Don’t call me cranky, I’m just old: Royle Family star Sue Johnston, 80, slams the way older people are stereotyped on TV as ‘either lying in bed dying or struggling up the road’

Actress Sue Johnston has hit out at the way elderly people are stereotyped on TV as being ‘either lying in bed dying or struggling up the road bent over a walking stick’.

The Royle Family and Brookside star expressed her frustration that the older generations are ‘pigeonholed’ into characters who was ‘always on their own’.

The 80-year-old, who played matriarch Barbara Royle in the hit comedy, said she was fed up of OAPs not having ‘feelings or relationships’ and always being shown as ‘cranky’.

Speaking to the Radio Times ahead of the release of her latest show, Channel 4 comedy drama Truelove which deals with euthanasia, Johnston said ‘life isn’t like that’.

The series, which also stars Lindsay Duncan, 73, Clarke Peters, 71, Karl Johnson, 75 and Peter Egan, 77, sees a group of over-70s agree to help each other to die when their time comes.

Sue Johnston says she is frustrated that older people are stereotyped as being ‘cranky’ and ‘lying in bed’ on TV. Pictured: The actress on This Morning in December 2019

Johnston (left) played Barbara Royle in the hit sitcom The Royle Family. Pictured: (L-R) Sue Johnston as Barbara, Ricky Tomlinson as Jim, Ralf Little as Antony, Craig Cash as Dave and Caroline Aherne as Denise

The actress added that ‘traditional productions say that when you’re in your seventies you don’t have thoughts, feelings or relationships’. Pictured: Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson on The Royle Family

Johnston said the show was a refreshing change from the usual way that elderly characters are portrayed.

‘Traditional productions say that when you’re in your seventies you don’t have thoughts, feelings or relationships, but you do,’ she told the Radio Times.

‘To get a script where your character isn’t a granny sitting in the corner all cranky, or someone lying in bed, is very good.’

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The actress, who played Sheila Grant in beloved soap Brookside, told the Telegraph that ‘people in their 70s, 80s, 90s are still important to society’. 

She said: ‘It’s so brilliant to have a script that puts all us old people together and makes it seem normal, because when you get older, you’re pigeonholed. Usually, it’s ‘Old woman in bed’, ‘Granny in the corner’.’

The programme also touched Johnston on a personal not, who this week revealed she was supportive of efforts to legalise the ‘right to die’.

She told the Radio Times: ‘You think of yourself in that condition – everyone sitting round the bed while you’re lying there, zoned out on morphine – and you think, ‘I hope I don’t go like that.’ 

But she added: ‘I don’t think I would have the courage to go to Switzerland. And it would be so awful for my son to take me there and come back on his own.’ 

Johnston is not taking things slow as she enters her 80s, with the actress also set to appear with My Family star Robert Lindsay, 73, in Generation Z – a Channel 4 comedy by Ben Wheatley about OAPs who become flesh eating zombies.

She is also set to appear in a documentary about the Royle Family, during which she reveals she has only recently been able to watch the sitcom after the deaths of many of its cast members, including its creator Caroline Aherne.

The actress, 80, who played Barbara Royle in the comedy, was left so heartbroken by the deaths of her former co-stars that she could not bring herself to watch a single episode of the BBC series.

Sue Johnston has only recently been able to watched her hit sitcom The Royle Family after the deaths of many of its cast members, including its creator Caroline Aherne (Sue pictured last week)

Caroline Aherne, who co-created the programme and starred as Sue’s on-screen daughter Denise Best, died in 2016 at the age of 52 after a battle with cancer

Liz Smith, who portrayed the beloved Norma ‘Nana’ Speakman, the mother of Sue’s character Barbara, died aged 95 on Christmas Eve in 2016 (pictured for the sitcom in 2000)

Peter Martin, who played neighbour Joe Carroll in The Royle Family, died aged 82 in April this year, while Doreen Keogh, who played Peter’s on-screen wife Mary Carroll, died in 2017 (Peter and Doreen pictured on the show in 2000)

Caroline Aherne, who co-created the programme and starred as Sue’s on-screen daughter Denise Best, died in 2016 at the age of 52 after a battle with cancer, while actress Liz Smith, who portrayed the beloved Norma ‘Nana’ Speakman, the mother of Sue’s character Barbara, died aged 95 on Christmas Eve in 2016.

Peter Martin, who starred as neighbour Joe Carroll in The Royle Family, died at the age of 82 in April this year, while actress Doreen Keogh, who played Peter’s on-screen wife Mary Carroll, died in 2017 at the age of 93 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Johnston told the Radio Times Christmas issue: ‘It was very hard, because there are so many people in it who are no longer with us, but The Queen of Sheba [the landmark 2006 episode] is my favourite, and I watch it with a lot of pride.

READ MORE HERE:  Craig Cash breaks down in tears while revealing his heartbreaking reaction to pal Caroline Aherne’s cancer diagnosis as he pays tribute in documentary

‘The first series was rerun the other day, and do you know, little kids now ask for selfies with me because they love it as much as the older generations did. I think how proud Caroline would have been to know it’s still loved.

‘It was one of the happiest jobs I have ever done. And yes, I miss her. All the time.

‘She’s another one who would have loved to have got old and grown wrinkles… Although maybe she would have had Botox!’

The Royle Family fans were left in floods of tears during the 2006 Christmas special, The Queen of Sheba, when character Norma ‘Nana’ Speakman, played by the late actress Liz Smith, died.

Nana, the mother of Johnston’s character Barbara, was often seen clashing with Barbara’s husband Jim (Ricky Tomlinson) over a variety of hilarious issues from owning everything featured in an episode of Antiques Roadshow to not sharing her chocolates.

In the episode, bedridden Nana met her newborn great-granddaughter Norma, who Denise and David (Craig Cash) named after her.

After she was rushed to hospital, she woke up to see her family around her bed before dying peacefully.

Actress Liz, also known for starring in sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, died at the age of 95 on Christmas Eve in 2016.

Sue will feature this Christmas in a one-off BBC Two tribute special to the comedy actress and writer Caroline Aherne, creator of The Royle Family, who died of cancer in 2016, aged 52. 

• Caroline Aherne: Comedy Queen airs on Christmas Day at 9pm on BBC Two
• Truelove begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday 3 January 

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