On politics, anxiety and the joys of being middle-aged
As she returns to our screens in a new TV series, the actress tells Daphne Lockyer that current affairs leave her baffled
Rebecca Front, the whip-smart comic actress, is bewildered, her brow knitting itself into a frown, her large, expressive eyes widening into a gesture of confusion. With her stripes earned on hit shows such as The Day Today and The Thick of It – for which she won a Bafta playing hapless cabinet minister and leader of the opposition, Nicola Murray – she now finds real-life current affairs out-parodying anything satirical she has appeared in. “If you made this stuff up,” she says, “nobody would believe it.”
She means, for example, the parlous Brexit talks, Theresa May’s party conference coughing fit, the ongoing scandals about sex pests in the corridors of Westminster – all subjects that, given her career history, she’s asked about daily.
“I’ve been asked to write about the current political landscape, but I’m keeping out of it because, quite honestly, I don’t know what the heck’s going on,” she admits. “I read the papers and I’m a total news junkie, but, still, I can’t understand the half of it.”
Just as well, perhaps, that this self-confessed workaholic is at work on a raft of projects well outside the political sphere. In the coming months, she’ll publish a follow-up to her book, Curious – a collection of personal stories that was shortlisted for a National Book Award – and, much to her own amusement, you’ll see her play an “all-action” character in the Hollywood ghost story, Down a Dark Hall.
On top of that, there are three TV projects: she’s filming a role as Lady Whitworth, a new character in the BBC series Poldark, and will be one of the contestants in an ITV Christmas Day special, All Stars Musical, in which celebrities team up with a professional and are trained to perform a number in front of a live audience. “We’ve already recorded it, but if I told you who won, I’d have to kill you,” she laughs.
Before that, there’s the series that we’re meeting in the bar of London’s Langham Hotel to discuss – a new Kay Mellor drama, which begins this week on BBC One. Love, Lies and Records follows a group of register office workers dealing with the big moments of other people’s lives – birth, marriage and death. “But, like all Kay’s characters, they also have quite messy, complicated lives of their own.”
Front plays Judy, a socially awkward jobsworth hell-bent on revenge when her colleague Kate (played by Ashley Jensen) is promoted above her. Po-faced and morally judgmental, she is the antithesis of the ebullient, self-mocking actress now before us. “I doubt we’d ever be friends,” Front admits. “But, at the same time, I didn’t
‘Honestly, has there ever been a better time to be a middleaged woman?’
want to play her like the Wicked Witch of the West. There’s a slightly tragic side to her, too. I found her quite puzzling, which always attracts me, because the worse thing is playing a character that you can sum up in just two words. But thanks to writers like Kay Mellor, we’re now nudging towards a time when roles for women are more interesting and threedimensional, although I wouldn’t say we’re completely there yet.”
Recent revelations about film producer Harvey Weinstein show how slow progress has been in other areas, too. Now aged 53, Front must have been a young actress during the worst years of the couching cast era, and yet she says she was unscathed. “Looking back, I suppose, I was just so fortunate that the influential men I worked with early on in my career, including people like Armando Iannucci (the writer and producer of Alan Partridge who later cast her in The Thick of It), were universally respectful, supportive and lovely. And that’s not just actressy waffle, it’s the truth.”
Front admits there are certain problems peculiar to showbusiness. “For starters, we don’t have an HR department to police things, and there are no strict rules governing the process of auditioning. It’s not like going to an interview at a bank. Plus, of course, if you’re young and you’re new and you don’t want your career to be ruined or to have someone powerful say that it’s your word against theirs, then you find yourself in an utter minefield.
“I think there are real benefits to getting older,” she adds. “And the confidence to deal with difficult situations is one of them.” She speaks as someone who has suffered a lifetime of anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioural therapy helped her deal with claustrophobia, hypochondria and fear of public transport. “Trains and planes, I’ve just about conquered,” she says. “I still won’t travel in a lift or go on the Underground, but I’m an awful lot better than I was.” She hesitates to describe it as a “battle”. “There are people who suffer massive mental health issues all their lives, whereas mine – getting panicky in certain situations, as unpleasant as it is – feels a bit ‘first world’ in comparison. I want others to know it’s not normal for anxieties to limit the way you live. More important, if this is you, there’s help available and, really, the worst thing you can do is nothing. In my experience, anxiety disorders don’t get better on their own, in fact they spread.”
Aside from a brilliant therapist she still sees for occasional top-ups (“a bit like seeing your hairdresser”), Front credits her marriage to the producer Phil Clymer for so much of her stability. “I have a husband who’s both honest and loyal and gives brilliant advice, but at the same time keeps me completely grounded.”
For example, he waved her off to her first day as Nicola Murray in The Thick of It with the words: “Don’t f--- it up, it’s my favourite show.”
“Similarly, if I come home full of angst about something he’ll be like: ‘Sure, that sounds terrible… but can we move on, because the football is on in a minute?’” she laughs.
The couple met in the late Eighties when Front auditioned for the English drama department of the BBC World Service. “I sent a tape and 12 producers had to listen to it. I heard I’d got the job, but only 11 of them had wanted to employ me. Later, after we married, I discovered Phil was the 12th.” He’d thought she sounded too posh, although, in fact, she was raised in a middle-class Jewish family. The couple now have two children, Oliver, 18, and Tilly, 16.
Having a teenage daughter, she says, is like having your own personal stylist. “If I say: ‘Well, I don’t know if I can get away with wearing that…’ she’ll say: ‘Why on earth not? Would you say that to me?’ It has done absolute wonders for my confidence.” Front is happier in her skin now, in her 50s, than in any other decade. “Yes, we still exist in a society that’s in the thrall of youth and beauty, but, honestly, has there ever been a better time to be a middle-aged woman? You can still be seen as attractive, you can dress well, you can have great hair, you’re not expected to wear flat shoes and twinsets and have a shampoo and set. It’s marvellous, isn’t it?”
Recently, she and Phil hosted a Sunday lunch for 15 friends. All of the women, she recalls, “were in their 50s or 60s and all were drop-dead gorgeous. They were funny, smart, strong, sexy, confident and beautiful”. A perfect description of Rebecca Front herself.
Love, Lies and Records is on Thursday on BBC One, 9pm. All Stars Musical is on ITV1 on Christmas Day