Monica Dolan, actor

0:00BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:50My cast away this week is the actor Monica Dolan, a BAFTA and Olivier Award winner who is equally at home playing a wrongfully convicted postmistress in Mr Bates vs the Post Office as she is navigating the court of Henry VIII in Wolf Hall. She's written and performed a critically acclaimed one-woman show at Edinburgh Festival and brought menacing gangland matriarch Anne Branson in Sherwood chillingly to life. She's especially good at characters whose apparently ordinary exteriors belie a deeper inner turmoil. She calls them her cardigan roles, women with cosy knitwear and sensible haircuts who, beneath the surface, are a seething mass of drama, intrigue, vulnerability and sometimes pure evil.

1:31She was born to Irish parents who'd come to Britain to pursue their work as scientists and grew up in Surrey, where she dreamed of becoming an actor, secretly withdrawing a university application to ensure she followed that path. She says, I think imagination is an actor's most useful tool and truth and authenticity are different things. Truth is more important. Monica Dolan, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you so much. What a wonderful introduction. That's so kind. Well, it's wonderful to have you here. We're talking not long after the BAFTAs, where you were nominated twice. Once for leading actress playing sub postmistress Jo Hamilton in Mr Bates versus the post office.

2:08And then again as supporting actress for your role as the evil Anne Branson in Sherwood. Now, it says a lot about you, Monica, that you were nominated for such different roles. How do you prepare for a pop when you're portraying someone who's a real person, like Joe Hamilton? How close do you want to get to the truth of who they are and to the person themselves? Every act is different, but I think that you slightly have to keep yourself in there. You have to kind of think, well, if I was this person, how would I behave? I was very lucky with Jo because she's definitely more approachable than most of the people that I've played or some of the people I've played.

2:45I met her and I think you'd be surprised how many things just at the beginning are really practical things like it went over 20 years. So it was OK, what color was your hair that year or what sort of things were you wearing or also obviously what was going on in your life? One of the things I did very early on, actually, which was really helpful, which I'll definitely do again, was to ask if it wasn't too intrusive. And I felt with her that I could to ask her to record her life story, just a little version, like 15 minute version, up to the point where the script begins, where it all starts. That was really useful because, you know, you get your makeup on and everything and unit base.

3:25then you have to travel to the location or wherever you're filming and you've always got a bit of time so I could listen to her voice and I'd have her voice in my head and also I'd have her background in my head. That was very useful indeed because you're kind of absorbing that person. What a brilliant idea. It resonated so strongly, Mr Bates. It had this huge impact on the national conversation. The viewing public was scandalised about what was happening to Postmasters, some of them due to the faulty Horizon IT accounting software, people wrongly accused of theft, some went to prison, people's marriages broke up, and it really reignited and focused attention on the scandal.

4:09What was that like for you, having been part of the show, to watch it connect with people in that way? I was immensely proud of people for being that collectively angry, I think. We get lots of anger popping up in sort of little spiteful ways, I guess, on social media. But it really, really felt like a collective anger that could focus in and do something. And you can't ask for more than that, really. I also think the timing, I've actually talked to the scheduling people since because I'm quite nosy about it. I think the timing was incredible because it came out on New Year's Day. People were a bit hungover, whatever.

4:48and thinking, what should we watch? You know, all this looks cosy post people kind of thing. The timing in that sense was really good, but also that there was probably going to be an election in May because if there was collective outrage about something, in a way the politicians, partly because of the timing, had to listen more. Also, if we'd come out in May, we would have been at the same time as Baby Reindeer, which wouldn't have been great. just as well you're out on New Year's Day. And obviously you're sharing your discs with us today. How important is music in your life? Well, we weren't really, really allowed a lot of music at home.

5:29Or if we did have music at home, my dad would say, close the two doors. He'd be in the living room watching the telly. And my sister, who's nine years older than me, would be generally doing her homework and listening to Diana Ross or Donna Summer or something like that. or I made her listen to My Fair Lady I think as well. Well let's get started, tell us about your first. My first disc is The Banana Splits which was a TV programme and it's a TV theme and the reason that I've got that is because I was a rhesus baby which means that my blood group was the opposite to my mum's blood group and because of my sister who I just mentioned who was nine years older than me who was also the same blood group as me, my mum's body started to create antibodies to attack the opposite blood group to her.

