Truninger on Dead by Monday (The Eye, 1st June 2000)

Persistence Means Payoff (MovieMaker, issue 47, summer 2002)
(Not strictly about Helen, but director Curt Truninger's account of how Dead by Monday was made)

I'll quit acting for my family (Daily Mail, 13 February 2003)

'I don't feel like a drip' (The Guardian, 28 November 2003)

Not just any body: Helen Baxendale, 36 (Times Online, June 2005)

Helen finds the Clever way ahead (Scotsman.com, December 2006)

Helen didn't get cold feet about latest project (Icwales.icnetwork.co.uk, December 2006)

Article archive

Out to lunch (Candis Magazine, April 2005)

'Finding her feet' (Hot Line magazine, Autumn/Winter 2000/01)

'Ross' English Rose' (Soap World, June 1998)

'It's not me who's sexy. It's the fact I happen to have taken off my top on TV' ( Radio Times 18-24 October, 1997 )

'Manhattan Transfer' ( BAFTA April/May 1999 )

'Watching the detective' ( What's on TV, 18 October, 1997)

'Just what the doctor ordered' (What's on TV, 30 March, 1996)

'Helen Baxendale highly suitable' (OK! Magazine, 20 February, 1998)

'Inside the mind of...Helen Baxendale' (Red magazine, December, 2003)

'Fame? You can keep it' (Metro Life magazine, 21 November, 2003)

'Can anyone forgive the woman who comes between Rachel and Ross?' (The Daily Mail 'Weekend' magazine, 19 September 1998)

'Putting her feet up' ('S' magazine, 16 February 2003)

'There's a lot of guilt when I have to go away and leave my children' (The Mirror, 22 February 2003)

'Mad about the girl' (The War Cry, 24th February 2001)

'Doc Helen's revealing new role' (The People, 18th August 1996)

'Feet first' (Daily Record, 14th November 1998)

'Heart Stopper' (Daily Record, 20th April 1995)

'Helen comes in from the Cold' (Daily Record, 3rd February 2001)

'Helen of Joy' (Sunday Mail, 25th August 1996)

'Helen's hell on wheels' (Daily Record, 13th October 1997)

'How it was tough for Helen to break the tight circle of Friends' (Daily Record, 4th July 1998)

'I was randy doctor, but now I'm the Virgin Queen' (Daily Record, 3rd August 1996)

'I'm a Friend in need' (Daily Record, 13th April 1998)

'I'm back... making love in an Oxfam shop window' (Sunday Mirror, 8th November 1998)

'Is acting tough? Try being a mum!' (The People 8th October 2000)

'I've got cold feet' (Sunday Mail, 8th October 2000)

'Money means nothing to me.. spending every moment with my baby is all I worry about' (The Mirror, 9th September 1999)

'Motherhood not Hollywood' (The Mirror, 7th November 1998)

'One 2 one' (Daily Record, 6th February 1998)

'I prefer being a mum to an actress, Nell's my whole life' (The Mirror, 4th November 2000)

'The doctor who makes no bones about sex' (Daily Mirror, 16th April 1994)

'Friend or foe?' (Daily Record, 17th March 2000)

'Cold Comfort...Rachels got a big secret' What's On TV, December 98

Information on the pilot episode of 'Cold Feet' November 1998

'Mums the word over Friends' TV-Plus November 1998

'Cold Feet' Review November 1998

'The night I had sex in a shop window!' TV Times, November 1998

'The one where Friends' English crumpet Helen Baxendale talks about shagging Ross, admiring Rachel's curves and simulating sex in Oxfam shop windows' Sky, October 1998

'A she-devil blessed with Friends in high places.' Scotsman, October 1998

'Helen tells of her delight at landing a role in 'Friends' and at being pregnant.' HELLO, March 1998

'Helen set to make new Friends for ITV in £3m comedy'
Associated News, January 1998

'My MERCY mission to Ethiopia' Mirror, January 1998

'10 Things you never knew about Helen Baxendale' Mirror, March 1997

'Helen's ward weary' Mirror, March 1996

'Dr Who's a pretty girl then' Mirror, May 1998

'Friends' Helen will be a mum' Mirror, February 1998

'I nearly got Cold Feet when I had my Match of the Day….' Mirror, May 1997

'I'm the boss' Mirror, October 1997

'It felt so odd to snog a woman' Mirror, May 1997

'Friends and Family' Cable Guide, May 1998

'A Brit on the Side' Esquire, May 1998

'Telly Helen meets her image' Mirror, February 1998

Channel 4 interview on 'The Investigator'

'Acting up' Guardian, July 1998

'Helens passions'. Woman magazine

'Not such good friends' Mirror newspaper, April 1998

Information on 'Cold Feet' from ITV

Anglia Television press release for 'An Unsuitable Job for a Woman'

'Helen Baxendale: A good time to be a bad girl.' Independent on Sunday, Feb 1998

'MYSTERY!' Star Tribune, Critic's choice

'Helen Baxendale on the internet.' The Daily Telegraph, Feb 1998

'Her Best 'Friends' Wedding?' Entertainment Weekly, April 1998

'Ross' fiance from `Friends' stars in PBS `MYSTERY!' St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1998

'Helen Baxendale interview (transcript).' Weekend Sunday (NPR), May 1998

'One-day pregnant pause for hard-pressed Helen.' The Daily Telegraph, June 1998

'Americans think I'm a sex bomb, Says star Helen Baxendale.' Woman's Own, July 1998

'Box clever: Sisters in law' Independent, October 1997

'The unbelievable truth: they're not our Friends.' Independent, May 1998

'Truth or dare review.' Independent, February 1996

'Television review, an unsuitable job...' Independent, February 1998

(Thanks to Ross Bowerman for letting me use his article archive)

Cold Comfort…….
Rachel has been keeping a big secret!

It's happening already. People are stopping Cold Feet actress Helen Baxendale in the street to ask, 'What's going to happen with you & Adam?'

'At least it makes a change from being asked about Ross,' smiles Helen, referring to her love interest in the US sitcom Friends (C4, Friday). The current series of Cold Feet which started last week, picks up where last year's successful pilot left off. In this week's episode, Helen's character Rachel & her boyfriend Adam move in together. But things don't quote go according to plan. For as they are unpacking, it becomes clear that Rachel has been hiding something from Adam - a marriage certificate!
Filming the six-part series in Manchester was hard going for Helen, 29, as she was pregnant with her first child, Nell, now aged 10 weeks, by her actor partner, David Elliot.
But becoming a mum certainly hasn't put the brakes on Helen's career. 'I take Nell everywhere,' says Helen, who first shot to fame in the 1994 medical drama series Cardiac Arrest. 'They're so portable at this age and she's so good.' Most recently, Helen has been in Ireland shooting a film with US actor Kevin Spacey. When that is finished, she hopes to take a break, before starting on a second series of Cold Feet. She'll also be starring in future episodes of Friends. 'They wanted me for the start of the next series' says Helen. 'But I was having Nell at the time, so things were changed and my scenes were filmed in England. Mostly, I'm just seen chatting to Ross on the phone.' Her future involvement in the show is uncertain. ; It's open-ended, but I'm not keen on going back to America until Nell is a bit older; says Helen. 'Anyway, they kept changing the scripts. When I joined, they wanted my character, Emily, to be stroppy. 'Then they realised there had to be something nice about Emily for Ross to be interested. So I was told to make her nicer - only gradually so no-one would notice!'

