White season
Anna Maxwell Martin stars in White Girl
Anna Maxwell Martin is one of 大象传媒's most acclaimed young actresses; to prove it, she has the Best Actress BAFTA for her performance as Esther in Bleak House on her mantelpiece.
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Consequently, she can now have her pick of roles and is able to remain choosy about what she accepts. She had not a moment's hesitation, though, about taking the part of Debbie in White Girl, Abi Morgan's moving one-off drama that forms the centrepiece of 大象传媒 Two's White season.
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Debbie is a struggling and alcoholic single mother of three, who abandons her wastrel partner Stevie (Daniel Mays) and moves from Leeds to Bradford, searching for a fresh start for her family. She and her children wind up as the sole white family in a community that is otherwise wholly Muslim. It is a huge culture shock.
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Debbie's struggle to come to terms with her new surroundings is only exacerbated when her eldest child, 11-year-old Leah (Holly Kenny), starts to become fascinated by Islam and the serenity that it represents. The mother is even more perturbed when Leah befriends her Muslim neighbour Yasmin and starts wearing a hijab.
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The actress, who has also starred in The Wind In The Willows, Doctor Who, North And South and Becoming Jane, says she was bowled over by Abi Morgan's script. "The moment I read it, it jumped out at me. It was like a gold nugget in a quagmire."
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Anna was also delighted that Debbie is so different from anything that she's done before. "After Bleak House," she observes, "I was offered costume drama after costume drama. But, wonderful as Bleak House was, you don't want to keep doing the same thing again and again.
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"As soon as I read White Girl, I thought, 'I have to do this. This is what I have grafted years for'. It's something totally different. It's a beautiful story with a fascinating subject and a wonderful director and cast. The whole prospect was thrilling."
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The production did not disappoint, the actress found working on White Girl a hugely rewarding experience. But that does not mean that it was always straightforward playing Debbie, a mother who from time to time spectacularly loses her temper with her children.
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"It was incredibly upsetting to do the scenes where she gets violent with her children," sighs the actress, who also starred as Sally Bowles in the West End production of Cabaret. "But it's not malicious on her part. Her frustration, loneliness and despair drive her to behave in that way."
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In the end, however, Debbie is redeemed by Leah's example. "White Girl is a story about childhood innocence," comments Anna. "Leah is desperate to find something peaceful in her life. Why is she drawn to Islam? Because it represents a simplicity and a tranquillity that is lacking in her world."
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"We've striven not to make this a story about Islam. It could have been about anything that provided peace for Leah and saved Debbie from disaster. Ultimately, it's about a mother and a daughter struggling to love each other, and that should strike a chord with everyone."
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