6:22This was 1969 and I had to be induced early. They took me home and I think about 13 days later, they took me to be checked up at the doctors and the doctor said that my red blood cell count was extremely low so I had to go back into hospital and I had to have a blood transfusion so I want to publicly thank the person who gave me the blood and the reason it's the banana splits is because once I was on solids she was trying to boost my iron levels my mum put lots of iron in my food to try and build up the red blood cells and it was so disgusting I used to spit it everywhere used to spit the food everywhere and the only way that she could get the food into my mouth was when the banana splits came on and and that song played and then I'd be absolutely riveted to the tv she could stuff it and she could stuff the food in and get the iron into me so in some ways I could possibly say that the banana split song saved my life

7:34Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

8:04From the banana splits. So, Monica Dolan, let's go back to the beginning. You were born in 1969 to Jim and Anne. They met while they were studying at the University College in Dublin. Your mum was studying biochemistry and botany. Would there have been many women on a course like that in those days? No, they wouldn't at all. I think that my mum and a few other women, notably several nuns, were on the front row and all the men had to stand up when they walked in and then once the women were seated they could all sit down so my dad probably got quite a good look at my mum I think they were both in the same chemistry class and there was a trip to Belgium so he decided I think that he was going to carry her bag he's no longer with us but he always maintained that the death of romance and the problem with relationships and starting relationships is roll along suitcases and roll along bags because if they weren't then you could be chivalrous and go and help someone with their bag.

9:08Not enough opportunities for gallantry. Exactly. Your parents left Ireland to come to the UK to forge their careers. They were both devout Catholics and religion was a big part of family life. How did they balance that faith with their work as scientists? I think that was really hard for them actually. My mum's pretty extraordinary so when she was young you weren't supposed to believe in Darwinism or anything like that and she just always did as a scientist and I was like well but you know fairly lately I sort of said but you weren't supposed to believe in all that and how did you and she went well I just didn't tell anyone you know.

9:44She just didn't mention it? No it was like oh yeah I knew that it was right but I think chemical engineering my sister became a chemical engineer for a while as well and it certainly was difficult for women that world at the time I don't know how much it's changed but at the time was very macho and that would have been difficult for my dad as well because he's quite you know sort of had poetry in his soul and he was quite um intense sort of person and yeah he's quite he's quite deep thinking and deep feeling sort of person you know quite um innocent in some ways so I think he could be quite shocked by things it's time for some music Monica Dolan your second disc today what are we going to hear and why we're going to hear that's entertainment by the jam I grew up in Woking and I should probably be choosing a town called Malice because that is about Woking but I'm choosing that's entertainment because I think it's sort of about what there was to do or what there wasn't to do in Woking.

10:49And so I was growing up there in the 80s and it was quite a spiky place to live, quite a caustic place to live. And I really felt the difference actually when I left there, yeah. Did you ever see the jam live? I mean, did you ever see them round the neighbourhood? I didn't. They were quite a bit older than me. And actually I met Paul Wellesince because he was performing at my drama school and it was towards when I was leaving so I went up and talked to him then. Did you have the walking chat? Yes, I did actually. I remember saying to him something about that his work was really passionate and that I really liked Shakespeare and Shakespeare's really passionate.

11:27I think I was saying, oh, you know, King Lear, I really liked that one and he said, all right, Shakespeare and shit, yeah? And I said, yes, yes, you'd love it, Paul.

11:41and a screaming siren You've magic drill and ripped up concrete A baby waiting straight up howling You screeching brakes and that flight blinking That's entertainment That's entertainment

12:03A smash of glass and a rumble boost An electric train and a ripped up bumble The Jam and That's Entertainment. So Monica Dolan, you were the youngest of four, so two older sisters and a brother. How did you get along as a foursome? Well, I was five years younger than my brother and he was the next one up and then my other sister was two years older than him and then my other sister was two years older than her. So I felt like I was playing catch-up a lot of the time. So you were very much the baby of the family. Yeah, and it was really hard to join in. because they'd be playing chess or I'd sort of want to learn how to play chess, but then they didn't really want to teach me.

12:47And in all honesty, I mean, anyone who's tried to teach me to play chess since will tell you that I get bored quite quickly. It sounds like a kind of very academic family through and through yours. How did you fit into that? Certainly Gabriel and Paul. Gabriel was seven years older than me and Paul was five years older. Yeah, they were very academic indeed. I mean, Gabriel ended up teaching at Imperial College. She's actually got a maths award named after her. Paul did engineering. And then Adele, she sort of did enough to make her life happy, I think, which is probably the cleverest thing to do, you know, in terms of being at school.

