It doesn't seem all that long ago when sections of our esteemed national press reported the fact that Didier Baptiste, who was being linked to Liverpool, had been snapped up by an unnamed bidder. Not an unknown happening in the cut-throat world of football, but this story had a difference - neither the footballer mentioned nor the club who snatched his signature actually existed! Dream Team, Sky One's award-winning sport-soap, gained unprecedented publicity, and Fleet Street, or what remains of it, was laughed at... However, back to the world of fiction. Didier, when he arrived at Harchester to help them out the doldrums, brought along his wife - the stunning, super bitchy Victoria Baptiste, played by the acting newcomer Sarah Matravers.
"Dream Team was my debut into acting," stated Sarah. "Before that I'd done a lot of presenting work. I did 'You Bet' with Darren Day, 'Mad about Pets' with John Noakes, and various Travel Shows for Sky, a chat show for Bravo, all sorts of things. So the progression to acting was just the next natural step. No, I was very lucky really," she admits. "The agent that I had at the time was approached by Hewland International (the shows producers) to look for people to audition for them. I thought I'd give it a go, and obviously I did the right stuff. I've done a couple of courses at the Acting Centre, but I haven't had any proper training or anything like that."
So being a manipulative, devious, underhand bitch comes naturally to a woman then? "Victoria is a really nasty piece of work," laughs Sarah. "I like to think that she's nothing like me, in reality. Although there's been a couple of times I've had a heated discussion with my fiancé and he has said: 'god your turning into your character more and more everyday'. I think it's easy to slip into it. She comes out with all these one-liners which sometimes you may 'think' to say to people but you would never dream of saying. Victoria just comes out with them, which is great 'cos it's a chance to get out all my aggression when I get to work."
Sarah throws herself into her role alongside Alison King's equally 'evil' Lynda Block, who originally auditioned as the part of a Canteen Assistant, and together they provide the most diabolic double act since Alexis first crossed-swords with Krystle in Dynasty.
Characters aside, Dream Team shouldn't have been as successful as it is, surely. Merging soaps which are a predominantly a female viewing habit, with the masculine world of football was a brave move that should have fallen mid-way between two diametrically opposite poles, and hence failed. It hasn't... "Football in itself is a huge interest to a huge audience," explains Sarah. "So I think a lot of people would just switch on out of interest and curiosity, but then I think get hooked on the stories and characters. Although it is trivialising football in a way, I think it's just an exaggerated way of telling stories that do happen a lot in reality anyway. Just as an example, when I first told people I was going to be on the show I asked them to watch me. Next thing I know they are avid viewers and it's nothing to do with me anymore, they are absolutely hooked on the storylines."
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