Elsie Kelly

Elsie Kelly interview

Elsie Kelly reveals her double delight at playing Noreen and her glamorous twin Doreen in Benidorm...

Johnny Vegas, Selina Griffiths, Elsie Kelly interviews

Sadly, this is the last series (for now) that will see all three of the Maltby's.

Elsie Kelly & Selina Griffiths interview

An interview with Elsie Kelly, who plays Noreen, and Selina Griffiths, who plays Pauline.

Radio Times review

The praise lavished upon this anthology series from viewers and TV critics alike is justly deserved, and this episode is another cracker. In Nana's Party, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith (writing and directing) play prankster brothers-in-law who, with their wives (Claire Skinner as an OCD mum and Lorraine Ashbourne as her alcoholic sister), gather for Maggie's 79th birthday. Cue another delightfully ditsy turn from Benidorm's Elsie Kelly.

The half-hour unfolds like a micro-packaged Mike Leigh drama, with finely judged performances as secrets and lies are exposed in cosy suburbia. All it's lacking is Timothy Spall grunting.

Although every single episode in this series is completely different, somehow Messrs Pemberton and Shearsmith manage to score one bullseye after another. In tonight's episode, a stressed-out daughter (Claire Skinner) invites her mother (Elsie Kelly) over to celebrate her 79th birthday party. The other guests are an alcoholic sister (Lorraine Ashbourne) and her appalling husband (Reece Shearsmith), and it degenerates into the birthday party from hell. And while the inferno is raging all around her, Granny sits there smiling, endlessly reciting the joke on her birthday card or playing games on her granddaughter's iPad. Imagine a more twisted version of Abigail's Party.

Radio Times review

Hola! to the Solana resort and its gallery of grotesques for seven more instalments of smut in the sun. Benidorm is well past its best, no doubt about that, but if you're as fond of the regulars as I am, this annual reunion is as cheering as a blow-out with a bunch of old buddies.

Transvestite Lesley and randy Mateo lead a workers' revolt when Joyce slashes their pay. But sniff closely and there's a whiff of transition in the air. Only the male Dykes check in this year; a fax from the US signposts the imminent exit of core family, the Garveys; and swinger Jacqueline has a new man in her life. (Her hubby Donald has been written out; sadly, the lovely actor Kenny Ireland wasn't well enough to film and he died in July 2014.)

On a happier note, later in the run Johnny Vegas will return as slobby Geoff, after a five-year break, along with Elsie Kelly as his daffy mum, Noreen.