Joanna’s back in the thick of it with Welsh psychological thriller Y Golau
Danielle de Wolfe speaks with Bafta awardwinning actress Joanna Scanlan to discover more
Bafta award-winning actress Joanna Scanlan enjoys a challenge
Best known for her starring roles in The Thick Of It, The Larkins and Notes On A Scandal, the 60-year-old actress’ latest project, Welsh psychological thriller Y Golau, proved to be just that.
Directly translated into English as The Light In The Hall, the gripping and decidedly dark six-part drama centres around murdered teenager Ela Roberts.
With Scanlan playing Ela’s grieving mother Sharon, the drama also stars Killing Eve’s Alexandra Roach as former friend and journalist Cat Donato, and Game Of Thrones star Iwan Rheon as convicted murderer Joe Pritchard.
Says Scanlan, “The Light In The Hall has been one of my career highlights. I loved every single moment, even though it’s also been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Pleasure and pain mixed up together. Wales is a wonderful place to work. I’ve worked there a lot anyway, in the English language, but Welsh language TV is quite special.
“I’m only really going to use excellence as my criteria for work. Of course, the more opportunities for interesting work at all levels the better. Yes, of course I would like to be in the next James Bond film. But I’d also like to be leading interesting community projects. I’ve never been somebody who just wants to restrict myself to a very narrow palette.
“Sharon is an emotionally driven individual. She spent 15 years emotionally raging, grieving, weeping and screaming about the fact the convicted murderer will not say where the body of her daughter is. I think she surprises herself, in the fact that she has no more respectable boundaries. She is so rageful that she has to take things into her own hands.
"For me, it was a joy working with Alex Roach, who I’ve worked with a lot before, who’s such a tremendous actress. I think one of Britain’s best young actors. She’s right at the top for me. So it was a lovely thing to just be there, live there, and work in the Welsh language.
“We were shooting the programme in both English and Welsh. So you’re kind of complicating it a little bit further, because you’ve got an English language version in your head and a Welsh language version. So, I’d learned my line, but what came back at me was a Welsh actor speaking their own language, speaking their emotional truth.
“When I was asked to do this, I initially thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is an incredible honour. I did lots of drama at school in a Welsh language environment, but I was never a Welsh speaker. However, when we actually got going, I was useless at it.
“It’s a very timely and important piece of drama, because one woman is killed every three days in the United Kingdom [2021 Femicide Census]. In 2021, 21 women were murdered in London. The impact on their families and loved ones is huge. So, I think it’s a very important story to talk about – and the consequences of murder, how we look at the truth, and where we find the truth.”