13:25And I know it shouldn't be a competition, but, you know, sibling rivalry is a thing. And I think I knew that there wasn't a way to win. What were your ta-da moments to get that kind of glow of parental attention? And well, sometimes it didn't always come out in a glow. But certainly I remember dressing up as Hong Kong Phooey at one time when I'd been told off and been sent upstairs. And I had a red dressing gown and I remember coming through the door doing karate chops. So he was a karate dog. Would we describe Hong Kong Phooey as? Yeah, I think I probably hadn't done the whole authenticity thing of making myself into a dog in my mind.

14:04But yeah, I came through the door with my karate chops and everything. And my dad didn't laugh, but everybody else laughed. And I thought, oh, this is obviously the way to do things. At what point then did you realise that you wanted to act yourself? Can you remember? Did it start at school or was it always there? It did start at school. I mean, I just got a feeling from it that I didn't get from anywhere else. And I think it was basically a feeling of being noticed or being seen, as people now say. I thought, oh, I want more of this. and then also my brother did some acting at school as well and I always wanted to be like him.

14:39I really, really looked up to him. And when you were a teenager, you joined a youth group called Act One in Guildford. What was it like? It wasn't like anything else I'd ever done. I don't remember this, but my mum says that I came home and said I've found my people, which sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? The great thing was that you could swear. Yeah, there's lots of improvisation. It was on a Thursday night and a Saturday morning. And you'd get into groups and you'd be given something to work on and you'd be given improvisations to do. And I actually remember being with a guy called Nigel who was in it and we couldn't think of anything to do.

15:20And we just said, let's just swear. So we kind of went on and just did a lot of swearing. I had really spiky, really short hair and DM. Everyone wore DMs. And everyone smoked. There was actually a girl who thought that you had to smoke in order to be in it. So you were kind of unleashing your inner punk a little bit. I think so. And also the structure that my parents had or tried to keep. I think it was a brilliant way of rebelling, actually. It was a very safe environment, apart from the smoking. It was a very safe environment to do that. And how did your parents react when you told them that this was something you wanted to pursue as a career?

15:58I think mainly they just thought we don't know anything about that we can't help you with that and there's definitely a reason why two out of three of my siblings went into chemical engineering it's because my dad was a chemical engineer and he'd come from Ireland and he knew that you could make a living in terms of what they could do anything that they could do or knew how to do they did it 100 % so tell me about secretly withdrawing your university application to make sure that drama school would be your next step that's a big a big thing to do especially in in a family where you know there's kind of this lineage this pretty academic path yes I remember I'd already done it and then I had the conversation with my mum of like well why do you want me to go to university so much and her saying well you know I had a really good time at university and all of that.

16:53I did want to be an actor and that was kind of that. But we went to a few universities and looked at them and it just didn't feel right. And I didn't, I just thought, I don't want to be here. This isn't where I want to be. So then I spotted in the pamphlet that there was a page at the back that had one of those little scissors and a dotted line. And you could fill that in and say that you with withdrawing for them all. And so I did it. Did you do it and you did it in secret? I did it in private, yes. That's an important distinction. And then I told them that that's what I'd done. The reason that I say that I did it in private is because it was my life and it's my life and that's what I wanted to do with it.

17:40Well, I mean, I withdrew and then I kind of tried to get into drama school for a couple of years. Well, let's find out what happened next in a minute. First, though, I'd love to hear your next disc, Monica. Number three, what's it going to be? My next disc is Nothing from a chorus line, which is sort of all about improvisation. And these directors are clever people. I remember being at a party and it was a director's party and he was choosing different things for people to sing. And he just said, right, Monica, you're up and gave me the mic and put this on and I could just sing it straight away.

18:16And I loved singing it. Every day for a week we would try to feel the motion, feel the motion down the hill. Every day for a week we would try to hear the wind rush, hear the wind rush, feel the chill. And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see what I had inside. Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul And I tried, I tried And everybody's going, shh, shh I feel the snow, I feel the cold, I feel the air Nothing, performed by Priscilla Lopez and a chorus line orchestra conducted by Don Pippin from the original Broadway cast recording. So, Monica, you'd set your sights on going to drama school.

