IN THIS year's The Royle Family Christmas Special, Jim and Barbara celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on the sofa (where else?) with Scotch eggs, Twiglets and telly. If Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston were to raise a glass to the first time they played husband and wife on screen it wouldn't be their golden anniversary and would probably be a more glamorous affair than Jim grunting "My arse!" and Barbara scurrying off to make tea. But they would still be past their
"I remember the first time I met Ricky," Johnston recalls of arriving on the set of a brand new soap in 1982 in which they would play husband and wife for the next six years. "He came in as large as life. He seemed to know everybody and I knew nobody
. We improvised, just clicked, they saw us as a family, and that was it.
"I've actually been married to Alun Armstrong more than to Ricky Tomlinson. Alun, three times, Ricky two. They keep popping up. I have to say I'm always glad to give them back to their real wives at the end."
That new soap, set in Liverpool, was, of course, Brookside with Johnston and Tomlinson forging one of the great nightmare marriages on the small screen as Bobby and Sheila Grant. Back then, Johnston was a struggling theatre actress and single mother who was considering giving it all up to become a teacher. Then the part of a lifetime came along, in her home city, written by Jimmy McGovern, and acting opposite "the funniest man I know". Johnston describes it as one of the major turning points of her life. Even today when in Liverpool strangers call her Sheila. "Or Barbara," she says. "They can't make up their minds."
More than 25 years later, she is preparing to be Tomlinson's other half once more. What is it about their relationship? "It always seems to be fresh," she says. "Now it's because we don't do The Royle Family all the time. I love Ricky, he's a great friend. He makes me laugh, he's just a very funny man and a great actor. It's a joy to be with him. Craig (Cash, who plays son-in-law Dave Best and co-writes with Caroline Aherne] is hysterical too, the giggler on set. He starts giggling, Ricky starts giggling, and that's it."
It was something of an inside joke for British soap lovers to cast Johnston and Tomlinson as the parents in The Royle Family, giving them a second crack at fulfilling their vows. It worked: a huge part of the show's continuing success – three series, two specials and counting – is down to the chemistry between Jim, the belligerent patriarch, and Barbara, whose love for her family is matched only by her passion for ciggies.
In person, however, Johnston is closer to the Royals at Buckingham Palace than their working-class namesakes in Manchester. At 65, she is very glamorous, an avid non-smoker, and as posh sounding as any classically trained actor who started out doing Shakespeare in rep. "Ricky always says he's not a real actor and I'm a classical actor so we make a whole," she says. "We work brilliantly together because we know each other so well. There's a trust and an instinct for each other's work. It's very unpredictable and challenging." This probably came in handy when earlier this month the Christmas special, The Golden Egg Cup, had to be reshot because the film was faulty and everyone's heads had been chopped off. One of the writers referred to it as the most expensive rehearsal in television history.
I suspect, however, that Johnston enjoyed having to do it all over again. She tells me she will continue to play her favourite character for as long as she is asked. At home she has a bag with "Barbara" written on it, filled with slippers, specs, and, I'm guessing, some hair-greasing products and dodgy scrunchies. She relishes the chance to take it out and start "making-down".
"I always think each time will be our last," she says. When Aherne announced she wouldn't write or star in another episode after the series ended in 2000, it seemed the days of sitting around watching a family as they sat around watching the telly were over. But last year the first Christmas special in eight years was watched by 11 million people. "I would hate it if we never did any more," says Johnston. "It's like this other family I've got. I'm like the royal family. I have two Christmases – my Royle Christmas and my own."
Johnston will also be appearing in the traditional BBC Christmas ghost story, Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw adapted by Sandy Welch (Jane Eyre, Emma) and updated to the Twenties.
"I play the housekeeper Mrs Grose, who is really gross," she says. "We filmed it in a beautiful house in Somerset and camped together in one of the meadows. I love period pieces. The set design, costume and make-up transport you into another world. Once you get in the corset and the little buttoned boots, you start feeling your posture changing and then the wig goes on..."
Johnston grew up in Liverpool, her father a plumber and mother a factory worker. Though her dad loved the theatre, she has no idea where her acting gene came from. "I think my parents didn't quite know what was going on," she says. "All the theatre my mum saw me in didn't impress at all. She would say things like 'I liked your suit in the second act'. She was so pleased when I told her about Brookside and said it would be like Coronation Street in Liverpool... until the first episode went out and there was all this uproar about the swearing. She said she was so ashamed, and apparently all my aunts and uncles were horrified." Johnston starts laughing, clearly delighted at the thought of ruffling some feathers. "They came to love it though. My mother said she was proud of me because I never got above myself."
This is where Johnston gets her grounded approach to acting and why she has maintained a connection to the north, living between London and Liverpool – "mostly on the motorway" – for the past 20 years. The best advice about acting she ever heard is equally no-nonsense: "Always have a nap at lunchtime. Jim Broadbent told me that. And you know, I always do."
Back in Liverpool in the 1960s, she got distracted from her ambition to act by a certain boy band. "I was working as a tax officer and got hooked on going to the Cavern," she says of the club where Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles. "It was mostly jazz and skiffle when I started going. I spent most of my life there and saw The Beatles loads of times." Eventually, the 19-year-old Johnston got a job working for Epstein as his PA, based in his record shop on Whitechapel. "Brian and his brother used to bring in all these American imports, Chuck Berry, rock'n'roll," she says. "All the groups would listen to the records then do live cover versions of them at the Cavern. It was so exciting to be in on that. I never dated a Beatle but we used to hang out and I remember going to Paul's 21st."
Johnston saw Cliff Richard's backing group, The Shadows, play at the party and John Lennon have a fight with the DJ from the Cavern. "And I was engaged to the drummer in The Swinging Blue Jeans. I was quite the hot young thing." When The Beatles left Merseyside, Johnston didn't hang around either, heading to drama college in London.
In the end, we come back to Barbara Royle. Johnston will be spending Christmas up north with her son and his future in-laws, her beloved football (she wants the Liverpool FC anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone, played at her funeral), and the telly. "I make them all sit and watch me," she says. "We did that last year on Christmas Day. Actually, I go in another room. I can't watch it with other people because I can't bear it if they don't laugh." v
The Royle Family, The Golden Egg Cup, BBC1, Christmas Day, 9pm; The Turn Of The Screw, BBC1, 30 December, 9pm
This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on December 20