolam and I were chatting and we both said it was, without doubt, our favourite job. For all four of us. We all felt that.”
Amanda spoke as she prepared to head to Edinburgh for the Fringe where she has and friend David Threlfall are co-directing a collection of short plays.
Frayn’s translation and adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s comedic short stories and plays will be performed by graduates of Amanda’s drama school, Artists Theatre School – established in 1998.
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She said: “The Sneeze is comedy – it’s five short plays and it was Chekhov showing his comedic streak. But, of course, it’s [set in the] late 1800s,
so we have to make it relevant to now. We’ve tried very hard to make that so and I think we’ve succeeded. The actors we’ve got are fabulous. We’re very proud of them. And they’ve worked incredibly hard.
“The Edinburgh Festival is very scary. We keep telling them, this is not a safe thing for you to do, this is a challenge. And the most important thing is that you rise to it and don’t let fear take over. But they’re very level-headed. And they’re a great crowd. We like being with them socially.
They’re a really nice bunch of people. So we’ll have a good time.”
On the ATS she added: “It means everything to me. I love it. I’ve been doing it now for 20 odd years and I have directed virtually every year since we started. The plays we’ve done have been built around my schedule.
And I get absolutely everybody I know involved.”
- Amanda Redman and David Threlfall are co-directing a collection of short plays from Michael Frayn’s The Sneeze at this year’s Edinburgh Festival.
The Sneeze runs from 13-28 August at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose Doonstairs.
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