[Back to archive]

Information on the pilot episode of Cold Feet

The pilot episode of Cold Feet, screened in March 1997, was hardly noticed by the critics. But the TV-watching public took notice, and the programme went on to win a number of awards including Best Comedy Drama at the 1997 British Comedy Awards, Best Network Entertainment Programme at the Royal Television Society North West Awards, and, most prestigious of all, the Golden Rose of Montreux for best overall programme and the Silver Rose for best comedy.

Of the three female characters in Cold Feet, Helen Baxendale's Rachel is the only one who hasn't either given birth or is just about to. But in real life, Helen is the only one of the three actresses who is a mother, having given birth to her daughter Nell in September.

Helen was pregnant during the filming of Cold Feet. 'That's why you see me get fatter!' she laughs. 'I was six-and-a-half months pregnant by the end.' And she is well prepared for the changes that motherhood will bring to her life and career. 'My ambition hasn't changed, but now I have other responsibilities as well, so it's more of a balancing act. At the moment's the baby's easily portable, and she doesn't mind as long as I'm there.'

She was over the moon when Cold Feet won the Golden Rose of Montreux. 'That was excellent! It was an out-of-the-blue surprise. We knew it was good, but to win that was really lovely. Cold Feet was brilliant to do, and if you're part of the original cast then it is even more special.

'To me, Cold Feet is much more real than most other comedies because the characters in it are full of contradictions and that's so true to life. If you really like someone, then you invariably behave like a right prat!'

Helen's other big career move was her appearance this year in the US sitcom Friends. How does she feel about comparisons between Cold Feet and Friends? 'It's nice to be likened to such a successful and well-loved programme, but I don't think it's like Friends really, it's quite different', she says. 'Cold Feet is much more of a drama-comedy and less a situation comedy. A lot more dramatic events happen than in Friends, which allow the storylines to become quite sad. It's more drama-led than comedy-led; we're not chasing laughs.'

[Back to archive]

Mum's the word over Friends

Baby love has given Helen Baxendale cold feet over her future with Friends. Since the birth of her baby daughter Nell eight weeks ago, she's having second thoughts about more episodes.
Helen, 28, lives with actor-turned-film producer David Elliott and is in no hurry to leave her English base. She admits: "They have a storyline to fulfil, but I am not keen to go to America with my daughter until she's older - so I don't know." Baxendale was in the final stages of pregnancy when it came to shooting the new series. Instead of flying to the US to film with the rest of the cast, she ended up on her own in Pinewood Studios.
Helen found herself having long-distance chats with actor David Schwimmer for the cameras. She says: "It was nice, but we're not close."
Baxendale went through an identity crisis while making Friends.
She says: "When I got the job, it was only going to be six weeks and I was going to be Ross's girlfriend.

"I read the script and I thought Emily was going to be some stroppy, horrible, English snobby girl.
"Then they wanted her to be a rival for Rachel. There had to be something he liked - so she changed. I hope people didn't notice that too much."
Fast-moving Friends can sometimes leave the cast - and fans - bewildered.
Baxendale, who plays Emily, says: "I don't really know if they have any long-term storyline ideas. "You get a script on Monday and by Friday, when you film after a week of rehearsal, it's completely changed. "They're watching reactions the whole time and making it funnier. However, unless you are a regular character, you don't quite know where you are."
Helen Baxendale has new TV pals in ITV comedy Cold Feet, as well as her American Friends. So, what's the big difference between English and American crews? The actress says: "Just the accents."
Helen plays a girl called Rachel, who has a big secret in the new series which starts on November 15. The pilot show caused such a buzz it was turned into a series. She says: "It's quite special to us, like
Friends is to its original cast." Starring in the original one-off of Cold Feet won Helen Baxendale her role in Friends. The actress says: "After they saw the pilot, I got a call and was sent straight over for a screen test." It's now been turned into a series, which features her character Rachel making love in the window of a shop. When the scene was shot at night in Manchester, pub drunks were more interested in fighting than gawping. She says: "It was a rough area."

Cold Feet, ITV, November 15

[Back to archive]

It's described as This Life with laughs, a smart, sassy tale of urban thirtysomethings.
Now the Golden Rose-winning comedy drama hots up for a six-part series.

