Brian Beacom

ELAINE C. Smith’s eyes are squinting as she sips coffee in a Glasgow restaurant, the (rare) blistering sun beaming through the window onto her face.

She asks the waitress to pull down the blind. What’s this? Come on, Elaine. You’ve just picked up the award for Best Fairy in all the land at the UK panto awards.

Your return to the King’s Theatre in Glasgow was spectacular, and the award a great acknowledgement of Scottish talent.

Your performance in BBC sitcom Two Doors Down is loved more than Trump loves Macron.

You love the spotlight.

“I do love the spotlight,” she says, grinning, as the blind comes down.

“But on this occasion I can’t be doing with the heat that’s coming with it.”

There’s a certain heat comes with Elaine’s latest role in the in the form of the debate over the female body size.

The actress is set to return to the Scottish stage, in Fat Friends, the comedy musical written by the TV series’ creator Kay Mellor.

The storyline centres around Kelly’s (Jodie Prenger) upcoming wedding and her yo-yo dieter mother Betty’s (Elaine) attempts to encourage her to slim down for the big day.

Kelly is having none of it. Until she can’t get into her wedding dress.

Where are we Elaine, when it comes to women’s weight?

What of this modern dilemma; to describe women as “fat” is seen to be derisive. Can we own the word “fat” again, and use it when warning of the dangers of morbid obesity and Type 2 diabetes?

“Yes, it’s complex,” says Smith, her eyes now wide and bright. “On the one hand there is the tyranny of being thin. And on the other the concern of the obese.

“The show is about the pressure to lose weight and this is highlighted when the problem with the dress comes up.

“Betty in fact, runs as fish n’chip shop called Big and Battered and ironically she’s arguing the health message, which deals with junk food.

“Yet, at the same time, the play says you don’t need to be a size eight. It gets across the argument that there’s a billion dollar slimming industry out there making money out of misery.”

Elaine herself has been a yo-yo dieter. “I’m talking as a woman who has been struggling with her weight for 40 years, since I was a teenager. When I was a size ten I thought I was fat.”

However, being a curvy lady has been a huge benefit to Elaine’s career. “I wouldn’t have played Mary Nesbitt if I didn’t have a big chest,”she reveals.

“Mary is a motherly character, and having the chest helped me age.”

She smiles; “I don’t regret that. If I had been skinny I’d have been up against actresses who were far better than me.”

Make-up and padding helped create Mary’doll. But casting directors then assumed the actress to be the heavy bosomed Scottish earth mother type, a lady who feasts on chips and Irn Bru.

“That’s true. I do remember going up for The Bill and I had my own hair and wore a leather jacket and a mini skirt.

“But I didn’t get the part because they wanted a Mary Nesbitt look alike. They didn’t appreciate what make up can do.”

Elaine, who now scrubs down for the part in Two Doors Down adds; “I’m not complaining. I’ve had a fantastic career. I was lucky I worked for the Comedy Unit and being bigger helps with comedy. I played Dolly in The Steamie at 28.

“Yet, at the same time I’ve always been fit. I do at least 10,000 steps every day. “(She flashes her Fitbit) I go to Zumba. I do panto. My sister Louise goes to the gym four times a week and she says she doesn’t know how I can run about in panto the way I do.”

The weight argument is complex. “The tyranny younger actresses are subjected (to lose weight) to is massive. I fear for them. And TV puts a stone on you. If you look thin on a movie scene you are probably emaciated.

“But at the same time I look at young Scottish actresses out there who are too big and I do worry. I think about their health. You have to eat well, to exercise to survive in this business. I don’t eat sh*** and sadly some young people do. And they won’t have a long career if they’re too big.”

Smith is preaching for a sensible approach. She’s asking casting directors to see the benefit of padding, asking heavier young actresses to lose the padding.

If they do, they may one day become the Best Fairy in all the land. And land roles in major theatre musicals.

Fat Friends- The Musical, the King’s Theatre, Glasgow April 30-May 5 also stars Natasha Hamilton, Natalie Anderson and Kevin Kennedy.