Daily Mail

Suranne: Doctors told me to quit dark play for my health

- By Alisha Rouse Showbusine­ss Correspond­ent

SURANNE Jones has told how she became so traumatise­d playing the mother of a kidnapped girl that doctors urged her to pull out of the production.

The star revealed the ‘dark’ role left her suffering hallucinat­ions, anxiety and exhaustion.

The effects were so bad that she would panic if she heard the opening music to the West End play, Frozen, and at one point she had an ‘out of body’ experience and was forced to leave the stage.

She eventually decided to pull out of the show’s run after suffering a collapse.

At the time it was claimed that the demanding role had ‘contribute­d’ to a mystery illness.

‘ I was having hallucinat­ions, which was my body shutting down, because I was exhausted,’ the 40-year- old Doctor Foster star told Vogue.

‘I was feeling trapped every time I went to the theatre – when I heard the music for Frozen I’d freak out.

‘ Doctors told me not to continue, but of course I did, because my face was up there [ on the posters].’

The mother-of-one said she felt pressure to continue with the play at the Theatre Royal Haymarket having seen online that fans were travelling from across the country to see her. Miss Jones’ own son was just 23 months old when she starred in the gritty play.

‘[I was] working, working, working, on all these very dark subjects,’ she explained.

‘So without realising, I was not dealing with what I should have been dealing with.

‘By the time I got to Frozen, l was feeling very lonely, very anxious, I didn’t want to go out and speak to people. And that ended up with me collapsing.’

She revealed she suffered an ‘outof-body thing, a really scary incident’ on stage, and came off halfway through a performanc­e.

In the play, written by Bryony Lavery, Miss Jones’ character’s daughter Rhona is abducted by a paedophile serial killer, played by Olivier-nominee Jason Watkins.

In a disturbing series of monologues, Watkins’ character Ralph describes in detail how he kidnapped and abused the young girl.

Alongside this, the mother, Nancy, details her anguish in extraordin­arily emotional speeches.

Watkins, who recently volunteere­d in a hospital to back the Daily Mail’s Help-force campaign, was highly praised for the difficult and disturbing role.

Miss Jones pulled out before the show’s final four performanc­es, with understudy Roisin Rae taking over the role. The show ran from late February until May 5 last year.

The actress said she later got ‘help’ from a therapist and began working on a more uplifting project, Gentleman Jack – an upcoming BBC drama series.

The full feature appears in the April issue of British Vogue.

 ??  ?? Collapse: Suranne Jones said the play left her in a state of panic
Collapse: Suranne Jones said the play left her in a state of panic
 ??  ?? Demanding role: In Frozen
Demanding role: In Frozen

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