Vera star Brenda Blethyn feared husband 'only had eyes for the barmaid'

express.co.uk:

Brenda Blethyn, who plays the lead character in TV crime series Vera, quickly became besotted with husband Michael Mayhew but initially feared he didn't feel the same.

Not only did it take her "unromantic" beau 35 years to propose to her, but she had originally thought he was trying to chat up a barmaid instead of her.Revealing the instant attraction she felt, the 75-year-old actress reminisced: "I was besotted with him when we first met at the National Theatre."I was at the bar and I heard him say, ‘Are you hungry?’, but he wasn’t looking at me but the barmaid."The disappointed actress looked away, believing she'd missed her chance with Michael.However, as she later recalled to The Daily Mail: "He said, ‘Well, are you?’, and I realised he was talking to me after all."Despite her passion for her husband, she has since admitted that he is not the most romantic of partners.In fact, she revealed that the pair only decided to tie the knot after 35 years because it seemed "the sensible thing to do" in case one of them "popped our clogs".It took 35 years for Michael to finally pop the question - and when he did, it wasn't in person, but over Skype.The pair were in separate countries at the time, and when she asked him to get down on one knee, as is customary, he "disappeared" from the screen altogether.In spite of their marriage not seeming very romantic, and Brenda admitting they have very little "in common", the actress adores him.Sadly, she had to be apart from her other half during lockdown when work commitments forced her to form a bubble with her co-star Kenny Doughty instead of her husband.She and Kenny, who plays the role of Vera's sidekick DS Aiden Healy, lived in apartments next door to one another as they prepared.