Stigma of divorce is a thing of the past, says Steadman: TV star's heartfelt lament that broken homes 'are now the norm' Actress suggested couples no longer put enough value on their marriage Hopes the younger generation will 'think again' before ending a marriage When she was at school, there was only one girl in her class whose parents were divorced Alison Steadman and her partner Michael Elwyn. She has lamented the number of divorces that take place Alision Steadman yesterday suggested couples no longer put enough value on their marriages. The TV actress said it had become the "norm" for children's parents to split up and divorce now has no stigma. Speaking at the launch of her new ITV drama Love and Marriage, in which she plays a retired woman who walks out on her uncommunicative husband, Miss Steadman said she hoped the younger generation would "think again" before ending their marriages. She recalled how when she was at school, there was only one girl in her class whose parents were divorced. But the 66-year-old star of Abigail's Party and Gavin & Stacey, who herself divorced film director Mike Leigh in 2001, said "sadly" it was now commonplace for parents to split up. She said it had become so easy to get divorced it was more or less a case of saying "That's it." Miss Steadman, who recently starred in Kay Mellor's BBC1 lottery drama The Syndicate, married Mike Leigh in 1973 and split up with him in 1995, when she left him for actor Michael Elwyn. She divorced Mr Leigh, with whom she has two sons, in 2001. In the ITV drama, which airs next month, she plays Pauline Paradise, who retires from her job as a lollipop lady not long before her father dies. She then walks out on her dour husband and the constant demands of her children. The drama also stars Celia Imrie, Larry Lamb and Duncan Preston. Speaking about how frequently marriages now break up, she said: "I can remember when I was at school there was one girl in my whole class, her parents were divorced and it was shocking, we as kids felt really sorry for her...her mother had married again and it felt really odd. I think now it seems to be the norm for kids that their parents don't stay together, sadly. The Gavin & Stacey star with her on screen husband played by Larry Lamb "But times change and hopefully, maybe my sons" generation, there will be a switch again, maybe they will think again. Because divorce is so easy now and it wasn't years ago and you had to go through all sorts of hoops. It was incredibly complicated, now it's just a question of saying "That's it." Perhaps we don't put the value on it that we did, I don't know. Miss Steadman also praised the fact that TV dramas were finally looking at the lives of older characters. She said: "Up until a few years ago it really felt as though everything on television or indeed films, it seemed like life stopped at 35 and no one carried on living until they were 70, 80, 90 or whatever. "So over the last couple of years it's so nice that people like Stewart [the writer Stewart Harcourt] have suddenly gone "Do you know, people do have an interesting life beyond 35 and it is important to chart that." The actress said that she laments the fact that there are so many broken homes nowadays Talking about her character's decision to walk out on her unhappy life, she said: "I think retiring and death do make us as human beings re-evaluate our lives. And when we do, sometimes we change. When asked if in imagined circumstances she could ever do what her character did in the drama, she said: "Sometimes life and marriages do just tick along for years and years and years and it takes something to make that person go "I want to change things." Also when you get to be a pensioner, as it were, you start to reflect on your life a lot more, I think. You suddenly look forward and think maybe I have only got 20 years at the most, 15 even, so suddenly you see the end in sight. "That makes them perhaps say "look I've got to do something, before it's too late" and so it does happen." She said she hoped the drama, rather than encouraging unhappily married women to leave their husbands, would rather serve as a "wake-up call" for couples to make more of an effort to "appreciate each other."