Tom Basden plays John Sutton
Tom Basden plays John Sutton in new comedy Quacks.
Published: 8 August 2017
They weren’t scientists working in labs, very clinical and ordered; it was people stumbling upon things and digging up bodies - it was really macabre and gothic, and funny.
When did you first get involved with the show?
The first time I auditioned for it was December 2013, a long time ago. It took nearly four years until it happened.
So did you wonder what had happened?
I did, because I see Mat Baynton quite a lot anyway, and he was quite involved with it and he would say, "they’re still talking about your audition". I was thinking, well, it’s been 18 months now, what’s going on?! And then I got offered the part, but they said they wanted to shoot a pilot the week before Plebs was going to shoot in Bulgaria, so it was a bit tricky to make it work. I said to Sam, who I make Plebs with, that I had to do it because it was really good.
Why did you want to do it so badly?
I knew it would mean working with Mat and Rory, and I’m a big fan of James’ writing. And also I think the world of it is so rich, and it’s quite unusual, I think, to do something that feels really detailed and interesting.
It’s also very well researched and based on the truth, so it's a fascinating world to be in. It's also funny and the relationships are very good. You read the script and think, this would work brilliantly as a drama - but then it’s funny as well.
It’s the kind of thing that I didn’t know very much about, and it’s a fascinating period.
They did have a kind of comedy to them in the way that things happened, you know? They weren’t scientists working in labs, very clinical and very ordered; it was people stumbling upon things and killing a few horses and digging up bodies and stuff like that - it was really macabre and gothic, and funny.
I never knew the operating theatre was a theatre, I didn’t know you could go and watch. I think there are some operating theatres that still have a gallery! I don’t know if you can go and watch though. Now we are quite familiar with the inside of what our body looks like, and we see it on Casualty, but I guess back then it was a real treat.
This is a massive and probably fictitious generalisation, but people then were more familiar with the idea of death across the board, and were slightly less troubled by it. Life was less sanitised. So there was that kind of feeling that this could be anyone at any minute.
Tell me about John. What’s he like?
He's an amoral, happy-go-lucky kind of scallywag, I suppose. There’s something Artful Dodger-ish about John. He’s very upbeat and he’s constantly on the lookout for new drugs and new practices, and he's open to anything.
I think that out of all of them he’s the least Victorian in his morality. He doesn’t really care how things look, so he’s probably the most honest character in some ways, even though he’s also the most depraved - or at least the most degenerate in his lifestyle. He regularly kills people and doesn’t feel too bad about that, because at the end of the day you need to kill a few people to make discoveries.
But is he doing it for his own ego?
I don’t think so. I think he’s doing it for the sake of the science itself. I think his attitude is one of, we can get so much better at this, so we have a responsibility to work out how. Whereas for Robert it’s all about looking good and people loving him, and William is coming at it from a point of compassion.
For John it’s just about the brutal need to progress science and make things better in future.
And you talk about his lifestyle outside of work. What’s that like?
Quite loose, I suppose. A lot of home-brewed brandy and mysterious chemicals from plants from different parts of the empire. He’s a sort of Pete Doherty figure, though hopefully less irritating. He’s a free-living, libertarian I suppose.
Do we get to see much of that?
You certainly see quite a lot of John’s wild nights with the girl who runs the pharmacy, and his experiments on the boy who comes to work for him, and things like that.
Is the pharmacy worker a girlfriend?
John’s wife died a long time ago, and John was unable to save her, so I guess a lot of his drug taking and lifestyle is down to that. And it’s only really later in the series that he starts to move on and find interests elsewhere. At that point he kind of falls for the girl who works in the pharmacy but she’s getting married to a rich, fat old Lord for money, so he’s got to suck it up that they can’t be together.
John is a troubled character. He’s got his demons that he keeps at bay by medicating himself with various potions and chemicals. But also he’s got quite a sunny outlook externally, he wants people to be excited about things. He likes to bring energy to things, but I think that probably is to cover for the fact that his life has lost a bit of meaning.
What’s his relationship like with the other doctors?
