YOU’LL WANT TO SIT DOWN FOR THIS…

Katherine Parkinson tells JOSH STEPHENSON about bringing her debut play from stage to screen as part of BBC Four’s Culture In Quarantine season

You wrote your portrait-painting comedy Sitting nearly three years ago. How does it feel to be starring in it at last?

It’s funny when you learn your own lines because I realised how little respect I have for myself. Why should I learn this? I wrote it. No, it was brilliant. I wasn’t going to do it because I was quite daunted by the thought of being cross with myself for not doing it right. But I figured that would be a cop-out since I had written it in my own voice and it’s very personal. I’m pleased that I did it.

Have you sat for an artist? Is that where the inspiration came from? It’s exactly that. I thought back to this slightly strange but nice experience I had as a student where I was approached by the neighbour of our student digs and he asked to paint me and I thought, ‘Ooh, I’m going to be an artist’s model,’ but it turned out to be slightly more mundane than that. But I thought there was something nice about the mundanity. It was a few hours of quiet on a Sunday morning where I just sat and I remember starting with a few lies to make myself seem more interesting and then, by the end of the weekly sittings, I felt a bit more known and a bit more seen. I don’t think a painting ever did materialise but I did get some pocket money and I enjoyed the intimacy of it.

It’s a fictional tale but there are a lot of your own experiences in it. Was that awkward?

Totally. I remember writing it and thinking, I’ll take this bit out and I won’t say that. And there’s some [nervous laughter] quite explicit things in it. In the first draft, I talked about snogging someone on the bandstand and I actually named him, and I remember the director at the time saying, ‘Maybe you want to take that out.’

One of the characters is based on your actor husband, Harry Peacock. Does he really have a habit of putting his foot in it?

I’ve been with my husband for yonks so it was more based on him when he was younger. He’s far more sophisticated now! He does claim to have seen a UFO. What else can you say? Everything is written with great affection and, even when it’s made up, a lot of it comes from a true place.

‘Even when it’s made up, a lot of it comes from a true place’

Will we see you write another play?

No, it’s a one-off. I want to write more for TV but I don’t think I have another play in me.

You commissioned Roxana Halls to draw the portraits we see at the end of the play. Did you keep yours?

I would love to have it and put it above my bed but I think it would be beyond my current financial possibilities! Roxana is entering mine and the one of Alex Jarrett [her co-star] into a portrait competition so she’s got plans to do something with them.

Katherine Parkinson’s Sitting is part of BBC Lights Up and airs tonight at 10.30pm on BBC Four