19:11You did have a day job at this point. you were working at the Job Centre in Woking. What do you remember about that time? One of my really large regrets is that I did not keep a diary of when I worked at Woking Job Centre because I think it was to do with maybe how unemployment was at the time or something. This is late 80s? It was late 80s, yeah. It would have been sort of 87 to 89. And also there was a psychiatric hospital, I suppose you'd call it, in Woking, which was closed. during that time and we had really really a great variety of people let's say coming into the job centre and trying to get jobs and I was also working with a guy that had been in my year at school Jason he was he was the other one sat on the desk and the people that you would see you would see every day and I remember being with Jason there was one particular quite young guy came in and he came in every day and we were like oh my god I managed to get him a job I managed to get him a job and then a couple of days later he was in again one of the things I really remember is seeing somebody spiral down and it was really upsetting so alongside all this of course you still had hopes and dreams of your own and were focused on acting and you got your place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama tell me about your time there yeah did you enjoy it I have to say that was after a long time that I got that.

20:43So I'd been auditioning for two years that I was at the job centre. And it was the last place, I think, that I got a recall and I hadn't got in any of the other places. I really liked Guildhall. And what about for your parents? Did they come and see you in student productions? My parents came to see absolutely everything. And were really, really affected by actually and I remember like my first job was at Exeter at the Northcourt Theatre and they drove there then there was like a rumour that I had an audition for Pit Lockery and they had got their maps out and they were looking at how to get to Pit Lockery and I was like I haven't even gone for the audition yet you know.

21:24They were also supportive when you had to perform for a panel to get a discretionary grant. That's right whatever they saw that they could do they would do I auditioned at the Redgrave Theatre in Farnham and there was a certain number of grants for dance and drama and maybe music actually as well it's kind of upsetting because you've got your place at drama school like everyone that auditioned had got a place at a school that was really difficult to get into and then they had to try and get the money to go there so I auditioned for a panel and my parents drove there the day before so that I wouldn't be late they practiced the drive there to make sure that I wouldn't be late and then did the drive there the next day and did you get the grant I did get a grant yes I had to do a mime in the audition which I have to say that I've never done one since and I think theatre is better for it probably I was going to say, I've seen you do a lot, but not a mine.

22:27Well, you know, actually, maybe I should try that next. First, though, I think we'd better have some more music. Your fourth choice today, Monica, what's it going to be? Love and Affection by Joan Armatrading. There was a show that I was doing and for some reason, lots of the cast were camping and I wasn't. And I remember one night just staying with them when they were camping and one of the actors, Simon Coates, had his guitar out and he started singing this song and like doing all the parts to it. There's different parts to it. And I just thought, what is that song? And then I listened to Joan Armatrading.

23:06Just the arrangement is so beautiful and she's just extraordinary. I mean, what a pioneer. And she just really, really, really loves her music. Now if I can feel the song And my eyes and the rain on my face Why can't I feel love? Will you love, will you love, will you love, will you love, will you love, love, love, love, love Joan Armatrading and love and affection One of the things that really is amazing about your ability is the way that you can take on an accent, even the trickiest accents. You're exceptional at them. And I know that when you were playing press officer Tracey Pritchard in W1A, people were often very sort of disappointed, surprised that you weren't actually Welsh when they heard you speaking.

24:13Right. Even casting directors. I think even some of the cast. I mean, obviously they knew I wasn't Welsh, but I do remember Nina Sasanya. I remember texting her like and she said you do realise that every time you text I hear it in Welsh because it wasn't a staying in character thing but in between the takes I would I still carry on with the accent because it's different muscles and you don't want to sort of let it slip you know. So what's your approach then when you need to get an accent just right and and which has been the most difficult? The approach is to get a really good dialect coach and also actually To be fair, I do the psychological work at a different time to the accent work.

24:54So the accent work's really just technical. It's to do with the sounds and the rhythm. And I remember with the Gloucester accent with Rosemary West just being really painstaking. And every time it was an A sound, I'd go through the whole script doing that sound. And every time it was an S sound, I'd do the same. Well winning a BAFTA must have been a moment that you knew that you'd officially arrived. You won it for your part as serial killer Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult and it was a harrowing performance as well as an acclaimed one. How did you prepare for that part? So emotionally difficult.

