Need to chat? 7 Cups of Tea supports and promotes mental health and wellbeing! Lots of free resources with great information and supportive focused communities One of my favourite components is that there’s a personal growth tracker that can help you work towards improved mental, emotional, social and physical health https://www.7cups.com/12837081
’…Fire up social media on your phone and within moments you’re free to interact with a world full of people. Holiday photos from your cousin in New Zealand? Click like!
Your pal’s video of a Yorkshire terrier that sounds like Brian Blessed? Hit retweet! Don’t like the way someone looks? Tell them to lose some weight!
Hang on, that last one is probably a bit rude. You wouldn’t wander up to a stranger in the street and casually advise them to give the sweeties a miss, not unless you were desperately craving a sore face.
Yet that kindly advice is precisely what someone like Sharon Rooney is offered when she logs into sites such as Instagram.
Sharon, who starred in Disney’s recent live action Dumbo remake, E4’s My Mad Fat Diary and hit sitcom Two Doors Down has endured her fair share of trolling.
“It’s the unsolicited medical advice I enjoy,” she laughed. “Telling me not to eat jellybeans. Thanks!
“I learned quite quickly people will pick apart anything. They will find something. Even if I was five sizes smaller, someone will tell me I looked better before. You’ll never please everyone.
“There’s a lovely mute button now. If someone writes something rude I just quietly say ‘Shhh’ to them.
“With My Mad Fat Diary I’m already saying, ‘Hello, I am fat human’. What can they say?
“I have eyes, I know what I look like and I’m fine with that. Sorry if you’re not. I’m doing OK, so please don’t worry about me.”
Sharon, 32, is doing more than OK though, which you’ll see if you tune into new ITV drama Finding Alice tonight.
She stars opposite Keeley Hawes and it’s a role that saw Sharon cross the Bodyguard star’s name off a special list.
“I’ll let you into a secret. Every actor has a dream list of people they’d love to work with and Keeley was on mine,” she said.
“I told Keeley. She just rolled her eyes and told me to shut up.
“Why would you not want to work with her? She’s fantastic in everything she does.
“Keeley’s everything I thought she would be. Whe’s one of a kind. A special human being. Look, Keeley’s not paying me to say this! Maybe she should…?”
Praising a colleague is, of course, second nature to an actor. There’s a reason they call them luvvies; plus you don’t want to end up working with someone you’ve bad-mouthed on a project in a year’s time, do you?
This isn’t merely empty platitudes for a thespian pal. Sharon’s praise is warm, generous and genuine. It’s how she herself comes across, along with a dash of wry humour.
Perhaps it’s the influence of her late granny, who Sharon describes as her soulmate.
“This sounds so cheesy but she truly was,” she added. “You know you get one human who you just chime with? I just loved her. We were two old souls.
“She taught me so much. I think grannies have that magic where they teach you to deal with life after they’re gone. I just enjoyed every minute I had with her.”
The pain and sadness we’ve all experienced over the past year, along with the forced holiday she’s had to take with being locked down, has let Sharon think about the grief she felt when her gran died.
“Even if you’re preparing for a death I don’t think it’s any easier than if it’s unexpected,” she said.
“When it is unexpected, like the way Harry dies in Finding Alice, you’re left reeling from it for so long before you can take in what’s happened.
“With Nicola, the character I play, the initial shock has happened. Her big brother has died. So how do you move forward? Grief itself is such a complicated thing. There’s no guide book. When you feel sad, you feel sad.
“Grief sneaks up on you. You think you’re fine then it appears with a ‘Hiya!’
“I still get it. I’ll think I can’t wait to show my gran something before going, ‘Oh yeah’.
“My gran spoke about it before she died. We were talking about how thinking of someone after they’ve died is like ringing a bell for them.
“She said, ‘Don’t think of me too much, hen – I’ll get no rest.’”
(Sharon Rooney as Miss Atlantis with co-star DeObia Oparei in Tim Burton’s Dumbo)
Happily, Sharon brought her sardonic and garrulous Glaswegian spirit to the set of Dumbo, in which Sharon appeared alongside Hollywood legend Danny DeVito.
“You forget they’re still humans, which is easy to do when you’re standing in front of Danny DeVito. All I could think was that this was Danny DeVito. Has anyone told him?
“You just talk on set. Gab, gab, gab. That’s all we did. I was shouting over to Tim to ask for two minutes so Danny could finish his story.
