Playing dirty:
A mum fights back against a system that has condemned her to poverty in a new British drama. James Rampton reports.
Sheridan Smith talks about her new British drama set in the world of high finance.
The world is very much divided into the haves and the have-nots, and that division is highlighted very strikingly in Cleaning Up, an absorbing new British drama.
The always excellent Sheridan Smith stars as Sam, a single mother of two young daughters who has wound up in terrible debt thanks to her addiction to online gambling.
She is a cleaner for a smart stockbroking firm in Canary Wharf in the City of London. Working on a zero-hours contract for the minimum wage, Sam is finding it hard to make ends meet. She is one of the unseen legions of low-paid workers who clean up around the brokers as they rack up a fortune for themselves.
But Sam is suddenly presented with a possible answer to her financial woes when she happens upon sensitive stock market information. She begins to take revenge on the system that she feels has betrayed her by secretly entering the perilous world of insider trading.
Drawing on her innate intelligence, Sam is soon making large sums of money. But in attempting to illegally outwit the system, is she simply replacing one vice with another? Will her addictive personality get the better of her and lead her towards disaster?
Smith, who has also given tremendous performances in Care, Mrs Biggs, Cilla, The C Word and The Moorside, begins by underlining that she was drawn to this drama because it convincingly portrays the gulf between two very different levels of society. “Sam works as a cleaner at a company involved in stocks and shares. It’s a very different world from where she lives with her children,” she says.
“I loved playing all the scenes at home with the two girls who play Sam’s daughters – a total contrast to the world of Canary Wharf, which was also brilliant to film. We were
on the 33rd floor of a building there, and the views were just incredible. Cleaning Up is very much about those two different worlds and the divide between them.”
The locations in Cleaning Up help to emphasise the financial chasm that separates so many people. “The locations they found were unbelievable,” Smith reflects. “Sam lives in a cheap rented house overlooking Canary Wharf. To see so much money and then poverty right next door to it is fascinating.
“It’s very much like that in London, with lots of working-class areas in amongst affluent areas, almost back-to-back. This drama depicts that and shows the two different worlds.”
In addition, the 37-year-old actress was drawn to the fact that she felt she could really identify with the character of Sam. “The character is quite close to me and my own emotions and feelings, so it’s hard to switch off. I relate to Sam a lot. I know lots of people who are single mums and are in debt like she is, so I related to her in that respect.
“I thought, ‘This story needs to be told’. We’ve all seen the bingo and casino ads on TV. There are a lot of women who are struggling with debt and a gambling addiction. It’s an important topic at the moment. That’s what made me want to play Sam.” The actress was also intrigued by the fact that, “Cleaners are invisible to the Canary Wharf traders in their big steel and glass offices. They don’t even notice them. “So, when Sam overhears something about insider trading, she thinks this could be a way for her to make some real money and pay off her debts. She’s savvy enough to do it herself.” Cleaning Up poses knotty ethical dilemmas for us all to ponder. “Is it immoral?” Smith wonders. “Sam thinks that if a few people in this company are getting away with it, why shouldn’t she? “If I’ve done my job properly, I hope the audience will be rooting for Sam. She is a victim and a fighter. Sam is not going to apologise for what she is doing. She’s fighting back against the system. It’s that whole class divide. “Hopefully this story will provoke a debate about right and wrong. If you were given the opportunity to do something illegal like this and change your life, would you do it? I can’t wait to see what people think of that.” So would Smith ever be tempted to go down a similar path? “Obviously, I wouldn’t do anything illegal! But I’m pro-Sam all the way, and I hope people will be cheering her on.”
“I thought, ‘This story needs to be told’. We’ve all seen the bingo and casino ads on TV. There are a lot of women who are struggling with debt and a gambling addiction.”
– Sheridan Smith