25:31How did you cope with the research? I was really scared of doing it and also it wasn't a big role. So I was sort of saying to my agent this is a lot of dark place to go to. I was definitely concerned about what it might do. And I went to visit her solicitor and he lent me the transcript of her trial. And obviously, like reading a lot of any trial is quite can be quite boring. But it's also slightly like reading a play as well. You really get a sense of what the people's physicality is like and what they look like and could kind of hear the vastness of what was happening to her. I think in it. And how do you cast something like that off at the end of the day?

26:16Is it easy to do that for you to switch out of work and into back into yourself? I think I like to think it is. I did have to be fairly careful at the time just because my temple was so available and so near the surface and in terms of the research people would say oh so what happened and they'd want to know about it and then you'd get to a certain point and they wouldn't really want to know but you'd have started offloading, you know. I remember a long time after it, just going in home and then the guy upstairs saying, Monica, Monica, you're on television. And so I went up to his flat and his girlfriend and it was just a scene from the police interviews and I wasn't even in that scene, but I just felt, under my skin, felt like ice.

27:01And I thought, oh, goodness me, I was feeling like this all the time when I was doing that. So it's good to have things that earth you. But I also remember my mum saying when I went from doing Jane Eyre to doing, I think it was quite a quick turnaround to playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie. She absolutely could not believe how quickly I lost interest in one and sort of then went on to the other one. But I think that, you know, who was it said actors are the opposite to people? and I know that I can sometimes have a quite clinical approach and I don't know how this will be taken but I think there's a certain point to which you mustn't care too much and I really hesitate to say that because some of the situations are so serious but you really actually have to remember it's a game and I know that sounds brutal um but that acting is play yeah you know and just in order to protect yourself and the other actors and and also to keep it objective otherwise you will go nuts you know you have to be able to talk about the scene and so just sometimes come out of it and talk about something technical maybe or you've got the dialect coach going no you got that wrong again you got that sound wrong again I think we'd better take a moment for some more music Monica Dolan, it's your fifth choice today what are we going to hear next and why?

28:30We're now going to hear MacArthur Park and it's the Richard Harris version and I think if I didn't put this in I'd have lots of complaints from friends whose parties I've put to a premature slow painful death with this song So not always a crowd pleaser? No, I think it's very definitely the end of the night when this goes on. I really love this, partly because a boyfriend of mine made a tape for me with it on there. And I love the image. I think quite a lot of people think that there is actually a cake left out in the rain. And it's the park that's melting. So it's the snow and the green nice things coming down because the green of the grass is coming through the snow and the love wasn't going to last till the springtime it was it was for winter and why it means something to me is that sometimes life throws something at you and you'll lose something completely and you can't get it back and there's so much in the song about knowing that and accepting that and saying I'll take the rest of my life and I'll use it and that once if things happen to you you can take them as experience and use the rest of your life and also move on with that experience and so yeah it's a very long song but it's a very wise song.

30:38Richard Harris and MacArthur Park. Monica, you're on record as saying that there aren't enough female playwrights and in 2017 you took matters into your own hands. You wrote The Beasts, a one-woman show, and took that to Edinburgh. Tell me a bit about the idea behind the play. Well, I don't know if I can talk very openly about the idea without giving it away. So what I will say is that it's really about the sexualisation of culture and sexualisation of children, actually. So in the title, it looks like beasts because the first R is an asterisk. Yeah, I think that was a little nod to in the 90s.

31:18There were lots of plays that had asterisks in. You can call it the beasts or the breasts. Yeah, it's such a big thing to take on a one woman show at Edinburgh. I mean, you know, you're going to be on stage every day and it's just you. It's all on you. how did you get ready how did you prepare to to go to the festival i had a really really good director who i've known since 1998 john hogguth and i just really surrounded myself with people that i loved and i hope loved me and the first time i ever read it to anyone was in a room full of eight friends and i sort of sat in my kitchen with the spotlights on and they sat in the living room and watched me and I you know made them lots of sandwiches and wine hoping that they would forgive me and with those eight people they happened to be actually looking back on it I chose quite well because they were sort of in different aspects of theatre and could give me advice and help but also they were eight people that I thought if I start crying 10 minutes in and say can we go to the pub they won't mind you know the first time I read it to friends I couldn't believe that I was still alive at the end of it I was so nervous it's very exposing yeah did you feel vulnerable yeah I felt much more vulnerable than than when I act I mean I also remember oh I remember when John was trying to cut bits of it and there was you know he was he was dramaturg as well and I some of it I just thought I've never been this angry in my life him wanting to cut this but has he not read it it's time for some more music Monica Dolan your sixth choice today.