GREENE SCREEN

Simon Stabler speaks to Sarah Greene about her career as an actress and presenter on shows such as Blue Peter and new quiz The Finish Line

- Simon Stabler

Popularising the phrase: "And here's one I made earlier," Blue Peter's "makes" segment is one of the show's most memorable and much-loved sections. Over the years, various presenters have shown us how to construct everything from jewellery boxes to Thunderbirds' Tracy Island, using little more than carboard boxes, paint and "sticky-backed plastic".

Although there have been a few Blue Peter presenters who weren't keen on making things, Sarah Greene, a presenter on the show from May 1980 to June 1983, loved them. "I really looked forward to them for two reasons," she recalls.

"First of all, that was a good five pages of script, which you didn't have to learn because the props were there as aide-memoires. And you could really improvise around what you were doing. And I quite liked doing that. I didn't get shaky hands doing that.

"And I guess if I've got anyone to thank for that, it's my dad who, being Mr DIY, I'd been making things with him for years. So that was quite handy."

Dad, of course, was Harry Greene, one of the UK's first television DIY experts, who was working as an art and drama teacher when he met Joan Littlewood, director of the influential Theatre Workshop.

"She took one look at my father and said: 'Hmmm. You've got the look of Tyrone Power. What can you do?' He said: 'Well, I can sing, I can dance, I can act? I mean, ever the publicist. But he was right. 'Did you see that set that's over there for the kids? I built that. I can make costumes and I can do anything you want. She said: 'Right, you're going to be my Owain Glyndŵr, we're doing the play next week. You're in. Do you want to join the circus?' He said: 'I do! And he literally ran away to join that circus.

After a few years of touring Britain and Europe, Theatre Workshop found a permanent home in the derelict Theatre Royal Stratford East.