Dame Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane talk about their new British TV drama.
Dame Julie Walters (right) and Robbie Coltrane unite for a timely drama in which a famous figure in the entertainment world is at the centre of a shocking scandal involving sexual offences against women. Jim Maloney reports.
When the four-part drama National Treasure screened in the UK, it was in the wake of a string of real-life exposes of several well-known British celebrities, most significantly DJ, broadcaster and TV presenter Jimmy Saville who, after his death, was found to have abused numerous victims.
Now, with a swell of accusations of indecent assault in the industry, the Brit drama is being aired here.
Robbie Coltrane stars as the fictitious Paul Finchley, one-half of a cherished comedy double-act who have made people laugh at their antics and catchphrases over the decades.
But Paul and his adoring public are shaken when he is arrested after an accusation of rape that dates back to the 1990s.
He denies having even met the woman who is making the allegation and his loyal wife, Marie, played by Julie Walters, faithfully stands by him. But his troubled daughter Dee (Angela Riseborough), who has been in and out of rehab for drug addiction, begins to question her relationship with her father. And as the investigation unfolds, Marie also wonders if her husband is who she thinks he is. “Paul Finchley has been in a double-act with Karl (Tim McInnerny) for 40 years and is ingrained in the public’s fond memory for their TV shows and Christmas specials,” says Coltrane, 67, who played loveable giant Hagrid in the Harry Potter films and criminal psychologist Eddie Fitzgerald in the TV series Cracker. “They are huge stars. And suddenly a policeman turns up at the
door and says there is this woman who has come forward saying that he raped her in 1990. And suddenly he is off to the police station and his life and his wife’s life falls off a cliff.
“One of the main plots of the story is that the press are allowed to publish the names of those who have been accused of such crimes, which is not true in almost any other crime, until they have got the evidence.
“Some woman has come forward and said that so and so did something in 1990 and their name is all over the press. It’s what they call ‘fishing’. What they do is, they think if they publish a name and the accusation then other people will come forward.
“But the difficulty is that some of them may well be telling the truth but others might be delusional or saying things to the press in return for payment.”
Dame Julie Walters, who also appeared in the Harry Potter films as Molly Weasley and in Indian Summers as Cynthia Coffin, says that sexual abuse accusations are painful for all family members and even more so when the allegations are in the public domain.
“Problems in families where there is a celebrity are always magnified because there is always the threat of exposure, of it being made public. So that’s an added stress on relationships.
“Marie is a devout Catholic and she wouldn’t believe in divorce or splitting up. She knows that her husband has not been faithful over the years, but she sees it as a weakness in him and so she forgives him. That’s how she deals with it.
“If I was her I’d be out of the door, but she’s not like that. She wants to keep the family together and I found her very interesting to play.”
Coltrane, too, thought it was a fascinating subject and one that he hoped would engender debate. “We’ve all seen famous people who have been accused of some sexual accusation arriving at court with the wife on one arm and the daughter on the other,” he says. “And it makes you think, ‘Hello, what’s going on here? Maybe they are a very happy family and he’s been wrongly accused.’
“The drama shows both sides – what life is like for a victim and for somebody who has been accused of doing it. Like all good dramas it illustrates what people’s lives are actually like away from the TV cameras. You can send somebody to court and prosecute them but that’s never the full truth.”
Coltrane and Walters have been in the acting business for years. So do they think they might be thought of as ‘national treasures’ – a label for entertainers loved by the public? Robbie shudders at the thought. “It usually means that you’ve gone soft, if they call you that,” he says. “You’ve lost your edge and will never do anything dangerous or challenging ever again. Despite my age I still like to be thought of as quite edgy and rude.”
“The drama shows both sides – what life is like for a victim and for somebody who has been accused of doing it.” – Robbie Coltrane