TINA OGLE reports

Sundays 1TV, Mondays Scottish, Grampian

Anyone tuning into ITV late on Easter Day last year would have caught a perfectly formed hour of British comedy drama. Scheduled to be late in the day, and pushed back even further by the overrunning of the Brazilian Grand Prix, Cold Feet struggled gamely to get audience. Its ratings were further hampered by being pitched against the conclu-sion of BBC1's Missing Postman, a drama starring the ever-popular James Bolam, and the launch of Channel 5. A fresh and funny romantic comedy, based around the trials of three couples in their thirties, it unfortunately made little impact on viewers. Confident he had a quality product, and unwilling to let it sink without trace, executive producer Andy Harries entered the film at the international television comedy festival at Montreux. Two months after it had apparently disappeared down the television plughole, Cold Feet netted Montreux's top prize, the Golden Rose.
The writer, producers and performers in this drama - originally conceived as a pilot for a series-were understandably delighted by this re-sult. All were keen to forge ahead with six new episodes. But despite a repeat showing in the summer of 1997, which garnered respectable audiences and critical acclaim, the call to get start-ed didn't come. Meanwhile American network NBC bought the format to produce its own version. Still ITV did not make a decision. Producer Christine Langan says, "I felt increasing-ly like a mad woman. The actors were extremely keen to come back and I made it my business to keep in touch with them and keep saying, 'We will do a series, we will definitely do a series.'"
All involved were put out of their misery in September last year when David Liddiment took over as head of ITV network centre. A six-part series of Cold Feet was his first comedy commission, and one in which he shows a great deal of confidence. "What I like about it is that each relationship is rooted in real basic truths about modern living," he says. "At the heart of it are identifiable, understandable people going through the day-to-day crises and frustrations and happiness that we all do at that stage in our lives. I think it's very true to modern living in Britain at the end of the 2Oth century."
For the benefit of those who missed the pilot, those "identifiable, understandable people" are Adam, Rachel, Pete, Jenny, David and Karen. Adam and Rachel - who met and fell in love in the pilot - are played by James Nesbitt (who married Dervla Kirwan in Ballykissangel' and also appeared in BBC1's Playing the Field) and the ubiquitous Helen Baxendale (currently romancing Ross in Channel 4's Friends and returning as detective Cordelia Gray in a new series of PD James's An Unsuitable Job for a Woman on ITV in the new year). The problem the pair have in the new series is how to cope with commitment. Adam's friends are Pete and Jenny, played by John Thomson from The Fast Show and Fay Ripley, who in the pilot were trying to conceive, and in the series cope with a new baby. Rachel's friends are Karen and David, played by Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst. He is married to his work and she is screamingly bored at home with a toddler. All are utterly believable characters brought to life by an ex-ceptionally strong cast.
Cold Feet is also very funny, something that is immensely hard to pull off in an hour-long dramatic format. The main reason for this is writer Mike Bullen, a producer and presenter for the BBC World Service, who only began to tackle scripts four years ago. Amazingly, his first-ever script, Perfect Match, was snapped up immediately, followed by Cold Feet. "The really lucky thing was finding the right person at the right time," he says modestly, alluding to his working relationship with executive pro-ducer Andy Harries.
Bullen happily admits he based all the char-acters on friends of his, and that the originals are flattered to be depicted. "They're not direct copies, but they're all based on real people who know who they are. They're very happy to be portrayed on television. I took them all to a screening and they met the actors and they loved it." He also admits that Adam in the pilot was based on himself. "I was a sad individual looking for love when I wrote it," he says. "But by the time it went out I was the Pete character, married and with a baby on the way."
The series is based and shot in Manchester, which Bullen feels is key to its success. "I like the fact that it's provincial, I like it's ordinariness. So much of the media is in London and so much of the country isn't. I love the texture of Manchester, the places they go to. It's an amaz-ingly vibrant place." The Americans are setting their forthcoming version in New York, but in original discussions had considered Milwaukee. "If I'd had anything to do with it, I would have strongly argued for the latter," says Bullen. "This should be about very ordinary people." Who, it should be pointed out, live in beautiful homes and appear to have high disposable incomes. Producer Christine Langan says:
"We've been bold about design, style and colour. It's about real people who are doing all right. They're young professionals earning decent money and they like to spend it."
As is the way of these things, Cold Feet has already attracted lots of labels. "Friends with babies" seems to be a popular one (especially with Helen Baxendale starring in both), but it is not a comparison Bullen welcomes. 'Friends is smug and self-satisfied a lot of the time, and I don't like its coy sentimentality." He accepts there will be comparisons with other shows, though. "It's not as if Cold Feel is that original it's just people who enjoy each other's company. This Life with laughs, if you like." Langan admits to being very influenced by the late eighties American series Thirtysomething. "It was very ambitious, dry, amusing while being moving and relevant," she says. "It was also interested in what was new in terms of society. I hope people will think the same of this."
Expectations are riding exceedingly high then, and Bullen did feel under pressure to produce six episodes up to the standard of the Golden Rose-winning first. "It's been really tough," he says. "I hope we've pulled it off, but it has involved masses of writing and rewriting and arguing. It has been a tortuous process. Christine Langan drives me crazy but she's wonderful because she won't allow me to get away with anything that isn't up to standard." He has continued the use of occasional flashback and fantasy sequences, techniques that made the original look so fresh. "I wanted to use the possibilities television offers in that you can play with time and reality, but still keep it normal. You're just occasion-ally catching the audience by surprise and rewarding them for their concentration."
These techniques are what attracted Declan Lowney, who directed the pilot and the first two episodes of the series. "The structure is very unusual, with overlapping scenes. We're using new ways of playing with time. I hope it might encourage people who make drama feel less bound by conventional narrative structure. This is a tiny drop in the ocean really, and the idea could be pushed much further." Towney, too, wondered about how Cold Feet would he labelled, but is confident of its tone. "We talked a lot about Nora Ephron, who wrote When Harry Met Sally. This is in the same vein intelligent romantic come-dy that isn't too sickly or sweet but doesn't have any inhibitions about celebrating romance."
With its preoccupation with sex and relationships, sophisticated tone and middle-class thirtysomething slant, Cold Feet feels like a project that should have been more at home on BBC2 or Channel 4. Does this pitch for the younger, trendier audience that made BBC2's This Life such a success herald a new direction for drama at ITV, home of Heartbeat and Where the Heart Is? "Cold Feet is an important part of how ITV is evolving," says David Liddiment. "But I don't see it as a radical departure, I see it as part of a tradition. Cracker, which was probably the most critically ac-claimed British drama over the last decade, was on ITV, as were Prime Suspect and Band of Gold. We have a track record in mould-breaking drama and while Cold Feet is not a heavy, intense piece of drama in the same way, it is as mould-breaking as they were, because times and tastes change."
Langan and Bullen are definitely delighted to be bringing their show to a mainstream audience. Bullen adds, "I want to write popular stuff, and I'm amazed at what we're getting away with. Mind you, the sex isn't that graphic. Basically, I still want my mother to watch it but I want her to be a bit shocked."

[Back to archive]

THE NIGHT I HAD SEX IN A SHOP WINDOW

She looks so innocent, so how did Helen Baxendale's antics bring a Manchester Street to a standstill?

COLD FEET

Should you be after a Friend who's fun to be with, a great giggle, enthusiastic, down to earth and terribly nice, look no further than Helen Baxendale.
There's nothing remotely actressy about the Wakefield-born actress, although she admits that she loves 'showing off".
Helen has a girl-next-door freshness, coupled with the ability to act tough and sexy - attributes which not only won her one of the most envied roles on TV as Ross' girlfriend Emily in Friends, but also landed her a starring role in lTV's award-winning comedy pilot Cold Feet which returns as a six- part series this week.
Cold Feet revolves around the chaos, confusion and cuddles in the lives of six thirtysomething Manchester professionals. Helen's char-acter is Rachel, an upwardly mobile ad executive who's trying to decide whether or not to move in with Adam played by James Nesbitt.
'It's very different from anything else on TV about young people. It's funny and sad at the same time, and very stylishly put together,' says Helen.
She's not having a dig at Friends - but given the choice between snogging David Schwimmer in Hollywood or changing dirty nappies in Britain, Helen is content to be at home in London, with her new baby daughter, Nell Elizabeth Marmalade - the name she and her partner, producer David Elliot, decided on 'in a moment of madness'.
'It was from Educating Marmalade, a programme I really, really loved on TV,' she explains. 'Marmalade was very naughty with ginqery hair and freckles, a real rebel. Not that I want my Marmalade to be a real rebel. It's for her to go. "Mu-um, you embarrassing woman. And Nell? I like the name. I had an Aunt Nell.'
Nell Elizabeth Marmalade was born on 13 September, a few days earlier than expected, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Surprisingly, for someone who had a baby just two months ago, Helen isn't endlessly knackered, but full of energy
At her comfortable home in London, still surrounded by congratulation cards and flowers, she says, 'I feel great. I was in labour for about nine hours, didn't need a Caesarean or anything and it was fine. David was there thank God, and he was brilliant.
'Looks-wise, from different angles and at different times, Nell is like ether one of us. A good old mixture.
The star of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman fell for former actor David after they met on stage in a play in Glasgow five years ago, one which involved a fair amount of lip-smacking activity.
'It was love at first sight,' Helen says. 'I knew as soon as I saw him he was for me.
At the moment there are no plans to get married because there's such a lot going on. I know David is the man for me and I want to be with him and he wants to be with me, hopefully - well, I know he does.
'But neither of us is religious and if we are to do it, it would be to have a big party. We're not desperate to get married. It's not the foremost thing on my list. We're a common or garden couple Many of the things that go on in Cold Feet go on in our rela-tionship... except for having sex in a shop window!'
She's referring to a scene where Rachel is persuaded to do just that!
'I think Adam is going off me, so I try to seem really adventurous and say that I want to have sex in a public place. One night he takes me to his friend's charity shop where he's made a boudoir in the window.'
For Helen, who was pregnant at the time, filming such a public show of lovemaking was unnerving.
'We ended up doing the scene at 3 a.m. in a rou9h part of Manchester with fights going on outside. And then people started to gather round and look in the shop window while we were tying to mimic sex. It was peculiar.
'My pregnancy was beginning to show, so I had to keep standing in a certain way, behind tables and posts. And there were a couple of times when I had to have a body double, especially in one scene where I get my stomach out.
'In the end it got a bit upsetting. It was, "Helen, just go and stand behind that pillar, will you?'
Instead of putting her feet up now filming's over and her baby's born, Helen's off to Ireland with Nell and her mum, June, in tow to make her first feature film. She's landed a plum role opposite Kevin Spacey in An Ordinary Decent Criminal.
I'm a gangster's moll... a bit tacky.' she says.
One place she won't be taking Nell, however, is over to Hollywood so that she can appear in further episodes of Friends. She's had to turn down an invit-ation to fly back and complete five shows for the next series.
I wouldn't take a new baby halfway across the world,' she says, adding, 'I thought they'd have finished my character off and had Ross and Rachel go off into the sunset, but no. In fact I read the other day that Brad Pitt is going to be Rachel's new boyfriend'
Her eyes light up at the thought of being Friends with Brad. But only for a split second...
Has she managed to keep in touch with Jennifer Aniston and the rest of the crew? 'I don't ring them every week, but I had some on-the-phone scenes with David Schwimmer the other day and it was nice to talk to him. Oh, they are lovely, really nice people.'
So how was David Schwimmer when it came to the lovey-dovey stuff? He's not the best snog that I've ever had,' Helen says, laughing.
As soon as she's finished filming in Ireland, her main priority is getting to grips with her new role as a mother. 'I'm going to take six months off and sort out who I am and who this little person is. And also David is going to be there, and we've decided that we shouldn't be apart too much. We should travel wherever we're going as a family if possible.'
'I hope I can juggle my time well. I certainly want to continue with a career that interests me and is creative. It's important I carry on with it, but equally, I want to be a good mother to my child.'

