doppleganger

"You know who you look like, don't cha?"

"No, why don't you tell me" I reply. I'm sitting directly behind him as my cab driver cranes round to look at me again. I know what he's going to say but am happy to go through the charade again. It's always cab drivers.

"The think is, right, you look just like her when she was young, right? Just like her! You know who I mean?"

Yes, I think do. "No, why don't you tell me."

"You don't arf look like a young Maureen Lipman, that's who! Maureen Lipman! But when she was young like."

"Really?" I say. It's the age specific-ness that always gets to me.

I am often compared to other people. I think I have one of those faces. In the late Eighties, it was Jennifer 'Dirty Dancing 'Grey. Mostly, I get compared to Sarah Jessica Parker - although I take that more as a compliment than fact. But it's the cab drivers who always go for Maureen. I once looked up pictures of her on the internet. Pictures of when she was young - I couldn't quite see the resemblance.

Then one day, I met Maureen Lipman herself. She was playing the lead in a West End show called Glorious. She was terrific. I went backstage, with a mutual friend, to congratulate her. We wove our way through an appreciative crowd of well-wishers to a busy dressing room. Barely through the door, she took one look at me and exclaimed:

"Ohmigod! You look like me when I was young!"

So, it's not just cab drivers then.