‘Oh my God, she's been buried!': Mr Bates star Monica Dolan on Paula Vennells, playing heroes and villains, and why TV is getting more generic
You won best supporting actress at the Baftas 13 years ago. Now you're nominated again. Does it feel different this time?
It's a bit like when you go back to your first school and the chairs look really small. Whereas before I felt like I was trying to get into a world, now I feel slightly more like I'm, hopefully, in it – and welcoming other people as well.
Mr Bates vs the Post Office caused real-world action. How did it feel when that played out?
I was shocked by the audience reaction, and how proud I was of the audience reaction.
I saw that the compensation, promised after the show's success, is taking longer than post office operators were hoping.
They've actually re-engaged the subpostmasters in a process where they have to apply, and this is what those people have been doing for years. And it's just not fair to make them do it again. They don't trust it any more. I've got a friend whose auntie has just said: 'It's taken up enough of my life.' She's not even trying to get the money. She doesn't want to go through it.
You've played a lot of real people. Does that come with extra responsibility?
Oh yeah! One of the most moving days of my career was when we went to Bafta to the screening of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. There was going to be a Q&A. Lots of subpostmasters were there. What if they had turned around and said: 'That's not our story at all and you've misrepresented us'? At the same time, the first duty is to the script. Nobody knows the whole truth of any situation.
Are you and Jo Hamilton still in touch?
Yes, she texted me yesterday. We're both very into our dogs.
What's your opinion of Paula Vennells after making the show?
I listened to the first day of the inquiry, when Paula was giving evidence. I thought: 'Right, this is where she gets exposed.' Then Rishi Sunak resigned, so I was like: 'Oh my God, she's been buried.' Then I thought, she's so lucky.
What's the most research you've done to play a real person?
When I played Rosemary West, I went to her solicitor and got the transcript of the court case, which the TV company hadn't managed to do.
What's the secret to playing a villain?
Don't deliberately not want to be liked, otherwise you end up twirling a moustache.
There's been a lot of talk about a funding crisis in British drama. Have you felt the effects of that?
Well, I've definitely felt that the things that I've been doing have been very stripped back and, you know, there isn't a lot. At the best of times, there's a fear of taking risks but now, particularly, people aren't even pitching things they would have pitched a couple of years ago. There seems to be more push with the scripts I read, making them generic.
What TV shows have you been enjoying at the moment?Smoggie Queens. It's about inclusivity and finding another family than your birth family, and it's extremely funny as well. There are so many things in it that appeal to everyone, but there are certain jokes that you'd only get if you're from Middlesbrough.
What's your guilty pleasure TV show?
Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly Australia. In the whole of Australia, they couldn't find anyone to train their dogs apart from Graeme Hall, this bloke from Yorkshire! I watch it if I need cheering up.
The Bafta Television Awards with P&O Cruises is on BBC One and BBC iPlayer tomorrow at 7pm.
Catch the full lineup of our Bafta TV special launching across the weekend and starring best actor nominees David Tennant, Lennie James, Monica Dolan, Billie Piper, Richard Gadd, Marisa Abela and Sharon D Clarke
Read more in the series
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
21 minutes ago
- BBC News
Liverpool Claude Monet exhibition 'will bring his work to life'
An exhibition designed to "bring to life" more than 400 paintings by the renowned Impressionist artist Claude Monet has come to Monet, at Liverpool Exhibition Centre, uses projection technology to allow visitors to experience pieces including Water Lilies, Impression, Sunrise, and Poppies at Argenteuil."What we have done is to imagine if we went with Monet to all the different locations he painted all over Europe," said the exhibition's creative director Mathieu to the exhibition, which runs until 15 August, will see huge projections of Monet's work beamed on to walls and other surfaces. Mr St-Anaud advised people attending the exhibition to "just let go and don't think about art - experience it as an image as Monet felt when he first saw it".Anna Perry, the project's business development director, said Liverpool was chosen to host the first exhibition in Europe following the "overwhelming success" of the UK premiere of Beyond Van Gogh last also said the Liverpool Exhibition Centre team were "phenomenal to work with". Ms Perry praised the city's "culture and acceptance of art and entertainment and the value that people put in it".She said: "It just felt like there was no other place that we could premiere this."It has only been seen in North America before."Ms Perry said the immersive exhibition "really allows people to tap into elements that they might not have been aware that they were going to be exposed to or feel".She added: "They see the artwork around them, they see it on the floor, they hear the sounds, and I think people just get really blown away."Because children can run around "and feel like they've gone inside paintings" it is a great first art exhibition for youngsters, she Perry said Beyond Van Gogh would also return to Monet, who was born in 1840 and died in 1926, is acknowledged as the founder of the Impressionism movement. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
'Why I celebrate the true meaning of carnival'