[Back to archive]

The one where Friends' English crumpet Helen Baxendale talks about shagging Ross,
admiring Rachel's curves and simulating sex in Oxfam shop windows.

Words: Stephen Kingston.

Insensible navy jacket and flares, Helen Baxendale strides into the conservatory at Manchester's V~A Hotel, grabs a glass of mineral water and sighs that she's living like a nun. As she beautifully puts it, she's "up the duff and longing for a whisky sour." But it Helen's had to hold her habits in check for a few months off camera, she's gone for it big time on screen.
Last night she shot a scene for the new series of Cold Feet that involved bonking on a bed in an Oxfam shop window. And, of course, there's been that little jaunt to LA, appearing in Friends as Brit brainbox Emily, who shags the tits off Ross.
Surprisingly, the whole Hollywood experience left Helen lukewarm, "If you're born there, that's your hard luck but I can't imagine wanting to go and live there," prickles the so-called English rose. "I mean, it's very beautiful... if you getaway from humans."
Talk about biting the hand that Baby Bios, But being plunged into the world of Aniston, Cox, LeBlanc & co proved a culture shock. "You have to be thin," she explains. "I was way too fat out there because I was pregnant. You just look different and I was thinking, 'Oh, it's the sack next week."'
While the Friends set was dominated by the six cuddly regulars, everyone else seemed in constant fear of the boot. "We'd go in to read on Monday with one cast and then go back on Wednesday and they'd have been changed, sacked for not being right, It was quite nerve-wracking, But once they'd filmed a couple of episodes, I thought, 'They can't get rid of me now so l can just enjoy it."'
Contrary to the tabloid myth that the Friends bigwigs head-hunted her, Helen says her agent sent showreels and she later auditioned for the part. Landing it meant she followed fellow budding Brit starlets like Alex Kingston (ER), Jane Leeves (Frasier) and Kate Winslet to Tinseltown. "I don't know what Americans find appealing about English girls. L suppose it's the same reason you go to France and think everything's a bit exotic," she laughs. "We should just use it while it lasts."
Unfortunately, guest stars are mere accessories among the Central Perk posse. Helen soon found out you can't be wittier or prettier than the Magnificent Six. "I was just there so they could say some funny things about England," she shrugs. 'At first it was written a bit (adopts snooty accent) 'smashing' but I just thought I had to make her real, so Ross could believably fall in love with her. I don't know whether it works."
You get the feeling she doesn't really care anymore whether it works or not, She's hardly yearning for a return to the razzle. 'Jennifer Aniston's got the most fantastic body, just amazing, and I was there going, 'Like, how do you do that?' They have manicures, pedicures, hairdressers. They're very well cared for. But they are well-balanced people considering..."
Considering? Helen answers with a tactful, "Yeah".
This isn't showbiz bitchiness. Helen says that she wouldn't swap the experience for the world. She's just describing the total headfuck that was her first visit to the Big League, "l'd never been to America before and just thought it would be very similar to here," she muses, "It isn't at all. The whole place is a lot more glamorous and we're a bit dirty, you know? We don't mind if characters don't look gorgeous all the time. But there they really do look gorgeous. All the time. They don't have any nudity on TV, never say 'arse' or anything. I thought, 'Oh well, I'm glad we get our knockers out all over the place, it's kind of liberating,"' Helen Baxendale, daughter of a schools inspector and a teacher, has indeed got a reputation for, on the one hand, getting her knockers out but on the other, being this bolshie minx you wouldn't mess with, It's an image born from her role as stroppily sexy Claire Maitland in Cardiac Arrest, the gay army sergeant in The Investigator and the tasty private eye in An Unsuitable Job For A Woman. "I've never got my whole kit off, only the top part and I've only done that twice," she insists, "But if you do it once, everyone thinks you always do it."
She's more bothered about how her personality's perceived. Scary? Fuhgeddaboutit. Sat here tonight, her hair's lighter and her eyes are softer than you'd ever know from her screen appearances "It's because of the parts I play and my angular face," she explains. "I look scary in photographs and if they try to make me look fluffy it doesn't work. It's just a sad, sad fact of life that people win always think I'm scary."
And as for actor David Elliot. her boyfriend and father of the baby, does he think Helen's scary? "I think he's terrified of how l always get my own way but hopefully he thinks I'm quite a nice. soft person. She laughs in a decidedly unscary way.
Nope, Helen Baxendale's just a normal 29 year old from Staffordshire who knocks around with doctors rather than actors and talks about buying a squishy sofa for her new house.
But if you don't see her in Ikea, her next appearance is in comedy drama Cold Feet, which co-stars Jimmy "Resurrection Man" Nesbit and John "Fat Bobjaaaazz Club" Thompson. In the sex'n'Soave saga, Helen plays Rachael- a flirty, dirty, nitty-gritty girl who'd have her Friends namesake running home to mummy. "In episode two it comes out that I'm a complete slag and have had quite a past," Helen giggles. 'And episode three is about sex, basically. Various kinds of hilarious bonking..."
Which brings us back to the Oxfam window, where Rachael and Adam (Nesbitt) try to spice up their sex lives, The scene was filmed in Manchester's trendy Oldham Street, right at club chucking-out time. "There were all these fights in the streets between women and the whole thing was ludicrous," Helen says. "People walked over asking if there was anyone famous around and we'd say it was just a bed commercial. Then I came out and simulated sex in the window. At one point, this old man was looking in through the glass while we were at it. We were laughing our heads off."
So is Cold Feet going to be better than Friends? "I'd prefer to watch it, it's more real," says Helen. 'And because it's an hour long, the stories can develop more. Cold Feet isn't just a sentence then a joke, a sentence then a joke."
Needless to say, Helen doesn't stay in Friday nights for the US comedy invasion on Channel 4. "I watch 10 minutes, then I've had enough, l think it's the canned laughter" she decides, draining her mineral water before suddenly remembering her loyalty to Friends. "No, actually, it's not canned. It's just Americans laughing. Really loud."
Friends continues on C4, Fridays at 9pm. Cold Feet starts on ITV on l5 November at 9pm.

