SUNDAY 29 MAY 2005 saw the biggest milestone in On The Inside's 8 year history - An Evening With... Maggie Kirkpatrick. Maggie, of course, played the sadistic prison officer Joan "The Freak" Ferguson in Prisoner for around 400 episodes of the series and since then has became a firm favourite with fans. Maggie made a last minute visit to the UK to surprise her old pal Paul O'Grady (Lily Savage) during the last episode of his current chat show, shown on ITV1 on weekday evenings. When we realised that Maggie was going to be in this country we couldn't let it go by without trying to squeeze in a personal appearance - her last time here was 8 years ago! When Maggie agreed to take part in our 'Evening With...' event we knew that it would be popular so we spent the next few weeks organising and promoting things as quickly as possible. We'd already tested the 'Evening With...' formula with other Prisoner star Maggie Millar (Marie Winter in Prisoner) earlier in the year so knew that it would be perfect for Maggie Kirkpatrick. We chose the Fab Cafe in the heart of Manchester as our venue. A cult tv and film bar, it was perfect for our 2 hour event and we'll continue to use it for all future events that are organised. There was a small queue forming outside of the door well before any of us got there - this steadily grew longer as it got to 5pm... We knew it was going to be a memorable night! Maggie's Showreel To start off the evening we thought it would be a good idea for everyone to watch a short film containing some of Maggie's recorded work. This included Richmond Hill, Home and Away, All Saints, her One Woman Show and of course Prisoner. Some of the audience might have heard Maggie groaning in the background during some of the clips - this was like going through an old photograph album for her! The showreel lasted for around 20 minutes and the audience enjoyed it immensely - cheering when Prisoner came on! A big surprise for everyone, including us, was being treated to a couple of 'out-takes' from Prisoner which we'd never seen before. We believe there may be more but for now they're kept under lock and key (don't even ask us to find them!). Questions and Answers The moment everyone was waiting for had finally arrived - Maggie was introduced on stage and she received a very warm welcome from the audience. Maggie explained that it felt very strange for her to watch all of her previous work like that, but it brought back a lot of memories for her. The audience were just itching to ask her some questions so they all soon began to come flooding in! When asked about which role Maggie had enjoyed playing the most, she told us that she's most proud of her work in The Shoe Horn Sonata which she has toured with no less than 4 times! The play is based on a true story about the ideals of friendship and survival throughout World War II. Maggie received some amazing reviews - with many critics claiming this as the best role in her career. When talking about the 'fight' scenes in Prisoner, Maggie explained that they were all choreographed in such a way that, obviously, nobody would get hurt. Maggie particularly enjoyed the fight scenes and tried to make them as realistic as possible. She said that she expected her character Joan Ferguson would fight 'like a man' and most of the inmates would too - her fight scenes with Val Lehman (Bea Smith) demonstrated what she meant - she wanted them to turn out the way that they did. Maggie also enjoyed her fight scenes with Glenda Linscott (Rita Connors) - although Rita's arms and legs seemed to go everywhere! Maggie had no idea that Prisoner would receive such a 'cult' following in the years to come. For her it was just another job, certainly not her personal favourite in her career. While Prisoner was popular in Australia, it was incredibly popular over in the UK. Maggie reckons that fans of Prisoner are mad to still be so crazy about the show after so long - but she loves the reception she gets from her British fans and is still genuinely touched by the kindness and love they show for her. One of the questions from the audience was to find out how much input Maggie had in her role of Joan Ferguson - was she able to suggest storylines about the way that her character would progress? Maggie said she wanted to have as much input as she could, she didn't want Joan to be unrealistic and she felt that she had to put her foot down when the writers suggested Joan take up ballroom dancing! We all agreed that this was a silly idea. Maggie managed to convince the writers to give Joan the hobbie of golf as her interest outside of the prison. Maggie thought that she'd be able to use some brand new golf clubs for this (she might have sneaked them out of the studios to use at home!), but to her disappointment a set of old and battered ones were given to her! A brave Prisoner fan brought their own set of black leather gloves for Maggie to try on - Maggie found this very funny and was more than willing to re-create the old 'black glove routine' which appeared countless times during Prisoner. Everyone loved it and cheered when we saw a glimpse of Joan Ferguson again! Maggie did confirm however, that she doesn't think she'll ever want to play Joan again, much to the disappointment of some fans who had started chanting "Ferguson! Ferguson!". One of the fans showed Maggie a photograph of an interestingly named Solicitor's firm that they had noticed during their travel to the venue. It was called none other than Joan Ferguson Solicitors - see the picture below! Maggie found this rather amusing! Maggie was asked whether she had seen Bad Girls and what she thought of it. Maggie had only seen some brief clips of the series and she thought it was funny! The audience, although heavily biased, all agreed that Prisoner was the best and not even Bad Girls could take away it's crown! Maggie said that Home and Away was again 'just another job' for her. It's still quite difficult to get onto Australian television if you're over a certain age (something which Maggie Millar has also confirmed). These days Maggie prefers to work in theatre but believe it or not she's never done panto before! We asked her what her ideal role would be... apart from working behind the bar in the Rovers Return of Coronation Street Maggie said that she'd love to appear in a UK pantomime as the fairy godmother - but would more likely be cast as the evil witch! The quesion and answer session lasted a good 45 minutes, after which Maggie took a brief break. Photographs and Autographs We were meant to finish the evening at 7pm, but it was closer to 8pm by the time Maggie had finished signing autographs and posing for photographs with everyone who had turned up for the event. Maggie told us she was amazed that people had travelled so far to see her. She was truly overwhelmed by the whole evening. She received a number of gifts from people - she sends her thanks and best wishes to everyone that she met. There was also a small selection of original Prisoner uniforms on display - including Joan Ferguson's trousers! Gallery There were stacks of photographs taken on the evening. Here's a selection of some of them:                                     Footnote and Thanks The night was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who turned up on the evening. We know that you all had a great time - so did we! Maggie has been in touch with us since the event to thank everyone again: "I had a wonderful time and the kindness of the UK fans is something that always amazes me... quite one of the most enjoyable fan gatherings that I have done in the hundreds I must have taken part in over the years..." On a personal level, I'd like to thank everyone that made the evening possible. Barry - You're a star... this wouldn't have been possible without you. Rob and Maggie - what can I say? Thanks SO much for everything. To the staff at the Fab Cafe - You've got a great venue there, we'll be back!    (Scott - Webmaster) You may have noticed that the night was filmed by a number of audience members. We'd just like to point out that filming was only allowed for private, home viewing. Neither OTI, Maggie Kirkpatrick or the Fab Cafe have given permission for any films of the evening to be made available for commercial purposes without our permission. All of the above photographs are from personal collections - please don't reproduce them online. Competition for fans who couldn't attend on the night We know that a lot of you couldn't make it on the night to see Maggie. As a special gift from us to you we have a limited number of pictures of Maggie as Joan (see picture to the left) up for grabs. Some are signed by Maggie, some aren't but they're good quality images which would look great as part of anyone's Prisoner collection. If you would like to have the chance of winning a photograph, please send us an Email with your name and address listed. We will pick a selection at random at the end of June to receive one! This competition is only open to fans who were not able to attend on the evening. Winners will be selected at random on 30 June 2005 to win either a signed or unsigned photograph of Maggie as Joan Ferguson. Only one entry each please! Stay tuned to  On The Inside - The Official Prisoner Cell Block H Website  for more Evening With... events soon!

To go back to OTI please click here! MAGGIE KIRKPATRICK'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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