RHONA CAMERON
RHONA CAMERON may finally have got a sitcom with her name in the title but there are still a few things preying on her mind. Things like male journalists, homophobia and Omar \‘Jomls: Brian Donaldson
'I FIND IT QUITE DEPRESSING BEING interviewed.‘ This is hardly the most auspicious of beginnings for a celebrity chat. But Rhona Cameron has perfectly sound reasons for being
miffed at the current line of
questioning being adopted by media hacks. ‘You spend years working on something. getting it up off the ground. doing it and being yery positiye about it and then you think: “Great. [We got time off: I like doing publicin so I‘ll do the interyiews". But people just want to challenge and try and rile you; I’ve no idea why. Most times I‘ve been interviewed by male journalists. they largely want to concentrate on my sexual relations with men. Don't you just find that stunning? I can only suggest that’s got
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something to do with naiyety. I spoke to someone from a well—known broadsheet and it was twenty questions about sex with men.‘
I have only one question about sex. Or more accurately. sexual identity. How does it feel to haye produced the first British lesbian sitcom'.’ ‘lt's not.‘ But. I read somewhere . . . ‘I think Heat ran a piece calling it that: I wouldn‘t identify with that at all. My sexuality is incidental to Rhona: I couldn‘t hide it but it informs the character rather than drives it. That would just be boring..
So. anyone who may have had Cameron‘s eponymous sitcom debut down as a British [fl/on has been misled. Mind you. anyone who has been a supporter of the great British situation comedy has been similarly
blinkered in recent times. No longer
can we be considered to be in the middle of anything like the glory days of British telly comedy when we are offered the watchable yet disappointing (Hip/rim. small potatoes) to the blindingly awful (Coupling. 'I'lu' ill/sons). Rhona. it has to be said. comes somewhere in between. While the characterisation. interplay and dialogue is finely realised. you will still be waiting for a show which proyides the kind of belly laugh that Leonard Rossiter. John (‘Ieese and Jennifer Saunders once emitted with ease.
'When I lived in Edinburgh I was mostly very lost, isolated and very serious- ly drunk. I was out of
it: Rhona Cameron