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A she-devil blessed with Friends in high places.

She used to talk tough, now Aidan Smith finds Helen Baxendale playing it for laughs

Killing time in Helen Baxendale's corner of London, you stumble across some strange sights, like the board out-side a restaurant, tempting you with emu, alligator and - today's speciality - kangaroo. Who would eat this? Crocodile Dundee? The down-and-out propping up the phonebox sipping Carly Speshul (yes, he's a Scot)? Or maybe a pregnant woman? Until just the other day, Baxendale was the latter
Ten minutes later, in another, much swankier eaterie, she's giggling at my small-town-boy sense of wonderment at the exotica of Islington, informing me in between mock gasps that the food shops in her street are "even funkier". But this is not Baxendale as one of her ball-breaking small-screen alter egos; this is Baxendale playing it for laughs, and we're going to be seeing a lot more of her in the coming weeks.
If you're a fan of the American Sitcom 'Friends', you will already know that Baxendale can "do" comedy. Last week, she made her entrance as Emily, the Englishwoman who will become Ross's girlfriend and, eventually, his wife. ("Don't ya just love the way she speaks?" squeals Phoebe, often).
Then, next month, she returns to the role of Rachel in Cold Feet, the so-called British Friends, which, as a one-off, won ITV the Golden Rose Of Montreux. Yes, that ITV - the channel that can't do comedy. That's about as unlikely as my old amateur soccer team, Dynamo Mince, beating Rangers 10-0 in the Scottish Cup Final - but win it did. Now for the series.
Today, Baxendale has skipped lunch and is nibbling on toast. She nips to the loo every 20 minutes. Her bump is concealed by a black smock, worn over black leggings and black Doc Martens boots. A press officer sits in attendance. What? you're thinking, the she-devil responsible for some of the most killing put-downs in the history of television drama can't answer questions for herself? Surely you knew that Cardiac Arrest's Clare Maitland was just a clever act.
The baby is due any day and Baxendale, because she's feeling fat and frumpy, asks if she can be excused being photographed. This is nonsense; even when sporting punky anti-fashion and without the aid of make-up, she is stunning. Her hazel eyes sparkle with girlie glee, as if she's just stumbled across the Famous Five's secret stash of fizzy pop. That notable nose is no longer her biggest feature.
"The baby was semi-planned," says Baxendale, who lives with her film-maker boyfriend David Williams. They met five years ago when cast together in a production of La Ronde at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre. "It was love at first sight-ish." Williams used to act but now directs and, no, he's never had a problem with the fact that she's by far the more famous of the two. He has just cast Baxendale in the title role of his second film, Angel At My Bedside. It's low-budget, but she reckons she looks "really rather gorgeous" in a white shellsuit.
"I've been with David for five years and we were happy and settled together so we're taking this [pointing to her bump] in our stride. Nevertheless, it has come along at an, urn, interesting time..."
You can say that again. Baxendale and Daniela Nardini seem to always he slugging it out for the right to call themselves Britain's hottest young actress; and when Nardini doesn't get the part of the strong, sexy woman the type men lust after but, In reality; would run a mile from Baxendale' usually does.
In Truth Or Dare, she played a sassy lawyer, who, within the first five minutes; stripped off for a romp with a married colleague. In Crossing The Floor, she was the scheming parliamentary secretary who made love to her boss, the Home Secretary, while listening to Churchill's speeches. As The Investigator, she was a sergeant, assigned to weed lesbians out of the army, who was herself gay. As the heroine of An Unsuitable Job For A Woman, she was the ingenue gumshoe showing signs of dippiness later used to comic effect in Cold Feet, but she was no pushover But first, and best of all, there was Clare Maitland.
BBC Scotland's Cardiac Arrest was the show that made Baxendale, a blood'n'guts black comedy about oversexed, under-resourced medics. If you were terminally ill, Maitland's bolshie bedside manner encouraged you to feel like a serial malingerer. "She didn't actually kill any of her patients, did she? Well, not deliberately, anyway." That's all right, then.
"I love playing Venus Fly Traps," declares Baxendale, somewhat un-convincingly. She snaps a piece of toast and gives herself a fright "I'm not like any of these women in real life so it's therapeutic to play them. There's something illicit about it as well, dressing up in their clothes for the day, then putting yours back on to go home.
"The ballsy things Clare used to say were so alien to me, and just being able to utter these words in front of a camera gave me con-fidence I never had before. I think she was a bit of a prototype, along with Anna in This Life [played, by Nardini] and Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect [Helen Mirren], for the tough female characters we see so much of now, and I'm very proud of her"
Her boyfriend, however, was less keen on Maitland, mainly because he didn't recognise Baxendale in her "David would say things like 'That's not you - you're nice!'. He couldn't understand why guys seemed to find her such a turn-on." Her adoption as a lads' lust-object reached its zenith when she was snapped for Esquire self-consciously squirming around on a see-through plastic sofa in revealing rubberwear - but Baxendale prefers to think of it as a nadir "The pictures were hideous - I don't know what I was thinking about." Needless to say, her No 1 fan prefers her in comedy, insisting her Cold Feet persona is much more like the woman he loves.
So where did this flair for comedy come from? Baxendale was born in Yorkshire and grew up in the Midlands; it was a happy childhood although she claims she can't remember much about it. "I do remember my dad laughing at The Two Ronnies and me thinking it was hi-larious because he did. Later, I was allowed to stay up for Not The Nine O'clock News, which I knew was a bit rude, but I still didn't know what I was supposed to be laughing at."
She went to her local state primary school, then the nearby comprehensive. "As a kid, you don't know who you are, or how you fit in," she says. Nevertheless, she is still friends with many of her class-mates, some of whom played with her in a pop band. "We called ourselves The Beatles - original, huh? - and banged pots and pans. I wanted to be Paul, but had to make do with George." Was Macca her first heart-throb? "No, that was Kenny Dalglish- I used to love seeing his smiley face when he scored a goal."
If she rebelled in her teens she can't remember, although she suspects she was "quite quiet and a wee bit boring". What was the worst thing she ever did? "I rode my bike into the neighbours' paddling pool and burst it- then cycled off saying it wasn't me." Her first ambition was to be a ballerina, but when it dawned on her she would never be able to dance as well as she wanted to, she turned to acting.
Cold Feet retains the cast from the pilot, including John Thompson from The Fast Show and James Nesbitt as Baxendale's boyfriend Adam, last seen serenading her in the street with a red rose in his bare bahookie. It's funny about friendships, relevant about relationships and, according to her, "feel-good, sad, stylish and moreish" (meaning you can't wait for the next episode.).
At the start, Rachel and Adam are happy - "sickeningly happy, in fact". But you just know it won't last. "They start living together and everything seems blissful, but then it turns out I'm still married to someone else and, in the course of trying to get divorced, I get involved with him again."
Baxendale rejects comparisons with Friends, and she should know. "Friends is a sitcom and the joke is the be-all and end-all. In Cold Feet, the situation is more important than the comedy, and we sacrifice laughs for the reality of that situation. Cold Feet allows bad things to happen; Friends doesn't. This is a show about my generation and hopefully twen-tysomethings will relate to it and say: 'I've been there'."
The story of how Baxendale became one of those impossibly beau-tiful Friends has passed into telly folklore. She was holidaying in Los Angeles, and promoting An Unsuit-able Job For A Woman at the same time, when she got The Call. As the producers tried her out for the role of the token bit of posh, she ran out of clean clothes, eventually reduced to washing her knickers in the hotel sink. Ah, the glamour of Tinsel Town.
"It was totally ludicrous, a sheer fluke. I'd never been to Hollywood before, never seen a single episode of Friends, and there I was on this huge Warner Brothers set. Everything in Hollywood is bigger - a massive limo whisks you to this fabled warehouse, basically. But it's absolutely ginormous, with all these stars walking about, in character. I saw some of the ER guys and also that bloke with the Italian name… Andy Garcia. He was wearing a beret and a fisherman's jumper and he was smoking a cigar - and he looked so eccentric that I just burst out laughing."
Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox and the other regulars made their new best Friend feel welcome, mar-velled incessantly at her accent, and told her to come back real soon. "You end up thinking you're really strange and peculiar - you have to be careful you don't turn into a caricature of yourself." Caricature or not, the producers wanted more of Emily. Baxendale told them the impending birth would keep her at home, but they wouldn't take no for an answer and persuaded her to film a couple of episodes for the next series, on the phone to the pining Ross from England.
Forced to choose between Cold Feet and Friends, she says she would buy British. "I enjoyed the Hollywood experience and I might go back. Friends kicked off a bit of interest in me in America, but I had to come home and, to be honest, I'm happier here. I want to make films, but I can't see why I can't do that in Britain. If that means I miss out on some big Hollywood blockbuster, so be it. I won't die if it doesn't come my way."
Baxendale aims to resume acting in the spring, after spending six months with the baby. She and Williams might marry in a year or so, if they fancy having a party. "He's definitely the one," she says.
"I don't know how motherhood is going to affect me. I don't know what the child is going to be like, or what I'm going to be like as a mum. Who knows, I might completely fall in love with the idea - but I don't want this to be the end of my career. It would be stupid if I suddenly stopped acting because I'm in a pretty privileged position at the moment."
A week after our chat Baxendale gave birth to a daughter, Mel; and there's a rumour doing the rounds in Islington that the little lass's middle name is Marmalade. Doubtless, that'll be what they spread on their kangaroo down there...

