I Love A Wedding But Only If It's Not Mine;
TV singleton on marriage
Sunday Mail, 25 March 2005
By Steve Hendry
SCOTS star Sharon Small is still looking for on-screen romance as dowdy detective Barbara Havers. But The Inspector Lynley Mysteries actress last night revealed she is head over heels in love in real life. Sharon, 37, has been with her new man - an exhibition company product manager called Dan - for almost a year and the couple have moved in together. Although Sharon is very happy, she has no plans to marry just yet.
She said: 'My love life is going very well. I'm enjoying it immensely.
'He's not in the acting business at all which is different for me but very refreshing as well.
'I wasn't looking for somebody who wasn't an actor. I'd known him for quite a while, he asked me out, I said yes and it's been really nice ever since.
'It's way too early to think about wedding bells but I don't really know that I'm the marrying type.
'I think quite often marriage is something you aspire to when you are a little girl but it's not something that has ever really been on my agenda.
'I've nothing against it and I love watching people getting married because I think a public declaration of love is a very beautiful thing.
'But the whole stramash of weddings and all that sort of thing is not really my style.
'I can't picture myself walking up that aisle without bursting out giggling. Anyway, I get to dress up in my job.'
While Sharon is in love off screen, her Lynley Mysteries character Detective Sergeant Havers is still looking for love and joins a dating agency in the new series, which started on Thursday. But the path of true love does not run smoothly for the glum, working-class sidekick to posh police inspector Lynley, played by Nathaniel Parker. However, it does mean Sharon gets to smarten up and ditch copper Barbara's usual scruffy attire.
She said: 'It's not as if she's got a witch's nose and warts but she's not the type to wear sparkly dresses and high heels either.
'She does put on a bit of lipstick though, which is a start. She decides to find herself a life, join a dating agency and, in true Havers form, it goes wrong.
'It's a shame. I think she would be a great laugh. Let her out of her shell and she's going to be a dynamo. I'd love to see her enter karaoke competitions.
'But she has got a fan base. I get a lot of very nice letters from people who are interested in her because she's not the usual sharp suited, sexy cop.
'It's a bit sad - I come under a bit of the lonely old heart type.
'I get asked out quite a lot by older gentlemen. I can only imagine what it would be like if we had a Lynley convention - I'd be introducing my fans in their bath chairs.'
Sharon is also starring on stage in Sheffield in a blood-soaked version of King Lear, alongside Scots star Ian McDiarmid, who is better known as the evil Emperor in Star Wars. She has always enjoyed a busy career away from Lynley. In between the six-month long shoots, she has appeared in hit films About A Boy, with Hugh Grant, and Dear Frankie, with Gerard Butler and Emily Mortimer. Last year, she was in the West End adaptation of When Harry Met Sally, alongside Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Alyson Hannigan and former Beverly Hills 90210 hunk Luke Perry.
Sharon said: 'I'd love to do more films and get a leading role.
'But you can't dictate how your career is going to go. I could stop doing Lynley and hold out for film roles but it's a risk.
'There are only so many roles to go to go round while Hollywood tends to be for young, very beautiful people.'
Sharon - who was born in Glasgow but raised in Kinghorn, Fife, where she was Gala Queen - is happy to do more Lynley but she thought her time was up when she was shot at the end of the last series.
She said: 'You do think it's the last time every time you make one.
'Everybody works hard but six months of getting up at 5.30am, doing heavy duty days, getting home at 9pm and learning lines for the next day is a bit of slog.
'Sometimes you feel you've asked the same question a million times - 'do you know anyone who had a grudge against them? Did he have any enemies?'.
'Then it comes around again and you can't wait to get back to the character. And I love working with Nathaniel, it's like having a big brother.
'I would like to push Havers' development and it would be nice if she found someone. It would kill the show but I think Lynley really wants Havers.'
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