“That’s Tim Burton, by the way. Listen to me, I just call him Tim now.”
Casting for a Disney blockbuster like Dumbo was straightforward, although it did come with an ironclad ban from telling her friends about the project until it was announced.
My Mad Fat Diary focused on the plus-sized character Sharon played but, since then, the roles she’s taken don’t normally specify anything about her character’s weight.
“A lot of parts I go for don’t say the character must be plus-size or look a certain way,” she said.
“I’ve only been doing this for eight years or so but for me it’s never been an issue but I know for some it has been.
“It’s about owning who you are. I realise that’s difficult because of social media. What I try to do is take jobs with people who are authentic characters.
“If it does specify a plus-size actor then my response is to ask why. Let’s investigate this.
“These days – well, before the pandemic – I would go to auditions and the room would be filled with so many different people, which I love. The room isn’t filled with girls who all look the same.
“And I love seeing a role that I didn’t get go to someone completely different to me. Well, I don’t love it because then I’ve not got the role, but it’s still nice to see.”
A closeness with her other granny (the pair are bubbled up) has developed during the lockdowns of the past year, from which Sharon has taken heart.
Other than that she’s been enjoying her break ahead of Finding Alice’s release, as well as browsing social media.
Although these days she’s a lot wiser in how she does it; retaining the enjoyment with the help of that handy mute button.
“I used to follow every celebrity and every celebrity magazine,” added Sharon. “But it just made me doubt myself. I’d go to post a video then I’d wonder if I should put more make-up on first.
“I’ve stopped doing that. On Twitter these days I post videos where I’ve just woken up.
“I mean if you do post a video where you look great and have all your make-up on, then great, but I don’t know how you do it! I look forward to my no-make-up days.
“Oh you should see the state of me. I live in loungewear now. I put on jeans the other day. What are these things? What is this material we wear? These are awful!”
Finally, some feedback with which we can all agree…’ X
As new series Finding Alice airs on ITV, Sharon Rooney talks about checking on your strong friends, building mansions on The Sims and falling down a YouTube rabbit hole on the daily
“Make a will,” Sharon Rooney urges us. “It’s so boring and so stressful and sad, but just take an afternoon out and get it done.” The Glaswegian actor, best known for her lead role in My Mad Fat Diary, is surprisingly upbeat and matter-of-fact as she discusses our mortality. Her latest project, Finding Alice, which deals with death and grief head-on, has rubbed off on her – small talk be damned! “It made me realise how important those conversations are that no one wants to have, because it’s inevitable – no one’s getting out of this alive.”
Finding Alice, created by The Durrells’ directorRoger Goldby, writer Simon Nye and star Keeley Hawes (who plays Alice), almost immediately opens with a death. Alice’s husband Harry (Jason Merrells, Agatha Raisin) falls down the stairs in the dream home he’s built for her and their teen daughter Charlotte (Isabella Pappas,Paranoid). It’s clear he hasn’t planned for this eventuality (nor did he plan for a bannister) and Alice is left to deal with the fallout, which includes the secrets Harry leaves in his wake.
Sharon plays Nicola, who copes with the death of her older brother by attempting to stay positive for everyone, as well as acting and dressing loudly (“I’m the sassy one!,” she proclaims at Harry’s inquest) – something Sharon had a say in. “I said, “What about headbands?” There were about eight different ones. And I said she’s got to have a necklace with her name on. That’s Nicola’s armour,” Sharon says.
“The brighter the clothes get, the worse she’s feeling. Everything is to compensate. It’s so important to check on your loud friends just as much as your quiet friends. With Nicola, I think, “Who is checking on you?” It’s made me send a few texts that I hadn’t [previously], because I thought, “Oh, they’ll be fine.””
Despite the difficult topics the show covers, you’ll laugh a lot as the darkly comic humour shines through – FindingAlice screams, “Let’s talk about death, baby!” in a relatable and honest, yet funny and amusing way.
For example, Alice can’t figure out where the fridge is in the house (it’s a complicated smart home) and wonders why a “compare the coffin” website doesn’t exist, eventually opting to buy Harry’s from Amazon. “We all experience grief at some point,” Sharon says. “It’s not all awful, you do learn to laugh again.”
Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) plays Alice’s stand-offish and judgemental mum, with Nigel Havers (Coronation Street) as her quiet but well-meaning dad. Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Kenneth Cranham (Layer Cake) also join the cast as Harry’s parents, and Rhashan Stone (Strike Back) is a mortuary worker who becomes Alice’s “death guru.”
Before you tune in for the show, which Sharon describes as a “wee bit of TV soup for the soul”, here’s one of everything from the entertainment world that she’s loving right now…
TV show: I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
I really love Giovanna [Fletcher, from series 20], I think she is a super mum. I also really like Beverly [Callard]. I’d love to live in a castle. I’m slightly jealous of them, although not that jealous, because my couch is much comfier.
This is my third time re-watching The Royle Family during lockdown. I can quote the whole thing from start to finish.
Film: Stepmom
I watched it when it first came out many moons ago and I enjoyed it, so it’s a film I always go back to. I’m a really bad re-watcher, I’ll re-watch the same things over and over. I love a film that makes me cry!
App: Instagram
I spend hours on it. You know when you go into the search bar and they put videos you think you’ll like? Before I know it, I’m like, “Oh, that’s 40 minutes gone.”
Friend you always call: Best friend Anna
We met at college when we were 16 and I speak to her pretty much all day every day. She’s got the pink sparkly love heart emoji next to her name in my phone.
Video game: The Sims
I don’t play with the actual Sims, I just enjoy building houses. It’s really relaxing, because there’s a clear end goal.Don’t tell my agent that’s what I do – they think I’m doing very serious actor work, but I’m actually just building a giant mansion.
YouTube: Vlogs
I like Disney vlogs, family vlogs, people going about their day vlogs, and haul videos, where people buy stuff and show you. I do watch people building Sims houses – I wasn’t gonna tell you that…
I’ve been listening toher podcast for years and years – it first came out in 2010. She does it with her daughter.
Documentary: American Murder: The Family Next Door
I love all the crime documentaries. I also really like 60 Days In, where they put normal civilians in prisons to find out what’s going on inside. I also like watching YouTube videos on real crime – and then I wonder why I have weird dreams.
Guilty pleasure: YouTube videos
It’s all of the ones I’ve just told you! I’ll watch anything and everything. It’s probably YouTube videos. The other night, I went into a Dance Moms dark hole. I clicked on a recap video by accident, and before I knew it, I’d watched all of them. Or, those Facebook videos where they do funniest babies, funniest dogs, funniest cats. I’m usually watching them in my trailer.
When is ITV’s Finding Alice on TV?
Finding Alice airs on ITV HD (CH 113) on Sundays at 9pm, with the first episode screening on 17 January. The six-part series will subsequently air every week until Sunday 21 February.
TECH? NO: Sharon Rooney isn’t daft about smart homes after filming in one for new ITV show Finding Alice
TECHNOPHOBE actress Sharon Rooney reckons living in a smart home would be a hi-tech horror — as she doesn’t even like talking to Alexa.
The Scots star — who played Miss Atlantis in big-budget Disney flick Dumbo — was at the mercy of machines filming new show Finding Alice, which was set in a house full of futuristic technology.
She admits working on the six-part ITV drama — which kickstarts after her character’s brother is found dead at the bottom of his bannister-less stairs — made her realise she’s happy to keep it simple in her own life.
Sharon, 32, says: “When we were filming on the stairs, which don’t have a bannister, I was thinking, ‘Why would you not have a bannister? It’s just so dangerous’.
“I’m very clumsy. So the thought of not having bannisters on stairs fills me with fear.
“Also, the thing of having to talk to your house to open the curtains and so on.
“I’m bad enough with the Alexa. Sometimes I’ll say something at home and she’ll suddenly talk to me.
“And I think, ‘No, I don’t want to talk to anyone, never mind a machine’. I mean, what is she listening to? What has she heard?”
Finding Alice stars Bodyguard favourite Keeley Hawes as Alice, a mum whose life is turned upside down when her husband Harry (Jason Merrells) is found dead at the bottom of the stairs in the smart house he designed.
She can’t even find the fridge while dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy and struggles to contend with unexpected visits from Harry’s parents Minnie (Gemma Jones) and Gerry (Kenneth Cranham) as well as her own dad Roger (Nigel Havers) and mum Sarah (Joanna Lumley).
To make matters worse, other unexpected visitors make her realise that Harry’s business debt wasn’t the only secret he had.
