It’s a fine line in
Rochenda Sandall turns from gang boss to dedicated detective in a new TV series, says
ROCHENDA SANDALL’S career has hit a sweet spot. After an unforgettable starring role in last year’s Line Of Duty as cold-hearted villain Lisa – prompting a Bafta nomination, along with equally shifty co-star Stephen Graham, for “TV moment of the year” – she’s now in the second series of Netflix interrogation room drama Criminal.
It’s clear she hasn’t been resting during lockdown, unlike many TV stars.
“It hasn’t been too bad for me,” she says. “I managed to buy a flat, and I got a dog and she keeps me happy.
“I’ve been working too. I’m doing Alan Bennett’s new Talking Heads at the theatre after doing the TV version. I was busy learning that for the first month and now we’re on stage.”
She only finished filming Criminal at the start of the year. “We shot this in January. Everything about the show is very fast-paced. We shoot 10 pages a day, so it means the whole thing is done in about four weeks. We then get to send it off which, given everything, people are really grateful for because content is starting to run out. For films, you can wait two years – you just about forget that you’ve done it!”
The Jed Mercurio-penned Line Of Duty catapulted her to national attention. “Just the press behind it, and the amount of people that watch it, makes it huge. I think it was second only to Gavin & Stacey in popularity. It hit 9.5 million viewers and that’s the live figures on the actual night.”
The role was a big break. “I was a massive fan of Line Of Duty before I got cast in it. When I got it, I was like, ‘Wow!’ It was like walking on to the set of my favourite TV show.”
Not bad for a lass from a Grimsby housing estate. “Yes, I was born in Nunsthorpe,” she says. “After fishing and the steel industry left, the money drained out. And the families who had generational work in those factories were just totally obliterated. It’s very sad.
“All my family are still there, my mum’s mum lives in nearby Immingham. My sister lives there too and just had a baby, and I had only met her daughter once. So I went down to meet the baby again recently.”
It wasn’t an easy route into drama. “There wasn’t really any drama in that area at all until someone came along in my last couple of years of school, and she started it all up. My dad was musical director at an amateur dramatics society, so he got me into it through the musical theatre side.
“I’d never seen a play until I was 18. I’d never seen or watched any Shakespeare, or anything like that. It’s been a massive journey for me but I loved it. Once I got the taste, I couldn’t stop.”
You sense this is her time, notwithstanding an industry that is struggling with Covid. “It’s all stopped unfortunately but the opportunities are so wide and vast now that I feel so lucky, coming where I’m from and it doesn’t seem like so long ago that I was mooching around Grimsby. It’s just amazing to have a goal and then achieve something. It’s just amazing to have done one show. It’s great for me.”
Sandall is modest with it. Her role as a detective on Criminal is a flip of Lisa’s villainy. But it shares a similar tension to Line Of Duty.
“There are some similarities. We shoot seven- to 11-minute takes where they want to do it all in one shot. That’s a challenge. But then we’re off having a giggle and we all eat our tea together. The core team all live within a mile of each other, Lee Ingleby, Katherine Kelly and Shubham Saraf are close by, so in real life we’re actually friends.
“We became friends when we did the first series in Madrid. And then just over the last year we’ve all moved to around this area in North London, so it’s got better. We can just all walk up to the pub and have a quick pint.”
SHE ADDS: “It’s like life imitating art. It’s exactly what police officers would do! It all helps the chemistry. Apart of Shubham, we’re all northern too. A good northern vibe going on there.”
Most scenes are gripping two-handers with guest stars facing a grilling from the detective sitting opposite.
Kit Harington
(Game Of
Thrones)