She has been making personal appearances all over Britain during her stay and admits she is surprised at the reception that's greeted her in small towns and big cities alike.
Val Lehman, alias Bea Smith, is in town, and everyone wants to know what it's like being TV's most famous prisoner!
Val Lehman, the domineering yet kind-hearted Bea Smith in the unlikeliest Australian soap opera success, Prisoner: Cell Block H, has no time for critics who have mercilessly written off the drama set in a women's prison.
"Most critics come from different social backgrounds to people who watch Prisoner," she says, refusing to defend the series against its critics.
Instead, she points to the fact
that, at its height, Prisoner had 39 million viewers in the United States,
and was shown in 19 different countries.
She has been making personal appearances
all over Britain during her stay and admits she is surprised at the reception
that's greeted her in small towns and big cities alike.
She's been mobbed in bingo halls and social clubs and has even brought traffic to a standstill! The scenes are almost reminiscent of the Beatles, and have been labelled "Beamania" by the Prisoner Fan Club.
"It's extraordinary that it's six years since I stopped working on the show," Val says.
"Prisoner finished in 1986 and some of the actresses are now working in other series.
"Because of that, people in Britain keep seeing the same actresses and think all the Australian soaps were made at the same time."
Prisoner was the brainchild of Reg Watson, producer of that well-loved British soap Crossroads.
The series gave Val and many other stage actresses their big break.
Originally, when she was 19, Val married an army officer, and they went on to have three children in quick succession.
But, sadly, the marriage was destined for failure.
It was then that she started taking up theatrical engagements, although she put restrictions on herself because she didn't want to leave her children.
"I'd done a small amount of screen work when my agent rang to tell me about a new television series," she explains.
"She said I'd be marvellous for the role of the Gestapo-type prison officer, Vera. I went to audition and the casting director said that wasn't the part for me but I was to go back in the afternoon.
"I
got the part of Bea Smith on a twelve-week contract which was extended
even before it went on air.
"The series picks up with Bea about to get parole after being in Wentworth Detention Centre for ten years. She'd murdered her husband's mistress. She was out on parole and shot her husband in episode two!"
Val explains the character of the woman she portrays. "She's a killer, not a criminal. She's a very ordinary human being.
"In Wentworth she saw how the oppressed were put upon by the heavies, so she decided to become top dog.
"Queen Bea is capable of murder, which is part of her power. She knows she can do it again and so does everyone else.
"She's a big fish in a very small pond. It's fun never being wrong - that was the one part of it I really enjoyed!"
The series was an instant hit with the Australian public, although prison officers hated it. It was banned in prisons in Brisbane and Victoria because the inmates tended to imitate the antics of the Wentworth women!
But how close is Bea Smith to Val Lehman?
"No matter how much you work on characterization, there's still something of you in it somewhere. It's your observations of how that person thinks.
"I almost always play strong roles because people can't see me being vulnerable - although Bea was very vulnerable."
Val left Prisoner on Friday, May 13, 1983.
"The storylines were getting the same all the time and I felt I'd taken the character as far as I could. I wouldn't consider playing her again.
"That's why I turned down the London stage play version of Prisoner."
Why has Prisoner become so successful here, though?
"One of the appealing things about the show is the very high energy level," Bea [sic!] told me. "Unlike American soap operas, for instance, a lot happens quickly.
"Miss three episodes and you find it very difficult to catch up.
"It also has a social impact. I'm proud of the stand my character took on drug abuse."
"I had a number of letters from young kids who were trying to give up hard drugs. If it helped one kid, it was worthwhile."
Despite the show's age, it has taken off to such an extent that it attracts millions of British viewers, even though it's screened late at night. Some TV companies have only just picked it up, and some viewers are nearly two years behind other parts of the country.
Fans, men as well as women, belong to the Prisoner: Cell Block H fan club in their thousands, which prompted organizers Roz Vecsey and Tracey Elliott to fly Val to Britain.
"If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here," Val says, who is hoping that at the end of her personal appearances, she will be offered work in this country.
She says she would consider a cameo role in an English soap such as Coronation Street or Eastenders. But when it comes to watching television, Val has a confession to make.
"I don't like soaps. They're not my cup of tea at all."
"I enjoy documentaries and foreign films. We have a marvellous foreign film network at home."
Val has recently been joined in this country by her second husband Charles Collins, an Australian radio journalist who, at 29, is 17 years her junior.
They met when he took her a play after hearing she was keen to try her hand at directing. She told him the first act needed throwing out altogether and 38 pages ought to be rewritten.
Two days later he had done it. However, Val didn't remember he had once had a small part in Prisoner!
Just how popular Prisoner has become was illustrated when Val put on a one-woman show at the Derby Playhouse, attended by addicts from all over the country. They applauded enthusiastically merely at the names of some of the Prisoner stars!
Val admits there are times when she gets bored with the whole Prisoner circus. But at the moment there are so many fans who are hungry for as much information as possible about the series that their devotion and interest keep her going.
As for the critics, Val puts them in their place.
"Every production company in the world making soap operas is in the business to entertain. If people are watching and being entertained, the job is being done."
[Article written by Steve Orme and
taken from My Weekly magazine - 1989]