John Gibson: That's the spirit with Lorraine

Published on Thursday 2 September 2010 09:52

TALK the hind legs off a dozen donkeys, so she would. Lorraine Chase is invariably good for a gab, as I rediscovered at The Dome where she'd been starring in the Fringe in a two-hander much to do with spiritualism.

"We called it 'An Evening With Elsie Parsons' when in truth it was evening with Lorraine Chase and not a lot of people knew that, she chirruped, "but I still have visions of making it my pension".

Spiritualism? "I'm not religious at all but if you have a belief it gives you something to lean on, something to cheer you up when you're on a downer.

"It must be a much harder life when you don't have some kind of faith.

"Some people forget that we are animals and when I say I'm not religious I'm conscious of an energy – some call it God. Or nature."

For Lorraine, 60 next year and, for ever, a star in Emmerdale, life hasn't been altogether easy. Her dad escaped from the Scrubs when she was seven, she reminded me as she prattled on about the state of the nation, about socialism, about Enoch Powell.

She vowed she'll be back at The Dome next year. Providing the spirit moves her.

What's this ear?

Just won't be the same watching my favourite programme hereafter, Match of the Day, now that its host Gary Lineker has been whingeing about his son George flopping his exams.

It's all the fault of the 25,000-a-year Charterhouse school, his dad's saying. Could it possibly be that George, who has this propensity from spilling from nightclubs with voluptuous blondes on his arm, is something of a dunderheid?

Almost uncanny, the likeness between father and son. The eyes have it. Or is it the ears? Quickly, pass me the crisps. And don't spare the salt.

Afterwords . .

. . . Alf Garnet, social commentator and West Ham supporter, usually had something pungent to say, like: "You don't think an undertaker cries when you die, do you? He's the only one laughing 'cos he's earning."