Philip Durrant
Husband of Mary. A once decorated fighter pilot, Philip lost the use of his legs in a car accident after the war. He suffers the long-term effects of his injuries with the assistance of the morphine needle and the whisky bottle.
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Matthew Goode on Philip
Can you tell us about Philip Durrant and how we first see him in the story?
He’s not shy of letting people know exactly what he thinks and thinking he can get away with it
When we first encounter Philip, he’s disabled in a wheelchair and we’re not quite sure where it happened or why it happened. He was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force and flew fighters. I suppose the psychology of Philip is that he had all that freedom, was a war hero yet when we first encounter him he’s poisonous, a drunk, addicted to morphine and also likely to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress. He’s a very interesting character. I also think he ended up this way is because of the way he has to live, it being the 1950’s, some of the conditions he has to live his life by are particularly shocking.
Can you tell us a little bit about his relationship with Mary, and how that is affected by his accident?
Unfortunately for Mary, we hurt the ones we love the most as Philip becomes trapped in this effeminate room with no escape. Mary over does her care for him. Imagine someone continually touching and fussing over you, the poor girl has to do everything for him; all of the stuff that isn’t particularly nice. I think he does love her in some way but for someone to see you in such a state when you were such a hero and a very masculine character to now be completely emasculated and trapped in this room and this life, where there’s no escape must be nightmarish.
He seems like a very brash and hard character?
He’s not shy of letting people know exactly what he thinks and thinking he can get away with it. He treads a very dangerous line but no one's going to throw him out because of his circumstances. I think there’s a vast amount of sympathy for Mary but no redeeming qualities in Philip. It sounds awful to say but he was a really fun character to play because there’s no limit to the nastiness that you can bring to him or the story, the duplicity. I found myself apologising after takes, I would go full Philip and after "cut" was called, I was just so sorry. Although very fun to play.
How is it playing a character in a wheelchair? There must be a lot to think about in terms of the physicality of the part, as well as playing the role of Philip.
What I found difficult was the way Philip showers, and the way he brushes his teeth. We decided that it might be that he drags himself in, which was very likely and again sort of underlines what a nightmare he lives and how other people would have lived after the war if they’d had a similar injury. It’s quite interesting that we see him exercising because he needed that upper body strength. There is a vanity to him, massively, but this wasn’t a vanity for him, he just needed that strength.