Sharon — who starred in the early seasons of hit Scots comedy Two Doors Down — plays Harry’s younger sister Nicola who has a habit of blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time and played second fiddle to her “golden boy” sibling.
The actress thinks the show deals with the practical side of someone passing away and hopes it gets people talking about how to deal with the death of a loved-one.
She says: “There is a lot of humour in Finding Alice. Even in the saddest of times there has to be joy.
"How do you breathe again when you’ve been through such tragedy and pain? Because you have to. Life is crazy. You have to laugh again.
“I love how Nicola always wants to remind people with stories about Harry at any opportunity.
“That’s how he lives on. With reminders of him on top of the coffin at his funeral.
"My gran always used to say to me, ‘A funeral is for the living’. That’s so true.
“There’s no cheat sheet that comes when somebody dies, to say, ‘This is what you have to do’.
“I really hope Finding Alice gets people talking. Just a quick conversation.
"No one wants to talk about death. But it is important. You have to know what to do in practical terms.
"When you’re grieving the last thing you want to think about is bank accounts and passwords.”
Sharon shares the screen with The Durrells actress Keeley and admits she loved working with one of the telly stars of the moment.
She reveals: “Working with Keeley was just the best. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much.
"I remember having a day off and thinking, ‘Can I just come in?’. And they were like, ‘No. Have a day off!’.
“There’s one part of the story where Nicola and Alice go jogging. We actually did do a lot of it.
"I’m not going to say I’ve developed a love for it. But I’ve developed a liking.
“We also filmed a night out at a bowling alley. Nicola gets a strike in the script and by sheer luck I got a strike on camera.
"I felt like I had scored the winning goal in the World Cup.”
Although filming for Finding Alice was interrupted by Covid, Sharon and the cast got back to work by following strict protocols.
Ironically, the Glasgow actress admits the best thing about working on a show about smart technology was the rules banned her from even looking at her phone.
She adds: “It’s really weird how quickly it became the new normal.
“And actually, how much better it was, in a way, not to be on your phone in the morning because you couldn’t take any personal items into make-up.
“So you could just sit and not scroll through Instagram. That was nice.”
* Finding Alice starts Sunday, January 17, STV, 9pm…’
The Scottish Sun, 14.1.21 (not linked to avoid giving them more clicks)
I was hoping to have more information before I made this post, so apologies for that. The news is starting to seep onto the platform though, as people share tributes as a way to process their own grief, so I think it’s time.
@siriussly-serious (he/they), mostly known here as Jay but also as Blu, Royale (in drag) and Jaxon, has passed away. Little is known at this point, other than that he was missing since Monday (10th May), reported as missing to the police on Wednesday (12th May) and found yesterday (15th May). This isn’t the right place for speculation, so I will have more to say when I have more information.
Although he hasn’t been active on the platform for a long time, Jay was a much loved member of the HP RP community. He was particularly an inspiration for LGBTQ+ creators and POC, going out of his way to encourage and promote anyone who felt they weren’t good enough or didn’t belong. He had so much love, which he handed out freely and sincerely to anyone and everyone who needed it. He created Found, a ridiculously ambitious project which I was privileged enough to be a part of, and which he was unfortunately unable to see through the way he desperately wanted to.
Jay would want me to tell you he was 6ft7, everyone was welcome to the gun show and the cheaper and higher percentage your rose wine is, the better. He wouldn’t want me to gush about what an amazing singer, performer, drag artist, RPer, artist, writer, Muddy, creative and friend he was, but tough shit mate, come and stop me. He loved cheap rose, gin, rum, milkshakes, white chocolate, Beyonce, drag kings, queers being queer, people living their best life, Hamilton, cuddles, sandalwood incense and salt lamps (but not when he wasn’t allowed to lick them). So if you want to celebrate him in your own way, there’s some ideas for you. Just stay away from whisky and any other kind of chocolate. No thank you, ma’am.
I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in person with Jay over the last 3 years, but to those who never met him, your grief is just as valid. Your friendship was real, your love and loss is real. He loved you, he was proud of you every day you went out into a world that tries to tell you you’re broken or not enough. You are enough, and Dad is watching over you.
Jay had a large online presence, particularly in the drag king community, so I’m sure there will be some online tributes and possibly events. I will reblog this post adding information as I get it, including any tributes and donation information for those who can and would like to.
Rest in Power, Jay. It won’t be the same without you.
