An Interview with Hayley Carmichael
Playing Alice
Published: 12 December 2016
With Miss Marple or Poirot things tend to get solved and so you’re safe; you get taken to a safe destination by someone who isn’t messed up by their own marriage or love life but a loner who seems happy with order and their own lives. They generally get it right, whereas in this story, it all goes horribly wrong.
Describe your character and her place in the story?
Alice is the wife of John Mayhew. She appears to be someone that is quite unhappy, quite cold with a structure and order to life and a tremendous underlying sadness from the war. It’s hard to say how aware or not she is of all of this anger and grief so I have been attempting to play it without thought: as if we’re all able to kid ourselves that we can manage things as they are until it gets so intense that she cracks open and all the anger, rage and upset comes out. She’s unhappy but is attempting to live an ordinary life. But attached to that is the young man of the story [Leonard Vole] who is assumed guilty of murder. I think her and her husband are enjoying, if you can use that phrase, the relationship, albeit from a distance, with another young boy that has been through war but is alive. I think everything in this story connects, everything is related as in life itself. It’s all a big circle.
What was your perception of the Mayhew marriage and did you and Toby have similar opinions?
During our first scene together, Toby [Jones] and I sat down in the Mayhew house and actually had different ideas about the marriage we were playing. It occurred to me that it might be perfectly normal for us to have differing opinions on the marriage, after all I am sure that there are many marriages out there where each spouse has a differing view to the other. We’re playing the same scene from the same script and so does it really matter if we’re approaching it in different ways?
Is the character of Alice, and her story, typical of the times?
When I read the script I thought it was the most terrible story and I think a lot of the reasons it’s terrible apply in the same way today. To be branded innocent or guilty because of a look or an instinct or an emotional judgement, and the tremendous weight of a verdict that may have been misjudged; the whole plot really upset me. In terms of Alice’s marriage, the need to attempt to carry on within the marriage is of its time. Alice hasn’t got any of her own money in order to live, to eat, to have a roof over her head. I think she feels that she has to remain in this marriage.
Why do you think Agatha Christie’s stories are so enduring?
We seem to have such an appetite for crime detective stories and crime solving. Some people seem to like the past more than the present, maybe crime stories set in the present, for some, seem too real, too scary, too relevant, so people prefer to see things that are violent or unsettling set in the past. We seem to have a very strong attraction to this particular period in history, I don’t know whether that’s to do with the War, or the fashion, or class, but we seem to like it. In previous television adaptations there has been something comforting about revisiting this time in one of Christie’s stories, but I am afraid this is not. This is rather unsettling. With Miss Marple or Poirot things tend to get solved and so you’re safe; you get taken to a safe destination by someone who isn’t messed up by their own marriage or love life but a loner who seems happy with order and their own lives. They generally get it right, whereas in this story, it all goes horribly wrong.
Biography
Hayley Carmichael is the co-founder of the theatre company Told By An Idiot. Television credits include Call The Midwife (BBC), Our Zoo (Big Talk Produtions), Garrow’s Law (BBC), Viva Blackpool (BBC), Tunnel of Love (ITV) and Little Robots (CBBC). Theatre credits include First Love is The Revolution (Soho Theatre), Here Be Lions (The Print Room), Beyond Caring (The Yard Theatre), Too Clever By Half (Manchester Royal Exchange/Told By An Idiot), Forests (Birmingham Rep/BIT/Barbican), Hamlet (Young Vic), Fragments (Peter Brook/Bouffes du Nord), Sweet Nothings (Young Vic/European Tour), The Fahrenheit Twins (Told By An Idiot), Bliss (Royal Court), Casanova (Told By An Idiot/West Yorkshire Playhouse/Lyric Hammersmith), The Maids (Brighton Festival), Cymbeline (RSC/Knee High), Theatre Of Blood (NT), I’m A Fool To Want You (Told By An Idiot/BAC), The New Tenant (Young Vic), Zumanity (Cirque de Soleil), Playing The Victim (Royal Court), The Firework Makers Daughter (Sheffield Crucible Theatre), A Little Fantasy (Told By An Idiot), The Birds (NT), Aladdin (Told By An Idiot/Lyric Hammersmith), Shoot Me In The Heart (Told By An Idiot/Gate/BAC), Mother Courage (Shared Experience), I Weep At My Piano (Told By An Idiot), The Dispute (RSC/Lyric Hammersmith), Mr Puntila And His Man Mati (Almeida Theatre), King Lear (Leicester Haymarket/Young Vic), The Street Of Crocodiles (NT/Theatre de Complicite).
