Ten years ago I made my last television acting performance. It was the first series of a brand new sitcom. The idea was new and exciting. The programme would be shot using head cameras on the two main characters. The result would be edgy, jerky close up images. The audience would be see through the eyes of the protagonists and it was to be called P.O.V (point of view). Yes you are right, the title didn’t exactly trip off the tongue, so before the series was aired it was changed…… to Peep Show.
The cast was oozing with young new talent. Robert Webb, David Mitchell and Olivia Colman. The boys quickly became household names. They were given their own series and have achieved huge and well deserved success. Olivia was more of a slow burn.
We were filming in a crematorium for the day. Progress was slow and I chatted to Olivia outside our respective winnebagos (which sounds much smarter than it was). She was young, relatively inexperienced but excited to be playing a lead role in a groundbreaking new series. We were all crossing our fingers it would be a success. It was.
Then came the next TV show: Rev. Olivia was, of course, marvellous in Rev. She is marvellous in everything she touches, but I think it was during Twenty Twelve, the Olympic spoof sitcom, written by the magnificently talented John Morton, that my love affair with Olivia really began. Each line, each nuance was so delicately and charmingly delivered. In just one look we knew this downtrodden, unnoticed secretary was in love with her boss. The more Hugh Bonneville’s character ignored her, the more our hearts went out to her. I have never seen a sandwich made with such care or a band aid applied with such underlying sexual tension.
So it seemed last night most of Britain, or certainly most of my Twitter timeline, gathered together to watch the denouement of Broadchurch. To be honest I don’t often devote myself to long running detective dramas. They involve too much commitment even with the joys of Sky +. But after the first trailer the die was cast. I had to watch. Olivia was in it. If Olivia is in it I have to watch.
There were other people in this drama. David Tennant made an appearance, but my eyes were on Olivia because for all the twists and turns, for all the suspects and false alleyways, this drama was about one thing and one thing only. By the time we had reached last night’s episode I think most people had guessed it was Olivia’s on screen husband who had committed the deed. It didn’t matter that it was revealed early on in the episode. What mattered was Olivia’s character’s reaction to it. And she delivered. Because she always does. Wretching, kicking, screaming and silently weeping, her bottom lip trembling, Olivia can do it all. Never overplayed, always totally believable.
So why do we all love her so much? Because she has the uncanny ability to touch a piece of all of us. We are all her and she is us. Not an untouchable movie star, a real woman who is vulnerable yet strong. Her comedy is immaculate and her tragedy heart-rending.
She is modest, charming and real; the nation’s new Judi Dench.
There are times when the nation falls in love with a passing fad, a fashionable icon. Last night my Twitter feed proved that we had fallen in love, not with glamour, not with superficial beauty, but with pure, pure talent.
Source: telegraph.co.uk – Broadchurchs Olivia Colman is the new Judi Dench
