Actress Celia Imrie talks about films, Victoria Wood and her new Titanic novel ahead of coming to Huddersfield tomorrow

“My friend Fidelis Morgan made all the difference,” says 70-year-old Imrie. “She showed me how to go to the archives and go through page after page in a hunt for information. Without Fidelis, I simply wouldn’t have had the patience or know-how.

“I took my son to an exhibition some years ago, when he was doing a school project on the Titanic. It was there I saw the names of two little boys on the passenger list and wondered how they came to be on board. When I discovered they were from Nice—my spiritual home—I realised this was a diamond of a story that hadn’t been told properly before. We all think we know the story but we really don’t. I di feel like a detesctive at times as we spent two years searching the records.”

Orphans of the Storm is set in 1911 and tells the story of Marcella Caretto, a desperate young woman searching for answers when she's separated from her children.

Marcella is beguiled into marriage with handsome Michael Navratil, but his jealous, controlling behavior quickly sours their romance. And when he takes the disastrous decision to abduct their two little boys and sail to America onboard the Titanic, Marcella’s nightmare begins as she struggles to find the truth about what happened to her children.

"It was strange to think that those little boys had walked the streets near where I live, it is quite spine-tingling. I felt the same thing at Winston Churchill’s home at Chartwell while filming The Gathering Storm. I put hand my hand on the banister thinking, "He walked down this stair, holding this banister".”

She also has another personal link to the TItanic. Imrie's great-great uncle, William Imrie, was a founder of the White Star Line and she is a descendant of Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon who survived the sinking of the Titanic.

She was featured in the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? in October 2012 and discovered that an ancestor on her mother's side was William, Lord Russell, a Whig parliamentarian executed for treason in 1683, after being found guilty of conspiring against Charles II.

Orphans of the Storm is Imrie’s first foray into historical fiction, but not her first novel inspired by her adopted home of Nice (she splits her time between her homes in France and London). She has written four previous novels set in the French resort. She has also written her autobiograpy, the Happy Hoofer, which is what started her love of writing and was the catalyst for her new career as an author.

"I was approached to write my autobiography some time ago and I said ‘Gosh no, who would want to read that ?’ but then they said if I didn’t write it someone else would, and I didn’t want that either, At least if I wrote I could chose what to put in and what to leave out.”

Growing up in Guildford the fourth of five children, Imrie’s first love was dance and she says that she really wanted to be a ballerina, but was told at the age of 11 that she would grow to be too big. She has talked about how this led to battles with then eating disorder anorexia nervosa when she was a teenager.

She enrolled in the Guildford School of Acting. It was her friend Fidelis Morgan who was once again to play a hand in Imrie’s career.

"Fidelis was at university with Victoria Wood and I met her when I went to visit. I didn’t go to university and always felt a bit bad about it - they were all debating things. Then one New Year’s Eve I was in a rather extraordinary play that I was in at Derby Play House and obviously Victoria didn’t have anything on that New Year’s Eve and came to see it.” She’d impersonated Lady Diana Spencer in the BBC comedy special 81 Take 2

"She talked me into doing As Seen on TV,” recalls Imrie who played Miss Babs in the soap spoof Acorn Antiques and the HR Manager in dinnerladies. She won an Olivier award for the 2006 stage musical version of Acorn Antiques. “It was wonderful to be part of such a team, but Victoria was really quite strict. I think it was the musician in her, everything had to be very exact, but I was very glad to be part of her team.”Another ‘team’ she was proud to be part of was during the filming of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. “Who wouldn’t be with that cast ?” She says of her fellow actors which included Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton. She says she looked for inspiration for her character, Madge Hardcastle at Bettys tea room in Harrogate, “Madge was a golfer and I thought I’d find some lady golfers lunching in Bettys.”

She returned to Yorkshire to film Calendar Girls, based on the true story of a group of friends from Rylstone WI who created an ‘alternative’ charity calendar after one of their husbands died from leukaemia.

"I’d never been to a WI before,” says Imrie. “It was marvellous, got to meet some of the original Calendar Girls and we filmed it where it acutally was set. We got to do pilates exercises on the Yorkshire hills and so I am really looking forward to returning to that area for the Huddersfield Literature Festival.”

Imrie has one son, Angus, with actor Benjamin Whitrow. The pair never married with Imrie quoted as saying she "hated the idea of marriage", describing it as a "world of cover-up and compromise". Angus is also an actor and appeared alongside his mother in Kingdom.

Imrie has also starred in other major films including Bridget Jones’s Baby, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Year by the Sea and A Cure for Wellness and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again which led to her achieving her first UK Top 40 single alongside Lily James with a cover of the ABBA song "When I Kissed the Teacher", which reached number 40 in August 2018. In 2016 she appeared in FX’s new comedy series Better Things, and returned to the stage in King Lear at The Old Vic.

And while she is enjoying her writing – she is working on another novel with Fidelis Morgan this time based on another true story about GI brides – he first love will always remain acting whether on stage or on the small or large screen.

Celia Imrie and Fidelia Morgan will be at Huddersfield Literature Festival tomorrow (Sunday 2 April) 5pm-6pm in the main auditorium, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield HD1 2SP

This is a hyrbid event with tickets available to attend in person or online.

huddlitfest.org.uk