'I'm terrified but I've always wanted to do the Edinburgh Fringe' - Michelle Collins

A dark comedy, the play was inspired by a real life Marilyn Monroe lookalike Collins saw emerging from a trailer years ago in LA and explores our relationships with icons, ageing and what happens when dreams don’t come true.

“I’m terrified. But I've always wanted to do the Edinburgh Fringe. It's always been on my bucket list,” she says, when we talk ahead of her run.

“Being live on stage terrifies me but I still love it. I don't trust an actor who says they don't get scared on stage. Judi Dench still gets scared on stage. Doesn't everybody? I think all the good actors should get scared because it's good to be scared. And also I've never done a one-woman show. So there's only me up there. Oh, with a pet python.”

A real python?

Collins won’t be drawn and is keen to avoid spoilers but promises unexpected twists and turns in the play written by Ben Weatherill (whose Frank and Percy starred Ian McKellen and Roger Allam and sold out across the UK and in London) after Stewart Permutt, and directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones.

Surprises are nothing new for Collins who is back stalking Albert Square in killer heels as Cindy in EastEnders after a gap of 25 years, returning in 2023. In the meantime the 63-year-old has four decades of stage and screen credits ranging from TV roles in Coronation Street, Doctor Who, Miss Marple, Two Thousand Acres of Sky, and The Illustrated Mum, for which she won an international Emmy and Bear Grylls Mission Survive, while she’s appeared in numerous plays and musicals including Daddy Cool, Calendar Girls, Cleudo, Thoroughly Modern Millie and A Dark Night in Dalston, which she also produced. Films include Black Road and last year’s Gangster’s Kiss, 2024, with John Hannah, Martin Kemp and Patsy Kensit.

Collins recounts how the inspiration for the play which she originally collaborated on with her late friend, the playwright Stewart Permutt, came about after she saw a woman dressed as Marilyn Monroe emerge from a motorhome in LA a few years ago.

“I was walking around Hollywood and saw this woman dressed as Marilyn in that iconic white dress. She had the wig on and was putting money in a meter and visually, it just looked fantastic. She had long red nails and put the money in the metre then sashayed away very elegantly. She exchanged hellos with this guy and walked off. Then she turned around and I saw that she was an older Marilyn, more like 56. So I walked up to the guy and asked who she was. He said, ‘oh, that's Motorhome Marilyn. She lives in that trailer and walks up and down and that's how she earns her money’. I was really intrigued. I later went looking for her but never found her or found out who she was. I just became intrigued with the idea and that image always stayed with me.”

Discussing the idea with Stewart Permutt, whose play 'Real Babies Don't Cry' won a Fringe First in 2010 and who also wrote the play she produced and performed in, A Dark Night in Dalston, the idea became a script. However Permutt’s death meant it was not developed beyond early drafts.

“Stewart was very ill and couldn’t write it, then passed away just over a year ago, but he had left me the play and given me permission to let someone else write it so Ben [Weatherill] wrote another version and made it his own.

Collins is at pains to point out that the show is more about Denise, the Marilyn Monroe lookalike, than the iconic American actor.

“I don't want people to think they’re going to see another Marilyn impersonation, because it's really not, it's kind of more than that. Yes, Denise has the wig and the white dress, but you will see more about her, an aspiring actress from Southend who goes to Hollywood to escape her life and it doesn't work out for her so to make ends meet becomes a Marilyn lookalike. And sadly, she's still a Marilyn lookalike in her mid to late 50s. Denise feels she’s more than a lookalike, that she actually embodies her because there are parallels to their lives and struggles. I would say Denise is a bit kooky, a bit out there. She's fun, but also sad. She's living a life through an icon, who died at 33.”

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How about Collins, is she also fascinated by Marilyn Monroe?

“I read lots of books a few years back when Stewart and I were first working on the play so I probably could go on Mastermind and talk about Marilyn Monroe as my specialist subject. People dismissed her as being this blonde bombshell but she had more to her than meets the eye. She was a strong woman before her time and cleverer than people gave credit.
She started her own production company when people weren't doing that and took the studios to court and won. She was involved a lot in politics with a small p: she was with Arthur Miller through the McCarthy era and did a lot for civil rights. When the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood wouldn’t book Ella Fitzgerald because of her race, Marilyn refused to sing until they did and they became friends.”

“So she was a very strong empowered woman and I think undersold. And I think Denise feels that about herself. And also for me, as an actor, I feel like I'm taking charge of my career by doing this.”

But Collins has had a long and successful career and is on primetime TV in one of the nation’s favourite soaps.

“Yes, I am on TV now and a lot more visible than I was. But as a woman, as an actress, as you get older, it kind of changes. When I was in my 30s and 40s, I had big lead roles on television, and I’m not grumbling but it kind of diminishes a bit. And I think you have to fight a bit more as a woman for those roles. So I decided I was going to take a bit more charge of my career, particularly in theatre. Yes, I was doing a lot of commercial jobs to pay the bills and everything, but I wanted something a bit more creative for me. I wanted to create those roles for myself. A lot of actors are doing that. I also made a film, which did very well at festivals. I created that, again for myself.”

The film is Black Road, which she made with Genesius Pictures and Debbie Gray, who made Good Luck to You, Leo Grande with Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack.

“And then I did a lot of independent film, which I love doing, over the last few years.

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While Collins was busy creating and collaborating, EastEnders came calling once more, with the return of Cindy after 25 years.

