Video: We reveal the face behind viral You Tube sensation 'Doreen's Story'

Feb 5 2012 by Anuji Varma, Sunday Mercury

WITH her thick Black Country accent and cheap jewellery “Lazy Cow” Doreen has become an overnight YouTube sensation.

Her four-minute mockumentary, simply titled Doreen’s Story, pokes fun at Britain’s benefits cheats, and has had more than 120,000 hits since being posted on the website two weeks ago.

Doreen is on every benefit going but complains she gets tired opening the envelopes and taking the cheques out. Her handouts pay for her car and Sky TV, and she’s going to Barbados to give the kids a break.

But today the Sunday Mercury can reveal who Doreen REALLY is.

She’s theatre company owner Gill Jordan from Walsall, West Midlands.

The full-time actress, 43, poses as the hard-up mum, who is on cocaine and heroin to treat a medical condition called Lazy Cow.

Doreen has two children named Trojan and Tangerine and can’t find a job because she has trouble getting off her backside.

But the only thing the pair have in common is their Yam-Yam accent.

And Gill reveals she was advised to get rid of it during her training at Edgbaston Drama School nearly 20 years ago.

“I was told to go away and think carefully about my accent,” she explained.

“I went away, I thought about it and told them I wouldn’t get rid of it. I’m glad I didn’t. It would have been stripping me of my roots and my personality.

“I don’t think there are enough people on television with a Midlands accent. I’m a great believer in giving it exposure.

“Some of the people who’ve seen the video say they don’t understand the accent. That’s interesting.”