Sue Johnston

Sue Johnston interview

Sue Johnston tells TV Choice more about Lapland, and also reveals how she likes to celebrate the festive season.

Sue Johnston: Fame drove me to bulimia and depression

Sue Johnston has spoken out about her struggle with bulimia and depression during the early years of her fame.

The final episode of this by-the-numbers comedy-drama set in a village in the north of England which fears outsiders and prides itself on the quality of its rock. As in Blackpool rock. Jason and Emily put the wedding back on and Max continues his plans for the town's redevelopment. It's not groundbreaking, but Sue Johnston is as reliable as ever, and at least it doesn't have a laughter track.

Sugartown review

Even before I'd noticed Sue Johnston's name on the cast list, I thought Sugartown sounded like it was cut from the same cloth as Jam & Jerusalem. Set in a fading UK seaside resort (it's filmed in Filey, North Yorkshire, in case you were wondering), it boasts an "eccentric gang of loveable locals" played by an impressive line-up of familiar faces, a gently amusing script and occasional serious moments.

Sky announces new comedy as part of autumn line-up

Sue Johnston, Tom Ellis and Joanna Page are to lead the cast of a new Sky1 comedy called Gates.

I recently wrote to television to ask it, in polite yet vigorous terms, to cease making whimsical comedy-dramas set in idealised northern towns which promulgate the tired view that Britain is populated entirely by loveable eccentrics and pantomime villains. Did it listen? Did it 'eck as like.

Or perhaps Sugartown was already in the can by the time my urgent missive arrived, and that seeing as the BBC don't appear to have much faith in it - shunting it out almost apologetically at the unedifying slot of 10:25pm on a Sunday - this will be the last programme of its type we shall ever see, paving way for a new golden dawn where populist drama isn't a euphemism for "bland, cosy, unambitious nothingness starring a man in a bobble hat".

One can but hopelessly dream.

Set in a fictional seaside town financially supported by the local rock factory (hence the title), and populated by the likes of Sue Johnston doing her daffy yet dependable older woman act, it is pitched somewhere between Victoria Wood and an Ealing comedy, but without the wit or spark of either.

You know how it goes: unscrupulous entrepreneur threatens to close the factory, forcing the plucky locals to fight back in a variety of unamusing ways. That their principle method of rebellion is the feel-good factor of dance should also come as no surprise to you.

What may startle you slightly, however, is the villain's stewardship of a mini Playboy club, which is of course precisely the sort of establishment you'd find in a nowhere town where nearly every resident is an OAP. Yes, I know it's not a Ken Loach film, but you can only suspend your disbelief so much.

Featuring a mayor who arrives to work on a bicycle wearing full ceremonial attire - presumably as a concession to those who wish to believe that Trumpton was a documentary - and a character seemingly intended to illustrate the lighter side of bipolar disorder, Sugartown succeeds neither as comedy nor drama.

Pastel-coloured in sugary shades of CBBC, it should be studiously avoided if you're lactose intolerant or simply intolerant of vacuous entertainment.

I recently wrote to television to ask it, in polite yet vigorous terms, to cease making whimsical comedy-dramas set in idealised northern towns which promulgate the tired view that Britain is populated entirely by loveable eccentrics and pantomime villains. Did it listen? Did it 'eck as like.

Or perhaps Sugartown was already in the can by the time my urgent missive arrived, and that seeing as the BBC don't appear to have much faith in it - shunting it out almost apologetically at the unedifying slot of 10:25pm on a Sunday - this will be the last programme of its type we shall ever see, paving way for a new golden dawn where populist drama isn't a euphemism for "bland, cosy, unambitious nothingness starring a man in a
bobble hat".

One can but hopelessly dream.

Set in a fictional seaside town financially supported by the local rock factory (hence the title), and populated by the likes of Sue Johnston doing her daffy yet dependable older woman act, it is pitched somewhere between Victoria Wood and an Ealing comedy, but without the wit or spark of either.

You know how it goes: unscrupulous entrepreneur threatens to close the factory, forcing the plucky locals to fight back in a variety of unamusing ways. That their principle method of rebellion is the feel-good factor of dance should also come as no surprise to you.

What may startle you slightly, however, is the villain's stewardship of a mini Playboy club, which is of course precisely the sort of establishment you'd find in a nowhere town where nearly every resident is an OAP. Yes, I know it's not a Ken Loach film, but you can only suspend your disbelief so much.

Featuring a mayor who arrives to work on a bicycle wearing full ceremonial attire - presumably as a concession to those who wish to believe that Trumpton was a documentary - and a character seemingly intended to illustrate the lighter side of bipolar disorder, Sugartown succeeds neither as comedy nor drama.

Pastel-coloured in sugary shades of CBBC, it should be studiously avoided if you're lactose intolerant or simply intolerant of vacuous entertainment.

Sugartown has a lot of very bad dancing

This is just a wild guess but when actress Sue Johnston looks back on a career that has taken in the glory years of Brookside and The Royle Family, dressing up as a sherbet dab and dancing like a loon to Starship's We Built This City, will not figure among the highlights.
And that was one of the better bits of Sugartown (BBC1).

A lumpy comedy drama set in an ailing seaside town up north, Sugartown has Miranda's Tom Ellis as the bad brother (he's been down south and is thus rich) returning to steal the local seaside rock factory from the good brother (poor, obviously).

In order to stop this happening, good brother's salt-of-the-earth/dippy mates are going to do a lot of very bad dancing. Because, apparently, 'Sugartown used to be the centre of dance'. And there was me, thinking that was St Petersburg.

Not unlike the desolate northern seaside resort in which it is set, this new series's brand of whimsical no-hoper comedy has definitely seen better days. That said, its tale of a band of plucky nutters, has-beens and never-will-bes uniting to save their local sweet factory from the clutches of an evil property developer is not entirely without charm - mostly thanks to the appealing cast led by Sue Johnston, Tom Ellis, Miranda Raison and Shaun Dooley. All the more bizarre then that the BBC One's schedulers should want to strangle it at birth by placing it in a ludicrously late slot, especially when the best they had to offer earlier in the evening was yet another yawn-inducing Inspector George Gently repeat.