'THERE'S JUST SOMETHING SAFE AND VERY BRITISH ABOUT BARBARA'

BABS STAR JAIME WINSTONE ON "BOOK-ENDING HER JOURNEY" WITH THE LATE, GREAT DAME BARBARA WINDSOR BY PLAYING PEGGY MITCHELL AND WHY NOW IS THE TIME FOR NOSTALGIC TV

- JO BERRY

Five years after playing the late Dame Barbara Windsor in BBC biopic Babs, Jaime Winstone has stepped into her shoes once again.

The 37-year-old actress appears as a younger version of the icon’s most famous character, Peggy Mitchell, in a flashback episode of EastEnders and says, “It’s a real honour.”

While her role in Babs covered Barbara’s childhood, early romances and rise to fame in the Carry On films in detail, Jaime felt like her “journey with Barbara” hadn’t really finished.

“When we shot Babs, I got to work with her very closely and became great friends with her,” says Jaime.

“There were things you couldn’t study or be taught in terms of the way she worked with people, how she touched people’s shoulders when she was talking to them, or held your hands when she was advising you. There was stuff I could draw from naturally in my personal life.

“But being asked to step into Peggy’s shoes, it was the one character I didn’t get to do in Babs, so it really felt like bookending my journey with her.

“When I got offered the part, I thought, ‘God, is this something I should do? Am I risking getting typecast?’ So I did actually have a little word with Barbara up above and I got my sign and I felt like it was written for me. I felt like I got the go-ahead [from Barbara] and Scott [Mitchell, her widower] approved it.”

The sign that Barbara sent Jaime was “a little blonde butterfly that kept coming in my garden”, she recalls, laughing.