Catherine Tate has revealed her horror at coming face-to-face with blood-sucking leeches in the Australian outback.
The actress and comedian, 53, is returning to our screens this month in new BBC comedy Queen of Oz, which was filmed over the course of five to six months down under.
One of the filming locations used was the Australian outback, which was a real eye-opener for the London-born star, she claimed.
Speaking to press including the Standard at a special media screening, Tate recalled: “The outback was mad. I’d never seen a leech before. It’s just genuinely stuff you think: is this really happening?
“Because [my co-star David Roberts] and I had been standing there and all of a sudden someone literally goes, ‘Dave, don’t move, don’t move Dave’. He’s like ‘What?’ Blood seeping out from his trousers, from his jeans! A leech had latched on.
“It was constantly, ‘Oh, don’t move!’ and someone would have to come and take the leech and, oh my god! The nearest I got was on my Ugg boots, that was bad enough. Little leeches crawling up and blood seeping out through the denim? No thanks!”
The new series stars Tate as a member of a fictional royal family who is sent away after numerous tabloid scandals to be Australia’s Head of State, in a move the establishment hopes will finally give her a sense of responsibility.
Antics ensue as Queen Georgiana faces an uphill battle winning over a staunchly republican Prime Minister as well as a hostile national media organisation.
Tate added that she didn’t study any members of the British royal family for the role and maintains that the aristocrats featured in the show are entirely fictitious, with the story being devised long before recent controversies surrounding the UK’s actual royals.
“I didn’t study any member of the royal family, it sounds like a lot of hard work as well,” she laughed.
“It’s an entirely fictitious creation and also it’s a piece of entertainment, it’s not supposed to be [factual]. I’m sure there are masses of things that for royal protocol wouldn’t happen, but you have to take artistic license and go what works for this character and what works for this world that we’ve created.”
Reflecting on how she thinks she would fare as an actual royal, she would rather not.
“It must be awful to be constantly looked at and scrutinised,” she mused.
“I can imagine nothing worse than having to dedicate your life to the public, I think that’s no mean feat. I imagine if I was born into it I would have had a head start in how to get into it, but if someone was to tap me on the shoulder and go, ‘You’re up,’ I think it would be difficult. I’m sure it’s extremely difficult.”
