In fact, I would go so far as to say she is who the word fabulous was invented for, just as the Duchess of Kent is who the word lovely was invented for, as half of you who have any idea who on earth I'm randomly rambling about now go, "Aaah!" as a mental image of just how lovely the Duchess of Kent really is flashes across your mind! Some people just radiate goodness though, whether they're a pauper or a Prince, and some people just radiate fabulousness, and that's our Erica!
Yay for me! I've just broken my record for how quickly I could weave a completely random digression into my ramblings! It's like scoring a goal in the first minute of the FA Cup Final! Okay, I've just done a lap of honour around my living room and am now back to "carry on" as our gracious Queen Erica would say! I love it on the occasions she says that in the show! I was going to say that nobody says it like her, but then nobody says anything like her!
Let's checklist all those wunderbar verbal tics that are like a comfort blanket in my watchings..."very well" (the Daddy of 'em all!), "that is all", "you may go", "may I remind you" (Wahey! My username in the Recroom, making me a contender for secondmost campest person on the planet, I like to think at least! Speaking of which, I wonder how many of my good friends on there were wondering how long it would take me to mention her? Well, here she is!)...isn't she a blast though?! Sometimes, when we're really lucky, we get multiple phrases stacked up one top of the other to fashion a sentence, like a Knickerbocker Glory of syntax!
All those little sighs she heaves after she has a run in with anyone (she has a sigh for every occasion!), those witheringly intoned putdowns, from "I'm sure we'll exist without you!" to Anne Yates in episode 5 to "Your insubordination is not yet a closed subject, Miss Ferguson, so please do not correct me!" in episode 338 and many, many more, that I could be all day regaling you with!
And that's without even mentioning the fire retardant and incredibly indispensible to the administration of a penal institution Encyclopaedia Britannica, the coiffure, the walk, particularly the POWER walk, in fact, every fibre of her very essence! I could go on, as indeed I will...at some considerable length, so brace yourselves!
As camp as a row of pink tents on Christmas morning, masterful when riled, but also quite affecting, sometimes all at the same time (!!!) and therefore, the very personification in glorious human form of everything I love about Prisoner and why it stands head and shoulders above every other programme that's ever been produced since John Logie Baird sat there one evening and said, "Sod this, there's nothing on the wireless, I think I'll invent a telly instead!" Much respect, JLB! Woot! Hark at me with my netspeak just because I've got a blog! Loving the fusion of that with some bloke from the 1920s though! Doctor Who eat yer heart out!
Also worth a Mexican Wave at this point is the easily underrated contribution of Patsy King in the role. As much as I adore our Erica, even I can concede that she did have something of a limited premise as a character, especially considering most of the material she was given to work with, apart from the all-too-seldom occasions she was allowed to shine on centre stage of course with her very own storylines, but somehow Patsy managed to breathe so much vibrancy into the character.
She could make the most mundane of statements that Erica was given to say sparkle. At one stage in episode 182, in the middle of the women taking sides ready for their stand-off in the dining room thanks to Georgie Baxter's antics (in the mini-me echo of episode 3), all she has to say at one stage is , "Perhaps voluntary segregation would be most prudent..." But it's the way she says it! I can't imagine anyone else being able to deliver a line like that!
Even aside from the high camp hilarity of the character (which I absolutely adore!), I think there was so much more going on with her, and a much greater subtlety to Patsy's performance than she's often given credit for, from those electrifying confrontations with the likes of Vera and Joan, to those times when she was given to show her nurturing side towards the inmates, particularly in the case of Doreen, and you caught a glimpse of how maybe sometimes Erica threw herself into her work to fill a void in her life. Incredibly entertaining at her most majestic, there was, conversely, a vulnerability to the character at times that I found incredibly touching too.
A fellow Erica fan (and there are many of us out there in the world of Prisoner fandom, it's like a country within a country, a bit like the Vatican City in Italy, only proportionately far larger, of course!) recently contacted me to flag up a fabulous Erica moment from the opening to episode 309. Meg's just been brought in as a prisoner and there she is standing before her in prison denims (a mind bramble in itself!).
Entirely true to form, good old Meg is insisting she doesn't want to be segregated from the women for her own protection because she doesn't want them thinking she's getting special treatment because she's an officer, for fear of losing their respect (I told you she's as mad as a bag of spanners at times, is our Meg!). And so it continues...
Erica: (channelling John McEnroe!) You can't be serious! Surely you realise you'll be in danger?
Meg: (saintly!) Yes I do! But this is our chance to show the women that nobody gets special treatment...
Joan: (Joanly!) I think Mrs Morris is right. Technically she is a prisoner and should be treated as such, but, well we have to show the women that we can take it as well as dish it out...
Erica: (posh shorthand for you're talking a load of baloney, Joanie!) Mmmmm....
Ah, but it's the look she gives her off the back of this! And here it is, captured for our entertainment and enjoyment by a very dear friend of mine! Lucky Lily to have such lovely and clever friends to be able to do such a thing! *drumroll!*
Ta-dah!
Do you know? When I grow up I want to be Erica! Well, I always did say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth but it fell out!
There's soooooo much more to talk about (and not just about Erica...I promise!), but I'll save it for another day, as I'm sure I've bamboozled you for long enough with my burblings, so that will be all for now! You may go!
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