There is a slightly antagonistic relationship between all three of them, because they all have such different attitudes towards this industry that they work in and are slightly scornful of each other’s position. So I think John gets very frustrated with Robert because he is not as experimental as John thinks he should be, and he can be a bit conservative because he is worrying about saving face, which John doesn’t give a shit about.
John thinks that William is slightly wasting his time by dealing with mad people and trying to stop them from being mad, which is kind of small potatoes if you’re thinking about the next 100, 200 years. So I think even though they have a lot of things in common, and they do, they are able to have a good time and take the piss out of each other, I think there is also that sense that there’s a slight marriage of convenience sometimes between them.
The sets look amazing. You often don’t get that level of detail.
No, I think that’s absolutely right. And I love that about this show, that it looks like a proper period drama, but we’re talking about sticking tools up Mat Baynton’s willy to smash his bladder stone.
Is it possible that people could tune in thinking it's a proper medical drama?
I think it's possible that some people could tune in and take it as a verité Victorian medical fly-on-the-wall drama about medical practices.
With this show the authenticity is really important. James has been very strict: when things could go sillier or become more overtly comic, we rein them in a little bit and keep them truthful. Part of the enjoyment should be that everything you’re watching feels like it definitely happened. There’s a story where Mat’s character William stages a fake trial for a guy who believes he’s a French spy, a French traitor, and that’s based on a real story.
How much research did you personally do?
I didn’t do a huge amount of research into my character and to the time. I probably should have done! By coincidence, I had already read a book called Sick City, a lot of which has made its way into the show. I felt like I wasn’t going to do any more than that!
What’s different when you're acting in a show you haven't written? Is it less pressure?
It’s much more entertaining from my point of view, because I can come in and sort of do something that’s quite playful and fun, and be part of a gang - when you’re writing you’re on your own a bit. Even if you get to know everyone, obviously, and you’re working with them, the stuff you’re dealing with is pretty singular and you’re having to keep things away from the cast and crew.
It’s not very helpful to start sharing the problems you’re having from a writing point of view with the cast, because that makes them lose faith in the whole project. Whereas if you’re acting in something, everyone is constantly talking about how to make the scenes better and what we can do and ideas we can try, so it’s quite different in that respect, it’s a lot more of a group activity.
Quacks seems to have been quite collaborative and James seems to have taken a lot from you all...
I hope so. I mean, we had a good period of rehearsal and I think that really helps; it allows us to put scenes on their feet and see what physically isn’t going to work and make changes before we’re on set, and avoid using valuable shooting time.
So there was already quite a lot of stuff that we changed in the few weeks before rehearsal, and James has been on set pretty much the whole time.
And he’s been really open to changing things, simplifying things, and adding little jokes. We haven’t needed to do a lot of that, there’s just been the few occasions where we’ve felt like we can push something a little bit.
Is it lovely to be working with Mat again?
Yes, great. I love working with Mat, he’s a great friend.
What’s your relationship like?
Well, when we’re not writing or shooting stuff together, it’s mainly just talking about football and being quite foppish men in North London, really, with beards and without proper jobs.
When we’re shooting, Mat is the most liable to corpse. He’ll find ways to make himself laugh at himself, which is quite cute, but it’s quite infuriating. He was in a scene where his role really was to eat a pie and listen to Rory, and then he ate the pie, and an operation was happening and so he started to get a bit disgusted by the pie and didn’t want to eat the pie any more, and he kept corpsing because he found that really funny. So, you know, he’s a very silly man!
Are you personally involved in any of the kind of gory stuff?
I help out with the surgery so I’m often there, trying to get out of the way of the spurts of blood for the sake of the costume department. But I’ve managed to avoid a lot of the main gore - that’s more Rory’s territory really.
So instead you have to act a bit high sometimes?
It’s one of those things that’s hard to talk about because I’ve not really seen it back yet, so I hope it’s okay. I think that’s just a difficult thing, like drunk acting and stoned acting, it’s quite easy to be wildly over the top, so I hope it’s not like that. I hope it’s fun.
