Actor and comedian Diane Morgan has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in her home town of Bolton. And the Cunk and Motherland star had the audience in stitches as she delivered a heart-warming and hilarious graduation speech.
Morgan, who was raised in Farnworth, also took the opportunity to have a little dig at Rishi Sunak’s plans to make everyone study maths until they’re 18, revealing she got a G in the subject, before adding: “Everyone told me I wouldn’t be able to make it as an actress.
“That it was an impossible dream. That you need maths! You don’t need maths. You don’t need maths for anything – take that Rishi Sunak.”
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The Bafta-nominated actor, 47, also discussed some of the jobs she’d had, including working in a chippy and ‘packing worming tablets’, as she tried to break into acting. And she revealed she’d been sacked from the tea rooms at the Last Drop Village hotel in Bolton ‘for not knowing what a cream tea is’.
She said: “I should not be here today – I shouldn’t. There’s been a dreadful mistake.
“Thirty years ago, just outside this building, I bumped into Maxine Peake, who’s also a Boltonian. We’d met two weeks earlier when we were both auditioning to get into Manchester Polytechnic, for the acting course.
“Neither of us got in. It took us three long years to get into drama school and during that time I had various jobs – packing worming tablets, selling fish and chips. I was also an Avon lady. Most of these jobs I was sacked from.
“I got fired from the Last Drop Village tea rooms in Bolton for not knowing what a cream tea is. I thought it was tea with cream in it.
“But now I have an honorary doctorate. Unbelievable. Actually it’s Maxine Peake’s birthday today and I rang her up and said ‘Sorry I can’t be with you today Maxine, I’m picking up an honorary doctorate’.
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“I’m here to show you that anything is possible. If you’ve got passion and you work hard you can do absolutely anything.
“This is such an honour and I’m so proud. Thank you so much.”
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