Cold Feet begins on lTV on 15 November

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Helen Baxendale tells of her delight at landing a role in 'Friends' and at being pregnant.

British actress Helen Baxendale, recently picked for the top US sitcom 'Friends' and currently on our screens in 'An unsuitable job for a woman' can't stop smiling. It's just been confirmed that she's pregnant and she couldn't be more delighted.
Helen, who lives in London with her boyfriend, actor David Elliot, is expecting her baby in September. "I'm very, very happy," she told HELLO.
Now filming a new series of the six-hour comedy 'Cold Feet' for Granada TV, Helen still has some more episodes to complete of her dream role in 'Friends.' She'll be filming until April. She's also due to start shooting a second series of PD James' 'An unsuitable job for a woman', where she plays super sleuth Cordelia Gray, in the summer. Scriptwriters are now busily re-writing storylines to accommodate her pregnancy.
Helen first made millions of male hearts beat faster as tough Dr Claire Maitland in BBC TV's 'Cardiac Arrest.' 'Friends' will no doubt make her a major household name, although it remains to be seen how the pregnancy will affect her role in this show. Bombarded by a publicity machine that has left her breathless, she says: "I knew of 'Friends' before and I knew it was good, but I didn't really know anything about it other than alot of people watched it. That doesn't mean there's more pressure on me, not at all. But there is an awful lot of pressure coming from the publicity that goes with the show. My phone literally hasn't stopped ringing."
Helen's signed on to play Ross' new English girlfriend, Emily. It's a role most actresses would kill for, but 27-year-old Helen aims to keep her feet on the ground. "Of course I want to do well, but I don't think: 'Oh my God, I must be a star' all the time. It's too tiring. My career doesn't rule my life."
She's still taken aback by the string of happy coincidences that led to her landing the role in the first place. 'Friends' executives had decided they wanted to enrich storylines by making Ross' new love British and had already approached Oasis star Liam Gallagher's wife Patsy Kensit. But she pulled out at the last moment because she thought it would be too difficult to join a cast of six who'd been performing together week in week out for years.
"The show's bosses already knew of Helen because they'd been looking at a number of up-and-coming British actresses," says a friend. "So when Patsy dropped out, they immediately rang Helen's agent only to discover she was already in Los Angeles on holiday."
Helen had gone to the States with boyfriend David, and intended to drive north up the coast from LA to see Hearst's Castle in San Simeon and then the mountains near San Francisco. But her plans were turned upside down when she was invited to audition. "I went along, read some of the scripts with the 'Friends' producers, who are also the writers, and that was it. They wanted me to start straight away. Amazing good luck really!".
Helen immediately put the rest of her holiday on hold and stayed on at a hotel in Santa Monica while she filmed her new role. 'Friends' producer Kevin Bright is delighted by her performance. "We know Helen is going to be a big hit" he says. "She's fitted in marvellously.
In her opening scene, on Sky TV in April, Helen (as Emily) turns up to meet her rival Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) for the first time, looking like a drowned rat after being caught up in a snowstorm. "I'm really horrible at first," she says, "but I'm soon off on a romantic interlude with Ross in Vermont."
Insiders predict she'll end up tying the knot with Ross (played by David Schwimmer) in scenes to be shot in London this month, but Helen isn't so sure. "We might film in London, we might not," she says. "I've discovered 'Friends' is written as it goes along, so that might not happen. We'll just have to see."
Rumoured to be getting œ15,000 an episode for 'Friends,' she is determined success won't change her, "In this profession, you can be flavour of the month one minute and everyone's forgotten you the next," she says. "If you believe that success is certain, you're bound to fall flat on your face. You just have to take each day as it comes, appreciate that you're bloody lucky while it's happening and try not to hope too much."
Born in Yorkshire, but raised in the Midlands, Helen's early ambition was to be a dancer. "Dancing was my one true love and I pursued it until I was nearly 17," she says. "But when I realised I wasn't going to achieve what I wanted to, I just thought: 'Oh acting. That will do instead!"
Landing a place at the Bristol Old Vic, she turned up with a rich Black Country accent laced with Yorkshire. "I sounded all the 'g's at the end of words and I gave words like 'cream' two syllables. When I left three years later, the difference was amazing. Now I can do all sorts of accents."
Yet even though she has the sort of high cheekbones and porcelain complexion that make men go weak at the knees, Helen takes compliments about her beauty with a pinch of salt. "I know what I'm really like, which isn't very glamorous at all," she says. "But God, if someone's going to write lots of lovely things about me, that's fantastic. I just hope it carries on. But if all this stops tomorrow, I won't cry too much. There are lots of other things to do. Acting isn't the real world."
Helen and David, together with their two mongrel dogs Stig and Stump, have just moved into a large Georgian house in North London which they are renovating and it's here that this rapidly rising young actress says she feels most comfortable.

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Helen set to make new Friends for ITV in £3m comedy series

ITV chiefs are pinning their hopes on "TV's most desirable actress", Helen Baxendale, to put a smile back into their comedy output. They have signed up the former Cardiac Arrest star to lead a new £3 million comedy series, referred to as Britain's answer to Friends.

The six-part series, Cold Feet, will centre on the lives of three yuppie couples in Manchester and also stars James Nesbitt and John Thomson.

