I've been the star of Jubilee Court for more than 20 years now. Well, a star of it. If someone mentioned the name Sylvia Richardson it wouldn't mean a thing to most people; but say Val from Jubilee Court and everyone knows who you mean – the fiery, busty, sex-mad peroxide blonde queen of Britain's favourite TV soap opera, on the box at peak time three evenings a week plus an omnibus on Sunday. Trouble is, we're not Britain's favourite anymore. We haven't topped the viewer ratings for three years now, and we've even slipped to third among the soaps. When that happens, everyone associated with a show starts to get very nervous about their job security.
There was a time when I was at the centre of almost every story. I'm in the record books as having appeared in more episodes than any other character. Over the years Val has had her way with half the blokes in the block of flats where the show is set. She made her debut as a 17-year old seducing a married pensioner; when she was in her mid-30s (I'm 43 now) and pregnant she took her teenage nephew's virginity at his mother's wedding reception; she once shagged a bloke while he was lying in hospital with his plastered leg suspended from the ceiling; Val even had a three-in-a-bed romp with a West Indian father and son. That one was fun to rehearse and film! The press have called me Voluptuous Val, Val the Vixen, Val the Vamp, you name it. I even got my own TV special once, Vivacious Val's Naughty Nights.
Recently though, I'd started to feature less and less. I was still in most episodes, but sometimes it was just down to a 30-second appearance buying a bag of sugar in the corner shop. What had been really worrying me lately was that the writers would be starting on the end-of-year episodes soon; and as everyone knows, one of the more prominent characters always dies at Christmas in Jubilee Court. One bookmaker already had me down as 2-1 favourite to be next. I started my career wanting to do Shakespeare and Hollywood, but after a quarter of a century playing one character I'm not sure I'm capable of anything else. I've got a champion in Joe Moss, one of the senior writers. We had a brief fling soon after he joined the show, nearly 20 years ago, and he's had a soft spot for me ever since, always giving me nice raunchy storylines. But now, every time he tried to put me back at the centre of things he was getting the same response: "Okay, so Val sleeps with another bloke. Oh yeah, very original." Joe's job wasn't exactly safe either.
I was getting increasingly desperate, and one day sitting with Joe I blurted, "All right, why doesn't Val get seduced by a girl instead?" He pointed out that we'd done the lesbian thing a few years ago with a couple of students. I came back, "Yeah, but that was two kids brought into the show for that purpose then written out again. This is Val we're talking about, the cock-hungry man-chaser. We could make it a young girl, half her age, French or something to give it a bit of a twist."
Joe began to like the idea then. "We could make her a Muslim; no maybe not, in the current climate. I know – what about Polish? Since the EU let the East Europeans in there have been hundreds of thousands of Poles coming to Britain, that'd give us all sorts of angles. Old Val pulled by a young Slavic beauty, a hint of racism against this new wave of foreigners coming in 'taking our jobs', setting Val against some of her oldest friends, the young girl's boyfriend kicking up a fuss, there's a goldmine of possibilities. With Val's record I don't know why we never thought of it before." I spent a nervous few days while Joe developed the characterisation, wrote a couple of sample scripts and pitched it to the editors. Then one afternoon he burst into my dressing room, completely ignoring the fact that I had my tits hanging out, grabbed my shoulders and gave me a huge kiss on my naked back. "You'd better start developing a taste for pussy Sylv; Val's about to go gay."
I must admit, I had a few doubts about the idea, even though it was me who came up with it. I've had more than my fair share of men in real life, including two ex-husbands, but I've never been sexually attracted to women. I've got a huge male fan base – I get thousands of e-mails from guys aged 10 to 100 asking for sexy photos, asking for dates, telling me their often bizarre fantasies about Val, and so on. (I must admit, I have tried out one or two of those fantasies with various boyfriends.) Of course, I get the odd contact from lesbians as well, but I normally just delete them without bothering to read them. Val hasn't exactly been the most dyke-friendly character in the past either. I don't suppose she invented the term 'carpet muncher' for women who eat each other's cunts, but she certainly used it quite liberally when those two lezzie students were in the show.