"Take care of those hats, they were expensive," says Joanne Alexander as she hands out costumes to her 115-strong dance mostly made up of children, is preparing to perform at Leicester's Caribbean Carnival, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year on year's event was called off with just weeks to go, with organisers citing significant financial risk and poor weather as factors behind the says the carnival, which she attended for the first time when she was eight, is "very important" to her. "It's just celebrating emancipation, freedom and celebrating the true meaning of what carnival is as black heritage people," the 47-year-old explains. The carnival has a different theme each year and this weekend's event will celebrate the "shared origins, experiences, struggles and triumphs of black communities in Leicester".As part of this, Joanne's troupe's performance will focus on the Jab Jab, a traditional and satirical form of masquerade that originated in Grenada."The back story of that is the slave masters would call black people 'devils' and basically the slaves were ridiculing them, which is why they dress up with horns and chains in black," says Joanne."They're taking the mick out of their slave masters."According to the Grenada National Trust, the tradition sometimes involves carrying chains or shackles and, at one point, even carrying serpents to make themselves look fierce, a practice that has now been banned on the Joanne, who also runs a dance and drama group called Can't Blame the Youth, taking part in the carnival is about more than just says: "We sit down and I tell them the whole back story of why we're doing carnival." The first carnival was held in 1985 and, although it is a landmark anniversary year, it has been cancelled on a handful of occasions, including during the Munroe, who is on the carnival committee and helping to organise this year's event, says the carnival was founded by Elvie Morton, who had the idea of "bringing us all together and to show that we are a community that just wants to have fun" after riots in Brixton riots took place at a time when racial tensions meant that many of Britain's inner cities were of police brutality against a black man resulted in angry crowds confronting officers for a few hours before the disturbances were an arrest the following night sparked off the rioting in earnest, first in London but then spreading to many other cities across the says: "So much was happening with police brutality and racism - and racism has risen too much in the last few years."We are so divided at the moment and I think carnival has a huge part to play in reducing that division and bringing us all together." This year's carnival will get under way with a "vibrant" opening ceremony featuring music, food stalls and children's activities at the African Caribbean Centre on Maidstone Road, where it started four decades ago, at 10:00 will gather there before a procession moves the celebrations to Victoria Park, where the main event will take parade will follow a new route designed to "increase visibility and community engagement".Setting off from the African Caribbean Centre, it will cross Swain Street Bridge and pass through the city centre before arriving at Victoria main stage line-up features a mix of DJs, dancers, live bands and other performers, with entertainment set to take place between 12:00 and 19: the opening ceremony and parade are free to attend and take part in, but the event at Victoria Park will be ticketed as it has been since Leicester City Council reduced its annual funding for the event from £100,000 to £60,000 in 2014. According to Tara, the carnival was once "one of the biggest in Europe" and she hopes it can return to its former glory."This year has been a massive learning curve, we've had a lot to overcome and to understand about how things work," she says."God willing, I will still be there next year and, moving forward, it needs to be as soon as carnival is done, give it a month and we're working towards the next one."I'm on the old team now. We need to bring these young people in and see how they want to make it move forward."
Telegraph
23 minutes ago
- Telegraph
ITV beat the BBC, but all TV coverage of women's football needs to grow up
It was, you have to say, excellent TV, skilful and provocative, and it hit Carney right in the feels. Karen told us she was welling up and 'I am not going to lie, I found it quite triggering. There is now a little girl and little boy that now knows it is OK to want to be a footballer.' Pace yourself, Karen, there's still half an hour until kick-off. Wright and Hayes also did appropriate amounts of Her Game Too-ing and fair enough. Over on the BBC, a pop singer called Self-Esteem did a song called Focus is Power and it doesn't get more earnest than that. Maybe because the game itself is younger at this level of mainstream interest, or because some of these Lionesses were able to play very long careers, but it feels like the pundits are generally a lot closer both in age and personally to the women they are commenting on. For instance on the BBC: White, only 36 and a team-mate of many of these, whereas a men's game will have Alan Shearer or whoever, guys who belong to a different generation who can, sometimes, put the boot in where needed. This is partly why the coverage of England women players and manager is largely uncritical. For example, it was put to ITV's Anita Asante before the match that maybe Lauren James wasn't fit. Firmly, Asante said: 'If Lauren James is in the starting line-up she is 100 per cent.' That did not really seem to be the case, though, and it symptomatic of a general reluctance to criticise that the men's game has largely moved beyond. Hard to see Gabby Logan saying that the England women's team had played s---, isn't it, as Gary Lineker did about Harry Kane and co? Not that yesterday called for anything beyond cheerleading. Women's football is, as yet, still part elite sport and part feelgood story and social project and the coverage reflects that but it will be really interesting to see if there's room for a Roy Keane or Alan Hansen type in a few years as the TV coverage matures.