I have to confess that being able to write this post requires a lot of strength and courage - not just for me personally, but many others who have experienced some kind of loss in their lifetime. This can be from the ending of a friendship or romantic relationship or even the sudden death of a loved one or pet. In my own life, I have experienced several deaths in my family when I was growing up as a child and as a teenager. Experiencing these events at such a young age has caused me to have a crippling fear of loss and abandonment, which is no fault of my own. It found me down my path, unfortunately. Difficult situations like this happen throughout our lives whether we want them or not, which is a hard bullet to take and can often feel very painful.
Losing someone you care about in any shape or form can have detrimental effects on our overall wellbeing. Take heartbreak for instance, when someone we love and care about tells us that they don’t want us anymore; it can cause insomnia, anxiety, desperation, obsession, poor appetite, hopelessness, sadness and despair. All of these things can really eat away at our health and that’s just not on an emotional level either. I have experienced this a couple of times and it isn’t pretty. It hurts you to the core. However, in this kind of situation, although I know how difficult it is to see it in a positive light. Ask yourself whether that relationship was really for you or not. Often times when we cannot get over someone, there is a presence of an unhealthy attachment or codependency which isn’t a good thing.
As someone who has a fear of abandonment, losing someone I cared about and had fun with is what hurts me the most. I thrive when I feel accepted in a group of people such as friends or loved ones. So going through something like this causes a lot of hurt and emotional pain inside of me. However, I do pick up the pieces and move forward towards a place that serves me a lot better. Always remember that these experiences are here to make you grow wiser as a person and as a soul too. Without them being in life, we wouldn’t learn something new about ourselves whether that is good or bad.
Grief can be a very challenging emotion to deal with, but you should never suffer with this alone. Talk to a friend you can console with and trust, a therapist or loved one to help you process your difficult emotions. Remember you are not alone, even though it may feel like it. If your body and soul require you to cry, allow it to happen without any resistance. Do not feel ashamed about it. Your body is an amazing machine, do not abuse it in any shape or form. With grief and pain, never bottle it up as doing this will damage you in the long run and may even cause you to develop conditions such as separation anxiety, attachment disorder, depression or in severe cases PTSD and suicidal tendancies. So if you need help, reach out to someone who will listen to you.
If you liked this post, please click the like button and share it to someone who needs a bit of love and support right now!
I had a really shitty time about a week ago now. Not to make everything about me, or rather, you, but it was painfully reminiscent of your dying.
See, I took my rat to the vets. He’d been ill for weeks now, but from what the expert (and painfully expensive) vet had said, I was pretty certain we had options left. We’d only had him a couple of months; we adopted him and his brother as younger playmates for our older boy.
I had no expectations that I’d be going home without him. I thought we’d just be picking up a new antibiotic or maybe some alternative medications to force-feed him on biscuits for the next week. But the vet said she didn’t like how hard he was breathing, even though it was no worse than every other visit. She told me that she had one last idea, but after that we might need to have “a different kind of conversation”.
The last idea was in the form of a fast acting injection. I was sent to the waiting area while we waited to see if it helped. 45 minutes later, she told me there was no change.
“There’s a small chance he might improve yet, lets leave it a bit longer.” She really was trying to give him every chance. “Why don’t you take him out to waiting area and sit with him?”
I was grateful of any extra minutes I got to have by his side. But I knew there was a very high chance he was going to die soon. I couldn’t talk to him, and I tried so hard not to cry. Other people were in the waiting area. I just watched him in his little carrier. Pottering around. Smelling anyone who walked past. Nibbling his food. Breathing hard and trying so hard to keep living. I wanted to tell him I loved him. To get him out and love him. But I couldn’t. I could hardly bare to look at him in case the tears started coming. I was alone, in shock and waiting for him to die.
It was the hardest 40 minutes of my life in a long, long time. I didn’t want them to end, I dreaded the vet coming back out to call us. But I also wanted it to be over so I could get back to my car and cry in peace.
He was young. I didn’t expect him to die. But then I knew he would, and I was forced to just sit and wait for the inevitable. So, yeah, it made me think of that day.
It hurt like fuck, and yet a week later I’m numb again. I’m not sure which is worse. Life is such a fucking bitch, Josh. Though, I guess you don’t need me to tell you that.
This is my son Eddie….I’m honored and blessed these fine gentlemen wrote and sing this song in his memory. A fun loving funny guy with such a huge heart …..we miss you every day still Eddie….
