I have been wanting to play a role that I knew from the inside out
BEN ALDRIDGE TALKS ABOUT ITV’S NEW DRAMA THE LONG CALL AND PLAYING A CHARACTER WHOSE SEXUALITY AND EMOTIONAL INNER WORLD BORE SIMILIARITIES TO HIS OWN
ACTOR Ben Aldridge, known to fans for his roles as Captain Charles James in Our Girl and for playing one of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s love interests in Fleabag, stars in ITV’s new four-part drama, The Long Call.
The 35-year-old, who fans may also recognise as Batman’s father Thomas Wayne in the series Pennyworth, plays Detective Inspector Matthew Venn in the show.
The drama sees DI Venn and his husband Jonathan, played by Declan Bennett, return to the small town in North Devon where Matthew grew up. But his homecoming is not without its struggles as he navigates his relationship with his mother, Dorothy, played by Juliet Stevenson.
Brought up among the Barum Brethren, a strict religious group, at 19, Matthew realised he couldn’t continue to hide his sexuality and live among the community.
Veteran actor Martin Shaw takes the role of Brethren leader Dennis Stephenson, with Anita Dobson as his wife and former Doctor Who actress Pearl Mackie as DS Jen Rafferty.
Ann Cleeves who wrote the novel of the same name that The Long Call is based on, as well as the books on which TV hits Vera and Shetland are based, said of Ben’s casting: “Ben was the actor who read the audio book even before the TV show was commissioned.
“I love his pared-back, restrained narration. He’s worked on the novel as well as the script, and so he understands the character in depth. No author could wish for more.”
In 2020, Ben shared a message on Instagram saying he was a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, writing: “The journey to pride was a long one for me. I love the LGBTQ+ community and am incredibly proud and thankful to be a part of it. So much won. So much more to fight for. #pride”.
Here the actor talks about his personal connections to the drama.
Can you explain how you got involved in The Long Call?
I had narrated the audiobook and heard afterwards that it was being commissioned as a TV series.
I remember thinking at the time that, although Matthew and I were extremely different in personality and energy, there were many crossovers and experiential similarities.
When they were originally casting, I was unavailable. Later, though, my commitments shifted and it became a possibility.
You have spoken about crossovers between yourself and Matthew. The first being that you both identify as gay. Was it liberating to play the character?
Extremely. I’ve been wanting to play a character whose sexuality and emotional inner world is similar to my own and this felt like the right project to do so.
A lot of what Matthew has experienced and continues to navigate in this piece is recent history for me.
Acting is imaginative and creative and sometimes requires spending time in situations that you haven’t necessarily experienced yourself or know about yet, that’s what enables actors to play a range of parts beyond their own experience, that’s the ideal anyhow.
That said, I’ve been wanting to play a role that I knew from the inside out, a role that was close to me, that didn’t involve total imagination but instead, drew on and expressed some of my own experiences.
Do you share any of Matthew’s experiences with religion given the storyline features it in the form of the fictional religious group Barum Brethren?
I was raised as an evangelical Christian, and before that, my parents and grandparents had themselves been devout members of the Brethren. Both my grandfathers were Elders in their respective churches.
My parents moved away from that particular denomination when they met, however the memories lived on in my wider family, as did some of the culture.
I was able to use that knowledge and my own experience growing up in the evangelical movement in relation to Matthew.
What did you find in speaking to your parents?
Parts of it were extremely similar; there were so many corresponding conversations and coincidences.
I was able to ask my parents about many of the specifics regarding the Brethren.
They were both brilliant sources of information.
We spent hours talking, dissecting, reminiscing, telling stories.
It’s quite a unique thing to be on the other side of religious devotion looking back at it.
How does this affect Matthew?
In Matthew’s case, he had been ostracised by the Barum Brethren and his own mother, Dorothy, as they believe being gay is a sin and results in burning in the fires of Hell.
Matthew had to leave his family and everything he’d known behind as a young adult and is only returning now 20 years later.
Though different, I have experienced my own version of that and so I understand how Matthew’s specific religious background can contribute to, compound and amplify the feelings of shame surrounding his sexuality and the seemingly insurmountable obstacles this creates in his struggle on the journey to a prideful existence.
How would you describe the mother-son relationship between Matthew and Dorothy?
They are both stuck in a state of unexpressed turmoil – two people who cannot bring themselves to talk about the very issue that is destroying them; Matthew’s homosexuality.
The Barum Brethren don’t express emotion, they are stoical. When these two characters are reunited in the story, they are worlds apart in ideology, beliefs and lifestyle. Matthew has spent 20 years living in the secular world, Dorothy is frozen in time, clinging to her religion.
It is near impossible to reason with or change what someone faithfully believes to be true, to be fact, and Matthew knows that. Therefore, even though he perhaps longs for his mother’s acceptance, it feels a futile desire. Talking is an essential part of healing both for parents and queer children, but here, even with the little communicating they are able to withstand, they manage to hurt each other further.
What was the atmosphere on set?
Surprisingly, it was a very funny set.
In front of camera, the drama itself was pretty dark and intense – there’s a lot of pain in the piece, but on set, there was always laughter, a lot of levity.
The Long Call is on ITV on Monday at 9pm