Ann Morrison

  This article is from an Out-of-Canon perspective  Ann Morrison (born 19 December, 1960 in Southampton, England) played Vanessa Sharpe from 1980-1983, beginning with Bricks and ending with Outbreak.

Before Station Zero
Ann was born in Southampton in 1960 to accountant Ronald Morrison and housewife Louise Morrison (neé Levine.)

The Morrison family was "painfully conventional," according to her own recollections. "Almost beige, we were," she said in one early interview.

An outgoing and energetic child, Morrison gravitated toward performing. An aunt, Victorine Levine, saw the girl's potential and tried to convince Ann's parents to allow the child a creative outlet. After some initial reluctance, Ronald and Louise enrolled their five-year-old daughter in dancing classes.

In 1967, theatrical agent Rex Grainger spotted Morrison in a dance recital and was immediately drawn to the girl's spirit. With Grainger representing her, she was cast in a West End production of The Last Lonely Boy. This was followed by roles on television, mainly commercials at first, until 1970 when she appeared in the Q6 mini-series The Squire of Oberlin Chase opposite Fred Smythe-Crowley and Ingrid Spenser. The programme did very well in the ratings, and Morrison gained enough attention to be cast the following year in the short-lived Q6 dramedy Pensley Hall Girls. After the show was cancelled, she moved on to roles in Eustache Square, Our Madcap Youth, and countless other one-off television projects.

By 1978 Morrison was appearing on the West End in a production of The Tempest. Reportedly, Joan Cranleigh saw the show one evening and mentioned in passing to Station Zero producer Paul Kerridge "that girl might be someone to get on the show one day.  She could act rings around any of us." Kerridge apparently remembered the comment, because when casting was underway for a new set of actors for Station Zero in 1979, he went out of his way to get in touch with Morrison's agent to offer the girl the role of Vanessa Sharpe.

On Station Zero
Morrison made her first appearance in the role of Vanessa Sharpe in the episode Bricks, which aired x April 1980 and established the major characters and themes of the Fifth Commander era. She appeared in every episode of the show up until the character's departure in the 1983 story Outbreak. She would later reprise the role in several Talking Brain audio dramas as well as in the Zeropoint story Strange Matters.

While Morrison had worked endlessly in television over the years, she had rarely seen any, and had never seen Station Zero at all. "I just never have time for telly; I'm much too busy working," she said in one 1980 interview. She did begin to watch the show once her episodes were airing, and apparently enjoyed it very much.

The character of Vanessa Sharpe was unpopular at first due to a combination of poor writing and a general consensus that the "family" angle had been overworked on the show in the most recent seasons. There was an effort to write the character out in the 1980 episode Prisoners. Simon Carpenter, who played Morrison's onscreen brother Commander Addison Sharpe, advocated for the young actress to be given further chances to "overcome this crummy material you're giving her." The powers that be, not wanting a repeat of the Wilkins-Masters dispute during the early years of the show, relented and kept Morrison on. The writers also began to write the character less as a helpless damsel and more as the brilliant scientist she had been intended as.

Scandal of 1982-83
By the start of filming for the 1981 season, Morrison had begun a sexual relationship with co-star Ruth Jones which, while concealed from the public, quickly became something of an open secret on the set. Before broadcast of the 1982 season began, rumours leaked of an on-set romance.

Producer Paul Kerridge is believed to have been the originator of the initial rumours. He had never been one to shy away from using his actor's personal lives for the show's gain; he admitted in 1980 to have leaked the news of Ingrid Spenser's pregnancy to the press before broadcast of Spenser's final episode. How aware he was of the on-set situation is unclear.

While the initial rumours were dismissed as a ploy for publicity, they had their desired effect, producing a flurry of gossip around who the possible couple was and a brief spike in viewing numbers at the start of the season.

When filming resumed for the 1983 season, additional rumours surfaced, including specific incidents, and Jones and Morrison's names began to be circulated. Morrison, who was at that time in a very public relationship with family friend Thomas Broadly, and Jones, who was single, both avoided commenting on rumours as much as possible.

Morrison became pregnant in September of 1982, and many around the production of Station Zero hoped that this would help to kill any implication that she was involved in the rumoured on-set romance. Still the rumours remained robust for some time. While Kerridge may have used the rumours to drum up public interest in Morrison's departure story, by this point the story was mostly out of his control.

When Morrison's time filming Station Zero was at an end, she announced her intention to leave acting for a while to concentrate on her family. While the rumours continued to swirl, the media seemed inclined at that point to leave Morrison out of things. Morrison married Thomas Broadly in November, 1982, then embarked on a honeymoon to a Station Zero fan convention in America (convention attendance having been part of the agreement with producers in exchange for Morrison being quickly and quietly written out of the show.)

Media scrutiny of Morrison intensified again in February, 1983 when she broke down after being publicly questioned by a reporter about Ruth Jones's injury during filming of the special fifteenth anniversary of Station Zero.

A month later, the scandal broke completely with the revelation of the so-called "chair incident." While Broadly had remained steadfastly loyal to Morrison throughout the entirety of the difficulties, the marriage dissolved shortly after this event, not because of the public revelation, but because of the private revelation that her affair with Ruth Jones was still ongoing.

For a number of weeks after Broadly's departure, Morrison sank into a deep depression. Friends and former co-stars rallied around her, though Jones kept her distance for over a month. Finally, at the urging of mutual friends, the women were reunited.

After Station Zero
In spite of horrific treatment by hospital staff, Morrison safely gave birth to a healthy daughter, Louise, in June of 1983. The divorce from Broadly was finalized a month later, and Jones officially moved in shortly thereafter. Morrison spent the next few years being "basically a housewife." The household was supported through a combination of an inheritance she had received at age 18 and whatever income Jones could manage through occasional acting work.

By 1989, with her daughter in school and her relationship with her ex-husband on the mend, Morrison felt a desire to return to acting. She found occasional work in repertory theatre and panto productions, as well as making appearances related to her years on Station Zero. By 1991, however, she apparently retired from performing for good after giving birth to a son, David.

When Talking Brain Studios began their range of Station Zero audio dramas, Morrison was initially reluctant to participate, feeling that she could no longer play, even in a non-visual medium, the young Vanessa. It was Simon Carpenter who finally convinced her to give the audio work a try.

In 2004, Morrison joined many of her fellow Station Zero alumni in consulting and offering commentary on the docudrama We Who Serve, which covered the history of the programme.

2010 brought Morrison her real return to the public acting sphere with her reprisal of her role as Vanessa on the Zeropoint episode Strange Matters.

Following the passage of marriage equality in England and Wales, Morrison and Jones married in April 2014 in a small civil ceremony.