Interview with Ashley Jensen
Rollem Productions’ brand new BBC One drama Love, Lies & Records, from the pen of BAFTA award-winning writer Kay Mellor, will air this autumn.
Published: 24 October 2017
It was a page-turner. Even halfway through reading episode six I still didn’t know how it was going to end.
Tell us a little about Kay’s new series Love, Lies & Records?
Love, Lies & Records is a six-part series for the BBC that is set in a register office where all of human life takes place. There are people registering births, marriages and deaths, so there’s naturally drama there already.
We cover everything in the series. We cover relationships, different cultures, different ethnicities, transgender, same-sex marriages, births and deaths. There’s very little that’s not covered in this script, actually.
What about the script?
In terms of a script for me, it was a page-turner. Even halfway through reading episode six I still didn’t know how it was going to end.
I’ll say the line and then I’ll go, ‘Oh no, that can’t be right. It almost sounds too colloquial,’ and I’ll look at the script and it’ll be like - that’s exactly what she has written. Kay [Mellor] just absolutely writes the way people speak.
Tell us about your character Kate?
We see Kate in her kitchen with her family. She has a son from a previous relationship, a daughter with Rob, her detective sergeant partner, played by Adrian Bower, and a stepson, who is Rob’s son. Kate is doing what a lot of women do in this world now. She’s trying to juggle family life and be a good mum and a good partner as well as trying to juggle work.
What about Kate’s relationship with work colleague Judy [played by Rebecca Front]?
I’d probably say that Judy is Kate’s nemesis really. They work in very different ways. Judy has a rule-book, Kate’s thrown hers out of the window. Kate is intuitive and Judy likes to have a bit of order and I think that she finds Kate just chaotic, which she sort of is. So Judy has something over on Kate and it’s a question of morality and people’s values and about questioning things - the way you live your life, the way you conduct yourself and who you are? And I think by the end of episode six, Kate’s really asking herself, ‘Who am I and what do I want?’ and everything she thought that she stood for and everything that she thought that she was is being questioned.
And what about Kate’s work?
Kate’s very passionate about her work and she wants to do the job to the best of her ability, she’s been given this promotion, which is validation of her being damn good at her job, which she’s utterly delighted about. And the fact that it’s not gone to Judy, I think she feels that it’s gone to the right person, because she knows that she will make a good job of this.
I think Kate really loves going to work and almost being entertained by this guy [Rick played by Kenny Doughty] who doesn’t seem to take life too seriously.
What about Kate’s relationship with her partner Rob [played by Adrian Bower]?
Kate and Rob do, deep down, love each other, but they’re not really finding a great deal of time for one another at the moment, with children pulling them in different directions, wanting dogs, wanting new phones. Basically life has just got in the way of the relationship a little bit.
Do you think people will relate to the characters in Love, Lies & Records?
I think that people will relate to these characters because they’re very human and they have vulnerability, they have frailty, they have foibles, they get it wrong sometimes. There is no person that you will point at and say, ‘You’re the baddie.’ It’s very much like life, people just trying to get on with their lives and they’ll encounter somebody who’s got a different moral code from them.
Did you do any research in preparation for the role of Kate?
We all went to Leeds town hall and met these wonderful people who showed us what they did and showed us the environment that they worked in. I mean, some of the stuff they have to deal with. I think you’ve obviously got to be a people person to work in that place, because you’re dealing with people who are sometimes at their most vulnerable. Sometimes you’re dealing with bereaved people and other people registering marriages and births when they’re at their most joyful and yet, in this series as well, we’ve got a storyline that deals with a potential sham marriage. Being able to detect scenarios like that can’t be easy.
Is there a scene that particularly stands out for you in the series?
The hospice wedding [Episode 1]. It was one of these scenes where it was difficult to try and not cry because it was just so touching and so moving and so beautifully-performed.
Why do you think viewers should watch Love, Lies & Records?
There are so many wonderful stories in each episode, and so much emotion and so much detail that I think it’ll be difficult not to stay hooked once you’re in.
