Plot twists aplenty
Ruth Madeley was an aspiring writer when she was persuaded to audition for her debut acting role. Now she’s leading her first drama that, like her life, has…
BBC
- Gareth McLean
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Upon reflection, as far as her career is concerned, Ruth Madeley has no doubt about it. “I was born under a lucky star. I was lucky to meet who I did that got me into a position at the right place and the right time. Luck got me through the door.”
You could think of Madeley’s door as metaphorical, but there was also a real door – in the depths of the BBC where she, as an aspiring writer, had gone for work experience. Only the door led to an acting audition, which wasn’t the work she was there to experience. But, with some encouragement, Madeley went for the audition and got the part.
The rest – a best actress Bafta nomination for Don’t Take My Baby (2015), a lead role in Russell T Davies’ Years and Years in 2019, her own episode of Who Do You Think You Are? earlier this month – is history. (Playing the lead in the new BBC One thriller The Rapture is the near-future so we’ll get to that imminently).
At this juncture, Madeley, 38, would like to point out that, “Luck may have got me through the door but it didn’t keep me in the room. My hard work kept me in the room and in the industry.” But she quickly adds, “If I’m honest, for every single job I go on, I’m always like, ‘I’m so lucky.’ I genuinely feel really grateful that I’m doing what I love for a living.”
Ruth Madeley with David Tennant in Doctor Who. BBC
Lucky star or not, Madeley has always been determined. She’s had to be. Born with spina bifida, Madeley developed scoliosis in her childhood. “I was a lot more mobile as a child – I used crutches in primary school and didn’t use a wheelchair full-time until after one of my first surgeries. My disability has changed a lot as I’ve grown older. My pain has changed. It’s ever evolving. You learn a lot about yourself.”
Chief among Madeley’s learnings: she’ll always be stubborn. “Don’t tell me I can’t do something because I will and I’ll invite you to watch and ask you to take a picture,” she says.
Consequently, leading a TV series has always been on Madeley’s “list of aims” and one she achieves with The Rapture. She plays psychologist Dr Gabs Fox, who starts a new job at a psychiatric hospital following a car crash that leaves her paralysed. She’s assigned a patient, 17-year-old matricide Bethany Krall (India Amarteifio). Only Bethany maintains her innocence. For the most part, Gabs maintains her clinical detachment until she learns of Bethany’s visions…
Twisty, compelling and timely, the show is set during a heatwave with the spectre of climate crisis looming. It’s about faith, trust and truth. What it’s not about is Gabs’s disability. What does Madeley hope viewers take away from it? “I would love people to take away the idea that a disabled actor can lead a story that isn’t disability-specific. Just having that character and all of her complexities is enough for people to think differently.”
That being the case, the thriller is a departure for Madeley. As sincere as she is when she says that it’s a huge privilege to play disability rights campaigners such as Barbara Lisicki (in Then Barbara Met Alan, 2022) and Judy Heumann (in Being Heumann, coming soon to Apple TV), there is, I suggest, a distinct downside to landing such parts – as there is embodying characters like Doctor Who’s Shirley Anne Bingham. People expect so much from her – not least a spokesperson for her people. That feels like a lot of pressure.
Ruth Madeley with Iwan Rheon. Mammoth Screen
“In the first half of my career, I really felt the weight of that because I had to do everything right,” she admits. “I wanted to be perfect, I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. But I’ve learnt to give myself a bit more grace. I am an expert in my own disability, I am not an expert in anybody else’s, and I have to keep reminding myself that.
“Of course it’s a privilege to be asked to represent your community, but I also do try and be kind to myself – because I don’t always get it right and that’s OK. I just keep learning and listening. That’s why more disabled voices are needed in the industry because my experience is different than the next person’s.”
As part of her drive to give herself a break, Madeley is also working on how she views success and failure. “I have a tendency to think of things in those terms and I have to talk myself out of it. Especially as a disabled person, you feel you have to be the best so that younger people can see it’s possible. But I’ve had to get better at protecting my mental health in that regard – at not calling it a failure but calling it a plot twist.”
Between her lucky star and list of aims, plot twists and extensions of grace, Madeley says, “I love life and I just want to do all of it. And I’m sure I can. I’m an incurable optimist.”
Iwan Rheon
The journalist
When Iwan Rheon isn’t playing journalist Dick Carwyn in The Rapture – or Simon Bellamy in Misfits or Ramsay Bolton in Game of Thrones – he makes music. “It’s something I’ve always done,” he says. “It fills in the gaps in an actor’s life between projects and it’s a lovely thing because it isn’t my primary source of income. There’s no pressure in that sense, so I have complete creative freedom.”
Having released an album last year, I Just Wish I’d Never Gone to Space, Rheon has a new EP coming soon, too. “Sometimes I’ll write a lot of songs in succession, as happened with the EP, but recently I’ve been in a period where I haven’t played or written that much.”
