Big Interview with Amelia Bullmore - TV and stage actor, playwright and screenwriter
Amelia Bullmore is delightful company. When we speak on a video call, she has just begun rehearsals for The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal and she is open, friendly and extremely enthusiastic about the production. “It is really thrilling,” she says. “We’ve had our readthrough and we’re learning songs and harmonies. It is such a talented cast to be working with. It’s been an exciting week; I’m really enjoying it.”
The play, which began its run in York last weekend, is based on Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed novel of the same name, and was adapted for the stage by Atwood in 2005. It was first staged in 2007 at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon as a co-production between the RSC and Canada’s National Arts Centre, and the York production is the first major UK revival of the show since the original staging. It tells the story of Homer’s The Odyssey from the perspective of Odysseus’ faithful, long-suffering wife Penelope, who waited 20 years for her husband to return from the Trojan War, and her chorus of maids. “Everybody is excited by the play because it is such an unusual mixture of tone and style, with Atwood’s brilliant writing and that knowing, sardonic way of looking at the world,” says Bullmore. “It is very playful, witty and full of humour but also heartbreaking. All of us in the cast are a bit smitten with Margaret Atwood, so there is a great fan girl vibe in the rehearsal room.”
Bullmore heads up the all-female cast as Penelope; it is quite a role to get her teeth into. “When I was sent the script, I read it immediately and was bowled over by it,” she says. “I just thought how lucky I was to be considered for it and I knew pretty much on the spot that I would love to do it.” At the time she was working up in Edinburgh and decided to travel down to York to meet with Juliet Forster, the theatre’s creative director who is directing the production. “Juliet spoke so well about the play and then I had a look round the theatre and that was it, I was sold on it,” says Bullmore. “You are supposed to play it cool but I said yes on the spot because I thought there is nothing I need to mull over. That was back in April and then Christopher Nolan’s film came out.”
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It is clever programming on the part of York Theatre Royal’s creative team as it offers an alternative viewpoint on the epic myth. Audiences get Penelope’s version of events as she and her maids wander the underworld – and it is a gripping story of injustice, betrayal and revenge. “I imagine that most people who come to see the play will have seen the film,” says Bullmore. “We are doing it in a small-scale theatrical way but people will have a way in from having seen the movie.” It feels like an incredibly timely production, and not only because of its proximity to the release of Nolan’s blockbuster. There are themes which, sadly, always remain resonant, not least the effects of war on women and children. And whose voices are heard and whose are not. “The starting point for Atwood was the maids – they barely get one sentence in Homer, so it feels like they don’t count, in life and death,” says Bullmore. “The biggest theme of the play is ‘let their voices be heard’. And that is timeless – who gets to tell the story? Usually the people with most power and confidence. Atwood is empowering the women, giving them their voice.”
Female empowerment was also at the centre of another project that Bullmore was recently involved in – Sally Wainwright’s excellent BBC series Riot Women, filmed in Hebden Bridge, about a group of menopausal Yorkshire women in their fifties who form a rock band. The classy cast included Joanna Scanlan, Tamsin Greig and Lorraine Ashbourne. Bullmore played the buttoned-up character of Yvonne, a midwife and sister of Greig’s newly retired police detective Holly. “Riot Women was such good fun,” she says. “We got together to learn songs, then we were learning to play our instruments and the first time we played together it was such a thrill. We all got on and there were conversations about everything under the sun. It was a really good laugh.”
As with all Wainwright’s work, while the situations and challenges that her characters are facing are authentic and relatable, her writing is always shot through with warmth, humanity and dry northern humour. Bullmore has worked with Wainwright on other occasions – she had roles in Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack and Scott & Bailey. “I think it is brilliant the way that Sally writes for women. She gets into complicated corners and – actually a bit like Margaret Atwood – she twists together unexpected things. Sally will have a character describe something really painful but she does it with humour, and she combines strength with vulnerability. It’s all mixed together which gives her characters the dimension they have. She is so good at writing difficult people who are moody or stubborn or prickly, like Yvonne, and they are very enjoyable to play, and to watch.”
Throughout her career Bullmore has combined acting with writing – she has written stage plays, TV scripts and radio dramas – and enjoys the variety it gives her. “I really like being able to do both,” she says. “When you are writing you are mostly on your own and with acting you are always part of a gang, so it’s a nice combination. I think there are huge overlaps between acting and writing – for both you need to have an ear, to know if something sounds authentic. It is all about storytelling. I love getting lost in a made-up place and made-up people, I love having that place to go.”
Bullmore knew from early on that storytelling was going to play a significant role in her life. “At home there were lots of books in the house and we were read to, so we were very lucky in that way,” she says. “And I went to a primary school that was very free-wheeling and progressive. There was plenty of outlet for writing and telling stories, I absolutely loved it.”
Much of Bullmore’s acting work in the past few years has been on television – aside from Riot Women, TV series she has recently appeared in include The Jetty, The Buccaneers, Vienna Blood, Film Club and Marble Hall Murders – so she is pleased to be back on stage. “I haven’t done a play in ages and I am just loving it,” she says. “I am so happy to be back in a rehearsal room.” And she is clearly loving working at York Theatre Royal. “It’s so steeped in history. On our first day we went on a tour and saw the medieval walls and the Roman well.” They were also told about the ghost of the grey lady which is said to haunt the theatre. “We haven’t seen her yet but we think she would find Margaret Atwood good company,” says Bullmore. “She might come out of hiding in search of a sisterhood.”
The Penelopiad is at York Theatre Royal until October 31. yorktheatreroyal.co.uk