“EastEnders came out of the blue. It was a bit of a shock. And I had to keep it under wraps for a whole year, but it still didn't stop me doing my own stuff. People say, ‘how do you do all this, but as I've got older, maybe it's facing my own mortality, I don't know, but I seem to have more energy. I don't know if it's my HRT. I do have an amazing kind of zest for life. I asked EastEnders if it would be possible to have time off to do this play because it's something I really feel strongly about and really want to do and they said yes. I think it's important to let people go and do other things, because when you come back you feel re-energized. Just because you're in a soap you’re labeled a soap actor, but we're still all jobbing actors. And for me it's really important to go off and do other things.”

“But I love being in EastEnders. I've been very lucky since I've come back and had great storylines.”

Marilyn Monroe is definitely an icon, but does Cindy qualify as another?

“So I’m told,” says Collins. She's been through a lot. She was imprisoned, was in with a gangster, had witness protection, had a baby that was taken away, was in prison…

Died in childbirth…

“Yeah, and so she goes abroad, meets a man, falls in love, gets married, has two more children, then finds out two of her kids have died, tries to get away then is told she can't go back to Spain… I mean, honestly, it confuses ME. When they told me the backstory, I was like, blimey 25 years of this, how is this woman coping?

“I think she's a complex character and I love playing her. I like her because she's unapologetic. And she's got balls. She's strong, vulnerable, dysfunctional, but passionate. And she's all these things that women really shouldn't be. She's a bit crazy and I know people sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed watching, thinking what's she doing now? But I think they also love to see what she's up to. Everywhere she goes she creates drama and she's just so visible and I love that.”

“I think it’s fantastic that older women are represented on screen.
Also, why can't older women have affairs? Ok, I'm not condoning it, she did have an affair with her husband's stepson, which probably isn't a cool thing to do if you want to be accepted back into the family. But, you know what? Why not? Women of 60 can go and have affairs and I think people also want to see that on TV and I think that's really important.

“Soaps have always been really great in championing women, matriarchal figures and older women as well.”

If Collins’ career hadn't worked out the way it has, could she ever have seen herself going down the lookalike route?

“Oh God, I think I can. I remember getting a Kylie look alike for my daughter's birthday party. Yeah. There are people who have made careers out of doing something like that. But when I think of all the jobs I did when I was very, very young, it never really occurred to me to ever be a lookalike. Let's face it, anyone could be a Marilyn lookalike.
Just get the blonde wig and iconic dress. Denise, my character says, ‘Anybody can get the outfit on Amazon, but I'm different’. She feels she actually embodies Marilyn.”

“You know, I did go to America when I was 17 with a boyfriend who became a very successful production designer in the film world, and we stayed in Venice Beach and I had the most brilliant time and people said to me, ‘stay here and be an actress in America.’ And I was tempted, and I do think what would have happened if I'd stayed? But I hadn’t finished college here and came back. Sometimes I think what if? I didn't get into drama school but I’ve worked a lot. Life for me is about successes that come out of failures. I think having to struggle makes you a better person and a stronger person.”

“There are still a lot of things I haven't done and I'm still ticking these boxes. As an actor, as a woman, even more so now, you've got to have a lot of strings to your bow. Because it's very hard, particularly if you're from a working class background,” says the actor who was raised in north London along with her sister Vicki by a single mother who went back into education when Collins was 14 and got a degree.

“So it's important to create things for yourself and be in charge of your career.”

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After the Fringe, Collins will be back with a bang on EastEnders, but what else is on her bucket list of things she’d love to achieve?

“I suppose I've never been asked to work at the National, the Donmar warehouse, the RSC. I've never been asked on Desert Island discs. I'm desperate to do that. There's lots of things. I don't know. I still feel I maybe have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about certain things but that's fine, I’m not angry about it. The other side of it is I feel very lucky and think I'm very privileged to be a woman of a certain age, still working, still doing something I really love. I'm proud I was pretty much a single parent and managed to have a career at the same time and be a creative. Sometimes you have to take jobs you don't really want to do but they’re money jobs and then there are the other jobs, the creative jobs, like the Illustrated Mum, which I loved doing, I went to New York to get the international Emmy, and it won the three BAFTAs. So I've had a very varied career. But I'm not one of these people that pats myself on the shoulder.
I don't like that. I'm confident but I'm insecure at the same time. I suffer from imposter syndrome like a lot of people but I keep on kicking away and trying to do new things and reinvent myself. And do things out of my comfort zone which is what I'm doing at the Edinburgh Fringe.”

“You have to be brave. I think to myself what could be worse? I could be doing Bear Grylls again. I'm not at the top of a mountain having to abseil down. That was really terrifying.”

“So who knows what the future holds? You can never be complacent or take anything for granted. I've learned that in life. And I want to enjoy every minute and every day because I've lost so many people over the last few years, my mum, good friends, and sadness and grief creep up on you but also give you strength to move forward and be strong. It's also given me a sense of freedom to go and do my own thing.

“I hope Motorhome Marilyn goes well and people love it. But you know what? It's something I've done, and I needed to do for myself and for Stewart. And to prove that I can.“

Michelle Collins makes her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in Motorhome Marilyn, a dark comedy by Ben Weatherill, playing Doonstairs, Gilded Balloon Patter House, until 25 August (except 13 August) at 5.30pm (60 mins). Book for Motorhome Marilyn: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:5585/