Iwan Rheon as Ramsay Bolton in Game of Thrones. HBO
This may be to do with playing Dick, who Rheon describes as “quite silly and funny and a bit lost at the beginning of the story. But he finds his spark again. To explore that has been quite nice.”
Dick is a far cry from Rheon’s best-known role, Game of Thrones’ sadistic Ramsay Bolton – which is how he likes it. Indeed, it sounds as if playing that character took a toll on the Welsh actor.
“It was such a huge part of my life and is still very prevalent in my life – it’s still something that people recognise me for,” he says. “In the beginning I found it hard but I’ve made peace with it now and I’ve got better as time’s gone on. Because most of the time, people are really nice.”
In fact, Rheon has recently started watching Game of Thrones’ spin-off House of the Dragon. “I wasn’t quite ready to dive back in and immerse myself before now,” he admits, “but it’s been 10 years and a couple of my friends are in it, so I thought I’d give it a go and it’s fantastic.”
India Amarteifio
The patient
India amarteifio had to dig deep in order to play Bethany Krall. Her character may or may not have murdered her mother, might or might not be able to prophesy the future, perhaps is key to a shadowy, global conspiracy, and is definitely being held indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital (either because she’s dangerous or the victim of a miscarriage of justice).
We first meet 17-year-old Bethany, at the same time as Dr Gabs Fox (Ruth Madeley) does, but the teenager is preceded by her scary reputation. Bethany flips between bristling menace and playful flirtation. Underneath both is barely contained rage.
“I totally understand her anger,” Amarteifio, who is 24, says. “At her age, I was absolutely raging all the time. At the most minor of problems, I was like, ‘But this isn’t right!’ As an adult, I look at the situation she’s in and I would find it difficult and confusing and incredibly hard to handle. So to handle it as a child, as a teenager, is terrifying – and that terror can manifest as rage.”
Bethany (India Amarteifio) is out to clear her name. Mammoth Screen
At turns malevolent, manipulative, lost and vulnerable, Bethany is certainly an intense character and Amarteifio delivers a great performance – although it made an impact, the actor admits. “We had really long days of sitting in the studio, continuously talking about very dark topics and themes, and me having to sit in my brain and think like her was really difficult. I really struggled with that as I’m quite an empath and I think I take on a lot of emotion.”
So what appealed to her about the show? “It’s all about the character rather than my exterior, and I’ve not really seen a person of colour playing a role like Bethany without it being about race,” she says.
Amarteifio in the title role in Queen Charlotte. Liam Daniel/Netflix
This chimes with another of Amarteifio’s roles: the young queen in Bridgerton spin-off Queen Charlotte. “Queen Charlotte explained why Bridgerton is multi-racial and I found it really important, as a viewer of the show, to ask, ‘So we’re just not going to address race at all. Is that weird?’ and to have an answer: ‘Actually, it’s not weird.’ Because sometimes it’s nice to just watch people fall in love.”
Are Bridgerton and The Rapture “post-race” then? “Whenever I hear people say, ‘I don’t see race’ or 'I don’t see colour,’ I know it genuinely does come from a good place, but there are still massive inequalities between different races so its vital
that we keep talking about it.”
Jack Farthing
The love interest
Jack Farthing was drawn to The Rapture and his character, engineer Frasier Melville, for the same reason that he’s drawn to all the characters he’s played, from Poldark’s George Warleggan to Selby in Rain Dogs. “I love learning about different lives and I love the psychology of trying to work out how different people tick,” he says. “I’ve been part of stories that I really believe in and believe can change people’s minds and open their eyes.”
Farthing, 40, also understands the allure of dark, apocalyptic drama. “We are all catastrophists, aren’t we?” he says. “Our brains are wired to imagine the worst so we can prepare for it. And these days it’s very easy to go down a wormhole of worst-case scenarios.”
Dr Fox (Ruth Madeley) and Frasier (Jack Farthing) get close.
You could argue that our fascination with end-of-the-world scenarios, as demonstrated by the popularity of movies and TV shows, books and games dedicated to the subject, from War of the Worlds to The Walking Dead and from Pluribus to The Rapture, is a cultural articulation of what Freud called “the death drive”, the unconscious urge towards self-destruction and oblivion. And Farthing is quick to identify why dramatists are drawn to dire straits.
“Dramatically, people are at their most interesting in extreme circumstances. Put interesting, witty, intelligent, wounded characters into extreme circumstances and you’re on your way to compelling drama.”
Farthing played George Warleggan in Poldark. Robert Viglasky / Mammoth Screen
Plus, he says, “We’re all interested in the answer to the question: how would you behave in such a situation? What would your impulses and instincts be?”
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As to how he reacts in a crisis, Farthing makes a claim to being quite practical. “I think I am, but you never really know, do you?”
Authors
Gareth McLean
Gareth McLean has been writing about television for nearly 30 years. As a critic, he's reviewed thousands of programmes. As a feature writer, he's interviewed hundreds of people, from Liza Minnelli to Jimmy Savile. He has also written for TV.
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