Interview with Liz White

What attracted you to the script?

The characters are really well formed, and I think particularly Joanne for me. I knew I was going up for that role so that one pinged out. She’s just such a well-rounded woman, and also she’s a very straight-talking woman, and that was really refreshing because she’s had to struggle on her own with these two lads for a long time – so she hasn’t got any time for any nonsense.

Tell us a bit more about your character, Joanne.

Her partner, the father of her two boys, left when the kids were really young – and so she says, she had her team as soon as her husband had left. She didn’t have time to wallow basically. She just had to get on with it. So she brought up these boys with a lot of love and a strong hand I think as well. They’re massively important to her. They’re her pride and joy.

Can you relate to the notion of getting a second chance in life, as in the drama?

The bomb that goes off is a pivotal point, and the threat of death or losing your life, or your life changing in that way, is a really life-affirming thing. We don’t all get to experience that, but if you’ve lived through something like this then you can get a grasp of how precarious it all is, how brittle life can be sometimes. Amongst other things, it’s an aphrodisiac. It gives you an appetite for life that you might not have had before. There’s the character of the bomb and that decisive moment, and then there’s obviously the Manchester city that it’s set in.