Interview with Liza Tarbuck (Siobhain)

Siobhain undergoes a transformation in series two. What was your first reaction when you read the scripts?
I was delighted that viewers were going to see more of Siobhain’s world and how it was of her own making. She’s made some crappy decisions, and her heart was being used like a rag by people we never get to meet. She’s also jealous of Linda and her envy is something of a drive, but we also get to see her becoming more peaceful. The first series of anything is an introduction, this series has put more meat on the bones, we know we’ve got an audience, so how do you make it richer for everyone.

Siobhain has always been very strong in her beliefs about a woman’s role in the household. Without giving too much away, what prompts her to begin questioning those ideas this series?

A raft of people of Siobhan’s generation have inherited the view that the woman’s role is to tend to the men and family and home. There comes a time when that becomes exhausting and untenable, always being the one to push things forward. You need help and if you're not getting it, it can dry you out and make you furious. Siobhain chose to be the mummy, because their mother died, now she’s menopausal and beginning to understand her own role in the way things have panned out, she’s got a lot on as she tries to make sense of it all.

What was it like playing this new side of Siobhain?

The script is giving me the action and the journey, and it's up to me as an actor to round her corners off where I can and make her more relatable. You always need to have texture, I find this when I do playlists for the radio show, you can’t play the same type of music one after the other because it’ll be hard to listen to or to stick with. I know she’s a pain in the arse, but how can I make you like her?

What scene from series two stands out as your personal favourite?

I can’t give you a standout scene because I love so much of it, it’s very funny, you read it, then seeing what each actor does with their parts is always exciting. I can’t wait to enjoy how awful my hair looks; we picked a person’s hairstyle for S and that alone brings me pleasure. How everyone looks before they utter a word thrill me, if my hairs right for the character I’m happy. I trusted Mackenzie very quickly, he’s got a magical understanding, if I got the OK from him, on any subject actually, that’s good for me. I felt safe. He made me go for things that naturally feel a little too much as Liza, but not for bolshy Siobhain.

If you could be friends with Siobhain, what do you think your friendship would look like?

I’d have to be strict with Siobhan. My boundaries are really good which would make me the sort of person she’d probably have a problem with. If you're going to enable a person, allow bad behaviour or continue to be blinkered and unaccountable, then you’ve no business calling yourself their friend. I can be a little bold sometimes, but only in order to move things on, my intent is good but not always well received, I can live with that. I’m not sure Siobhan has any friends, I think her ex-husband was probably her best friend in her eyes, and he just got sick of her. Having children would have worked for her, fitted into what she believed her role as a woman was. She’s have been softer I think, more open.

Is there an aspect of Siobhain’s character that you wish you had more of in your own life? 

There are elements of Siobhain that we can all identify with I think, she’s been cooped up, unwilling to change but now she knows she has to. She’s probably different inside her own head but struggles to reveal that softer side to anyone she’s mixing with. Being outside in the woods acts like the medicine it is, I was very conscious of that, how healing an ancient forest is, she doesn’t have to know it, I just wanted to play that, and it may not even register. She’s been on hold, put herself in a mothering role and the grounding nature of the great outdoors has allowed her to think about what she wants next.

How important is it to address serious topics like women’s emotional labour, invisible workloads, and misogyny through comedy?

I’ve always known that comedy is a sort of medicine. It makes any difficult subject easier to address in your real life if you can laugh about something, it can be the stepping stone to change. The more information out there regarding any difficult subjects the better. Understanding is of course, progress.

If you could offer Siobhain one piece of advice for this series, what would it be?

My most successful piece of advice is, “Stop it” …said with some force in a headmistressy way. I’ve had some good conversations off the back of doing that. Its arresting and in the pause that comes after it, you can make your point… but you’d better make it a good’un.

What do you hope viewers will take away from this series?

I hope people will enjoy it of course, laughing would be great and feeling like part of a community would be even better. The change starts with you.