It's not that I've got anything against lesbians, or gay men, in real life. Half the cast and crew are that way inclined, and my best friend on the show, Wyn Francis, is a dyke. At least two straight young actresses had fled the show after being propositioned by Wyn, in one case successfully. She's a wardrobe mistress a good 10 years younger than me but we hit it off the first time we met. Shortly after the new storyline had been approved I took her to one side and asked her, haltingly, to give me a bit of advice on what lesbians did together, as a bit of character development for Val. Wyn stared at me as if I'd gone bonkers, rolled her eyes and said in her cute Welsh accent, "Oh for Christ's sake Sylv, you're not serious are you? Bloody hell, use your imagination." She paused for a moment then gave me a saucy smile. "Of course, if you fancy coming round to my place one night I'd be happy to give you a personal demonstration. I won't even charge you." I grinned and told her to piss off, but as I walked away I had an uncomfortable feeling that maybe my mate hadn't been altogether joking with me.
Anyway, we were all sworn to secrecy on the plot until Val's future lover was cast, and the producers set to work finding someone. After a couple of weeks they came up with Agnieszka Radwinska. Apparently she was already a minor star in Poland, but the name didn't mean a thing to me. She'd signed up for an initial three months, and she was looking to try and kick-start a TV career in Britain. I got to meet her before the deal was finalised. She was 22 or 23 I guessed, tall and willowy with long brunette hair, high cheekbones and big sensual lips; a nice pair of knockers too. She oozed sexuality, and knowing Gerry, our producer, as I do I could imagine his cock leaping to attention the moment he first set eyes on her. She had a sultry voice and a cute accent. Personally I thought she was probably too beautiful and sexy to be convincing as a student, but Gerry was already imagining what it would feel like inside her knickers and he was dead set on her. Thankfully she told us all to call her Anna, so we didn't have to try and wrap our tongues around that name.
Naturally, the moment she'd been cast what's known in the trade as an 'inspired leak' by the studio hit the tabloid press and I was front page news: Val's Lesbo Re-launch, The Vamp Goes Camp, that sort of rubbish. Overnight, entertainment journalists who hadn't wanted to know me for years were begging my agent for exclusive interviews, and Val was the name on everybody's lips again, just like the old days. Some of the newer starlets on the show had their noses quite put out of joint by it all. Anna and I did the rounds of the TV studios together and she played up to her part, adopting an innocent little girl voice I'd not heard before, hugging my arm and cuddling up close to me on the sofas. Officially the plot line was still under wraps so we couldn't confirm it, but I don't think her performances left anyone in much doubt about the closeness of our characters!
Anna and I did get on well, and we enjoyed rehearsing and filming together. From the moment her character, Ewa Nowak, appeared, the audience ratings shot up, with everyone wanting to see how the little innocent got big bad Val into bed. The make-up and hair styling teams did a brilliant job with Anna, and on-screen she really did look like a naïve 19-year old student. We worked our way through Val taking Ewa in as a lodger for the money; Val coming home and finding Ewa at it with her boyfriend on the sofa; Val having a huge row with her best friend over the other woman's racism towards Ewa; and Val coming home to throw out the tempestuous boyfriend just as he was about to beat Ewa up. I knew for certain that my career was saved when we were told that the death in the Christmas episode would be the boyfriend, with Val and Ewa being tried for his murder. It doesn't get any better in soap land than being the star of a murder trial. I made a mental note to make sure Joe wrote those scripts, so there was no chance of Val dramatically committing suicide on the eve of the verdict or something – or being found guilty of course!
That scene where Val evicted the boyfriend was in the episode before Ewa finally made her first move on her landlady. We filmed the fateful moment itself on a Friday. The date it was to be aired was leaked, and the producers were predicting the biggest audiences since a coach load of pensioners had crashed into one of the show's two pubs during the kiddies' party on Christmas Eve a good many years earlier. That Friday, Anna and I were both a bit nervous about filming our first kiss, so shortly before rehearsing it we had a couple of drinks in the Hospitality suite. The rehearsal went perfectly. Anna, playing Ewa, approached me and said "Valerie, you saved my life when you threw Janusz out - you don't know how crazy he is. I want to thank you properly. In my country this is how we say thank you." Then she put a hand behind my head and pulled my lips to hers, my eyes fluttering shut in anticipation as she pressed me against the front room wall.