"It is a bloody good show. I don't think you can save anything with only one thing but I have every confidence this is going to be a hit," said head of ITV comedy Paul Spencer. Cold Feet is expected to get a prime-time slot this autumn in a bid to win younger viewers. ITV's new director of programming David Liddiment told a meeting of more than 100 advertisers this week that one of his missions for 1998 was to rejuvenate comedy.

With an ageing audience he is desperate not to repeat the mistakes of the past and wants to give series such as Cold Feet a chance "to grow". Under the previous regime Cold Feet was virtually killed off at birth, a one-off pilot went out last year but was scheduled on a Bank Holiday weekend when viewership is always low.

Then it went on to scoop a prestigious Montreux Golden Rose award and was repeated, but again went almost unnoticed. Although it was first broadcast last spring it was only three weeks ago that a decision was taken to recommission it. After such a lapse, there were fears that Baxendale, who is now hot TV property, would no longer be available. "I am really pleased that we have been to able to get all the cast back," said Spencer.

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My mercy mission to Ethiopia

Helen Baxendale, TV detective Cordelia Gray, took on one of the toughest roles in her life when she became an ambassador for the Red Cross in Ethiopia. With the terrible famine of 1984 behind the African country, it's now a lush green land with a future as a magnet for tourists. But still 55 million people are crowded into one of the poorest countries on earth. Helen, 29, went to meet them.

This is her African diary.

DAY ONE

After rainy old Britain, the scorching heat of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, and the sheer number of people teeming through its streets, is a shock. I am reeling from the poverty. Right outside the hotel, a little girl who cannot be more than two years old and is dressed in rags holds out her hand for money. In England, someone would have taken her to the police station and reported her missing. Ethiopia has thousands of missing people. Families have been split up by war and famine and can no longer trace their relatives.

Having played a TV detective, Cordelia Gray, I had some idea of the enormous number of steps people have to go through to track someone down. That's in England, where there are such useful things as street names, house numbers and telephone books. In Ethiopia, they have not even managed to put together a census to count the population because everybody moves around so much.

One person who does try to put children, parents and families back together is the Red Cross's Anita Formby, who runs the message and tracing service. Anita is filled with enthusiasm for her job. She tells me the Ethiopian Red Cross has just managed to track down the brother of a political prisoner. The prisoner had given a few ancient clues and the Red Cross found his brother miles outside Addis Ababa. Tomorrow Anita and I will go and give him the good news that his long-lost brother is alive in prison.

DAY TWO

If there is a traffic system in Ethiopia, it has beaten me. Everyone seems to drive straight at each other, swerving only towards pedestrians. Anita seems impervious to the crazy drivers and the thousands of potholes and whisks us in a Red Cross Land-Rover through the shanty-town suburbs of Addis Ababa. We drive up mountainous hills covered with eucalyptus trees and past women bent double under the weight of firewood as their husbands walk casually behind. Eventually we stop on a wide and empty African plain. "We're here," Anita says. Here is actually the middle of nowhere. The only house is a mud and wattle shack on top of a hill with smoke drifting from the roof. How on earth did they find it?

Anita hands me the message from the political prisoner Yedeta Sanbto and points up the hill. We walk up and I knock on a wicker gate and call out. The man who eventually comes to the gate seems pretty surprised to see two white women. The three women hiding behind him with wide eyes are very curious. I hand over the message to him. He reads it and then gives a huge toothy grin, throws his hands in the air and hugs us both.

The local Red Cross co-ordinator who finally tracked Hailu Sanbto down to this remote farmstead translates what we had already established. He is delighted to hear from his brother for the first time in 10 years. We are invited across a rocky courtyard to the house, where these people live without water, electricity or anything else we take for granted. It is pretty humbling to realise just how lucky we are in Britain. As an actress it is so easy to become a luvvie and worry about lines and who got what part when these people are fighting to live.

Anita is 32 and doing a very important job without any of the fanfare that goes with pop stars and celebrities in Britain. Who really deserves the attention?

DAY THREE

The five-week-old baby I hold in my arms is so gorgeous I just want to take her home with me. Tiny Mekedes was left outside the police station when she was just a few hours old and the officers took her to the children's orphanage in Gulele Street in Addis Ababa. Mekedes is one of the lucky ones. For every child who makes it into the orphanage run by Ethiopian heroine Almaz Ashine, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of orphans who don't. Many live rough and die. In the orphanage classroom the five- and six-year-olds clap and sing a song they have been rehearsing for us. It lasts at least half an hour.

Almaz is an astonishing woman. She turned over her own home to the orphans and with the help of the Red Cross has built and developed it into a real home for the children. These children are lucky - yet none of them has shoes on their feet. I hand one little girl a sweet. She puts it in her mouth and her eyes widen in amazement. Then she takes the sweet out of her mouth, looks at it and holds it to savour it and make it last. It is so different from my childhood in Birmingham. We were not rich, but my parents made sure we were surrounded by love and lacked for nothing. I cannot imagine any British child enjoying a simple sweet as much as that little Ethiopian girl did.

After a tour around the orphanage and the embroidery and typing classes for the older children, I am invited for lunch. Our photographer, Mike Moore, is a seasoned Africa hand and war veteran and has cautioned me on what to eat. He looks dubiously at my lunch. The boiled wheat and vegetables is a bland but very nutritious meal that the children clearly love. I eat a few spoonfuls and my soft European stomach instantly feels uneasy.

We spend the rest of the afternoon at the orphanage and then Almaz invites us back to her private quarters for coffee and cake. Catering to our Western tastes, she has poured me coffee with milk that is clearly suffering from the heat. I try some incredibly spicy marmalade and wash it down quickly with the coffee. Too late. I realise both Almaz and Mike are drinking black coffee. My stomach immediately lurches and beads of sweat line my upper lip.

DAY FOUR

Oh, I feel sick. I'm so sick. I just want to die. Where's the toilet?

Mike is bouncy and cheerful. I hate him. Today we have to fly up to Gondar to see how the Red Cross is helping with water projects. The toilet in the airport is disgusting and there is no toilet paper. I don't care that we have to fly because I feel like I'm going to die anyway.

I hate flying. That's one of the main reasons I have never managed to get outside Europe until now. Take-offs are worst, and I find myself digging my nails into the arm of the passenger next to me. It is a good way to meet people. We fly over the Gondar region and it is beautiful. Lush and green and nothing like the image I had of Ethiopia. I don't care how beautiful it is. The sickness comes in waves. From now on, I am only eating what Mike eats.

At Bahir-Dar, we are met by the local Red Cross driver and we persuade him to take us to the Tississat Falls on the Blue Nile. As we approach the Falls the air becomes moist. We turn a corner and are hit by a thunderous wall of noise from an enormous waterfall that has its own permanent rainbow. It is breathtaking.

Back in the Land-Rover, the sickness hits me again. I have been dreaming of seeing this beautiful scenery, but, as I drive through it, I find the only way I can travel without vomiting is lying down on the back seat, staring at the car roof. For four hours we bounce over dirt roads towards the historic town of Gondar, where we are met by the local Red Cross representative, Mac, who tells us off for being so late. I drown myself in mosquito repellent and go to bed sick and hungry.

DAY FIVE

Today I am feeling much better. I see that Mike is eating the breakfast of porridge and mango juice, so I decide to try it too.

