Tracy-Ann Oberman on EastEnders, Doctor Who & Toast of London

<p>She killed Dirty Den and buried him under the Queen Vic. Then she ran Torchwood, got turned into a Cyberman, and lost a soap award to a small dog in a bow tie.</p><p><br></p><p>Tracy-Ann Oberman has been in more of the things you love than almost anyone alive. EastEnders, Doctor Who, Toast of London, Friday Night Dinner, After Life, It’s a Sin, The Witcher, The Sandman, Ridley Road, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the new Harlan Coben series on Netflix.</p><p><br></p><p>She joins Martin Deeson, who has known her since they were teenagers, for a very funny and occasionally jaw-dropping hour on fame, tabloids, antisemitism, Matt Berry, and why the best thing that ever happened to her career was being told she did not look right for the part.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>In this episode:</strong></p><ul><li>Why the head of her drama school told her to change her name, and what she said back</li><li>Reading the Toast of London pilot script and immediately ringing her agent to turn it down</li><li>Matt Berry, Mrs Purchase, Clem Fandango, and why the dads at the school gates suddenly wanted to talk to her</li><li>Auntie Val, Friday Night Dinner, Auntie Val Core trending on TikTok, and the dog cage she refused to come out of</li><li>Ten days from audition to Albert Square, and the Selfridges spree with an unlimited budget</li><li>What Leslie Grantham said to her in the EastEnders chemistry test, and what she said back</li><li>Being told she was the Katharine Hepburn to his Spencer Tracy of Walford</li><li>Killing Dirty Den, burying him under the Queen Vic, and then acting opposite him while he was under it</li><li>Turning up to work on the Monday after a six-page tabloid expose of her co-star</li><li>The small dog in a bow tie that beat her to a Soap Award, and why she thinks about it more than a BAFTA</li><li>Russell T Davies, Dr Who, Yvonne Hartman, Torchwood, the Daleks, the Cybermen, and getting cybered</li><li>It’s a Sin, and the friend whose family burned the bed sheets and buried the cutlery</li><li>Ridley Road, Cable Street, and her great uncle put through a plate glass window by Mosley’s Blackshirts</li><li>Becoming the first female Shylock in The Merchant of Venice 1936</li><li>Noel Coward’s Present Laughter reimagined with a female lead at Studio 54, opening at Bath Theatre Royal</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Three things you will take away:</strong></p><ul><li>What it actually costs to join a soap at the height of the tabloid era</li><li>How a jobbi