Who cares?

Playing a stroke victim whose family must navigate the new care system in a powerful drama, Alison Steadman says she hopes it will make people stop and think

Alison Steadman walks into the trailer with her hair all skew-whiff. She’s wearing a hospital gown and pink makeup to make her look seriously ill. ‘Well, as you can see, I’m full of glamour,’ she laughs, giving me a twirl. ‘I’m absolutely gorgeous!’

Alison’s work, though, has never been about her looks. From Abigail’s Party and Life Is Sweet to Gavin And Stacey and

Fat Friends, she’s one of Britain’s best-loved actresses, often playing outrageously loud characters. But her role in Care, the new drama from Jimmy McGovern, who wrote Cracker, Accused and Broken, is possibly the one that will win her the greatest acclaim of her long career.

The 90-minute one-off show is not an easy watch. Alison plays Mary, who’s as bright as a button and enjoys looking after her grandchildren until a serious stroke leaves her losing her mind and no longer able to care for herself. She eats teabags, thinks every man she sees is her late husband and, because she’s partially paralysed, she can’t speak properly. Alison’s portrayal is heartbreaking, brilliantly articulating Mary’s fury and confusion – and all with barely a word said.

Sheridan Smith, Alison’s former Gavin And Stacey costar, and Sinead Keenan, who was nominated for a BAFTA last year for the emotional drama Little Boy Blue, play her daughters. Sheridan is single mother Jenny who relies on Mary’s support with her two young children, while Sinead is businesswoman Claire. They’re both top-notch actresses, but it’s Alison’s performance that you can’t take your eyes off.

‘This is what I’d call a challenging role, but I approached it with relish,’ she says when we meet on the set of the drama, in Liverpool. ‘I knew I was going to have to work to get into Mary’s brain and understand what was happening to her, what she was going through. It’s such a worthwhile piece of drama and Jimmy McGovern is such a good writer I thought that whatever he gave me I could trust.

‘Mary starts off as a very lively woman. She’s energetic, and brilliant with her grandkids. And then, bang! She has the stroke and it changes her life totally. The terrifying thing is that it could happen to any of us at any time, and there’s nothing you can do to help yourself.’

Alison, 72, worked with a doctor to understand what happens to people when they have a stroke, but did not have to look far for inspiration for Mary, who is left with dementia and becomes a different person entirely. In a tragic coincidence just a few weeks before she started filming, one of her oldest friends suffered one. ‘I visited her in a stroke ward, not for research, but because she was my friend,’ she says. ‘I tried to talk to her but she couldn’t speak. When you’ve known someone who’s feisty and chatty and full of opinions, then suddenly they can’t even say yes or no, that’s very painful to see.

‘I’d ask her something and she’d want to reply but she just couldn’t speak. She would bow her head because she was about to cry, then she’d pull herself together and sit up again. It was painful, so painful to see. None of us know what’s in the loop for us in life, do we?’

Care was partially inspired by the real-life story of Gillian Juckes, a writer for children’s TV whose mother had a stroke. She co-wrote the script with Jimmy, her f i rst major TV drama. It describes the nightmarish scenario when an older person suddenly becomes seriously ill and their family has to navigate the care system. The sisters have to fight to get the system on their side, but with scarce resources that isn’t easy.

Alison sighs. ‘We all know the NHS does its best but it’s stretched. It’s just celebrated 70 years and none of us would like to be without it, but my God, it needs millions. It needs a complete revamp and a look at where the money is spent. Some of it is being wasted. I’m hoping that even if people haven’t experienced something like this, it will make them stop and think.

‘When someone becomes seriously ill you’re suddenly plunged into this other world that you’ve never experienced. My mother had terminal cancer and suddenly you’re looking at all the services out there, and if they’re not good enough it breaks your heart because this is a human being that needs care and kindness. It’s an added pressure for families who are already dealing with a tough situation.’

In the show the family take on the authorities to help get the funding they need for the right care home. The problem is that Mary didn’t own her own home and there’s no money to put towards her care. ‘You wouldn’t leave a child who needed care to fend for themselves, yet we sometimes do that to our old people,’ says Alison. ‘What we look at in the piece is that if you have loads of money you can go to a great care home, but if you haven’t got the money you can’t. ‘A friend of mine was sent to a care home a few years ago and it was appalling. The food was dreadful, and this was a privately owned place. The girls who were working there were all lovely, they were doing their best, but they couldn’t cope. I wanted to scream every time I visited.

‘This isn’t a story critici sing ca re homes. They’re doing their best in difficult circumstances. It costs a fortune to look after someone with dementia or special physical needs. In the story the sisters discover that they could be entitled to better care, but it’s not necessarily advertised very well. You have to really hunt for it and push for it.’

Alison, who has two sons by her former husband, the director Mike Leigh, and recently became a grandmother for the first time, admits that being in the show has made her think about her own advancing age and frailties. She lives with long-term partner, fellow actor Michael Elwyn, and although she’s healthy she admits to getting a bit creaky. ‘I’m 72 and it makes you think, “Oh my God, I’ll be 82 in ten years,”’ she sighs. ‘But this is life and it’s going to happen to all of us.

‘The ageing process is a funny old thing. When you’re young, you feel like you’ll live forever, and then you find yourself at my age. I think about my parents and my aunts and how they got old and changed, not in a morbid way but in a realistic way, which is something I’ve never done before.

‘I’ve realised that over the past 12 months I’ve got a little creakier. Between 60 and 70 I felt good, but now I’m sort of thinking, “You know what, I don’t know whether I want to climb 80 stairs up to that restaurant.” But doing this job makes me appreciate that at the end of the day I can get dressed, put on my lipstick and go and have a gin and tonic – some people aren’t so lucky.’

‘During my 60s I felt good, now I’m creakier’

Alison and (inset) with Sheridan Smith in the drama