Mac takes us out to a sanitation project at Kosseya, where the Red Cross has helped local people tap a freshwater spring to provide a disease-free clean water supply. One tap provides water for 1,500 people and there is a gatekeeper who supervises the women, many heavily pregnant, as they come to collect giant container loads. Before the spring was tapped, people were washing their clothes in the water that they also drank from. Many were dying from disease. At Amba Giorgis, part of the Red Cross pounds 250,000 sanitation project funding has provided a British hand-pump to supply the school with water. Three local people are being taken into Gondar for a three-day course on how to maintain the pump, so that when it breaks down the water supply does not dry up.

Ethiopia is beautiful. We drive back from the school through a green and verdant valley that stretches as far as the eye can see. At one stage we stop the Land-Rover and a baboon calmly sits and watches us until we leave again.

Back at the hotel in Gondar, I am famished. I order tomato soup because I feel it is a safe option. But as I lift the first spoonful to my mouth I see a baby cockroach looking back at me. I once lived in a house that had an infestation of cockroaches, so I know what they look like. I call the waiter over. He takes the cockroach between his finger and thumb, squashes it and then looks me straight in the eye. "Spinach," he says. I am so hungry I finish the soup anyway and then get plastered on very expensive gin-and-tonics.

DAY SIX

The school in Azezo we visit today would have been the alternative accommodation if the hotel had been full. It has just got over a nasty outbreak of the jigger flea. Let me explain just what a horrid little creature the jigger flea is. It digs into the soft part of your skin, often the feet, and lays its eggs. If you fail to get the eggs out before they hatch and burst out of your skin on their own, you can get a nasty infection which can be fatal. Most of the children in the school have scars from the jigger flea on their feet. But now the Red Cross has paid for the floors of the school to be concreted and the jigger flea really does not like concrete floors. That is practical aid.

In the classroom, the children are being taught about over-population as the teacher tries to educate the next generation against producing the giant families that are crippling the country.

When we leave, I find myself scratching and itching all the way to the next tour highlight - the VIP latrines at the Ibex elementary school in Debarak. VIP stands for ventilation improved pit latrines, but when I go in I discover that the ventilation has not been improved that much.

From there, it is a mad dash to the local airport. When we arrive, we find one tin hut and a six-seater plane sitting on a dirt runway. This is not going to be a pleasant flight. And there is no bar. Take-offs are still the worst. I cling on to Mike until the breathtaking view over Lake Tana makes me forget my own terror and reminds me of the beauty of Ethiopia.

Back in Addis Ababa we have time for a quick wash and brush-up before visiting Castelli's Italian restaurant. It is an amazing contrast. From the potholed, people-lined streets of Addis Ababa you pass through the door and into a restaurant that would sit happily in Rome. Outside children are living on rubbish tips and foraging for food - yet here in the foyer of a restaurant is a freezer cabinet laden with lobsters, crabs and prawns. However, my stomach overrules my conscience and I enjoy the first decent meal I have had since I arrived in Ethiopia. It proves a fine preparation for my humiliating attempts at traditional Ethiopian dancing, which seems to involve shaking your shoulders around a lot. When I try, other people's shoulders seem to start shaking as well, but I suspect that is from laughter.

DAY SEVEN

I can't believe it. Despite all those flights, I am still terrified of taking off in this huge jet. As we roar down the runway to return to Britain and worries about acting jobs and career prospects, I know Ethiopia has changed me.

We are so lucky to live where we do. Turn on the tap and there is water. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries on earth, yet its proud and beautiful people are battling to make life better. The Red Cross is helping them to help themselves. I hope I remember that the next time I start worrying in my warm and comfy London house. If you have lost track of a family member, the Red Cross Message and Tracing service can help. Ring 0171 235 5454.

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10 Things you never knew about Helen Baxendale

Helen Baxendale sent temperatures soaring as sexy Doctor Claire Maitland in the hugely popular drama series Cardiac Arrest. Now Helen, 28, is back on the box in the comedy-romance Cold Feet (ITV, Sunday, 9.55pm) - and there's more naughtiness going on. In one scene her sweetheart strips in the street to serenade her. But it's usually Helen who bares her assets - as we reveal here in 10 things you didn't know about the stunning actress:

1. She wanted to become a ballet dancer but couldn't stand the discipline. "I didn't like the way everybody had to hold their head at the same angle."

2. Raised in Lichfield, Staffs Helen first landed a job at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow where she met actor- boyfriend David Elliot. They now share a flat in London.

3. She has filmed several raunchy love scenes, although the most embarrassing was in Cardiac Arrest when she romped with former Neighbours star Peter O'Brien. She says: "We had eight cameramen standing around eating bacon sandwiches while I got my kit off."

4. Helen will shock viewers again this year when she peels off for a lesbian romp in a Channel 4 drama about gay military women called The Investigator.

5. Her postbag is full of letters from amorous male fans but she says: "I can't imagine being a sex symbol. I'm such an old scrubber. But I wish I was like Claire in Cardiac Arrest. She is able and intelligent and knows exactly what she wants."

6. Despite her huge acting success, Helen feels she would consider another career - perhaps in the medical profession.

7. She usually lands roles as tough, go-getting ambitious women and says she knows why: "I suit high passions and I can play women who have undercurrents going on.''

8. On screen she appears glamorous but away from it Helen prefers to hide her looks behind baggy jumpers, tracksuits and huge overcoats.

9. The actress is soccer-mad and says she once had a crush on football boss Kenny Dalglish. "I loved his haircut. I just used to swoon over him when I was back at school and I still quite like him."

10. Helen, who has earned £500,000 in the past few years from top TV roles, will get her big movie break later this year with Dudley Moore when she stars in Respect - the story of a streetfighter. It's another red-hot role. She says: "I play a sexy, blonde East End barmaid."

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Helen's ward weary

CARDIAC Arrest star Helen Baxendale has revealed how TV medical dramas make her sick. Helen, who plays Dr Claire Maitland in the hit BBC series, admits: "I don't like watching medical shows because I think they're too morbid. "I remember my mum watching Angels when I was little and thinking, `Why on earth is she watching something with a lot of sick people in it?' "We seem to have a morbid fascination with illness. But it isn't one I share."

The controversial show, which has had MPs in uproar over its storylines about NHS cash shortages, has had its new run extended to 13 episodes. It has proved a huge hit with viewers, tackling everything from Aids to donor transplants. It co-stars Aussie heart-throb and former Neighbours surfer Peter O'Brien. He plays wacky Dr Cyril "Scissors" Smedley - often seen roller-blading through the wards.

The series will reach its climax when a psychiatric patient, masquerading as a doctor, kills patients with insulin injections. The storyline echoes the real-life horror of nurse Beverley Allitt who was given 13 life sentences at Nottingham Crown Court for killing three babies and an 11-year-old boy in hospital with injections.

In Cardiac Arrest the plot leaves a question mark over the future of popular doctor Andrew Collin - actor Andrew Lancel - when he falls victim to the madman. Andrew says: "This series works up to a really dramatic ending. Whether there will be another series, I don't know."

For newcomer Caroline Trowbridge, landing the role of Dr Liz Reid forced her to end her 20-a-day smoking habit. Caroline, 25, confesses: "I had such a guilty conscience because I was having coughing fits from smoking so much. "I'm pretty health conscious as far as eating and exercise is concerned and it seemed ridiculous to be in the middle of doing a medical series and still smoking. So I kicked it into touch."

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