FACING THE MUSIC
Michelle Dockery heads this drama set in the Midlands in the 1980s, exploring the ska and two-tone music scene
This Town Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, 9pm, BBC One
Michelle Dockery is back in another period drama – but she has swapped 1920s high society for the twotone music scene of the 80s.
In This Town – from the pen of Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight – Michelle plays Estella, a mother and singer who never hit the big time, due to her difficult relationship with alcohol. Against a background of social unrest and IRA terrorist threats, a group of young people harness the power of music to escape their grim reality.
“It’s very different to anything I’ve played before,” says Michelle, 42.
“I play Estella, who is the mother of one of the band.” When we meet Estella she has been “banished from her community” and is struggling with alcoholism.
“She’s very much on the outskirts of what’s happening in the story, then she’s drawn into the music,” says Michelle. “Estella once could have been a very successful singer but due to her problems with alcohol she had to walk away.”
Levi Brown plays poet and songwriter Dante. His fellow band members are Eve Austin, who plays Jeannie, Ben Rose as Bardon, and Jordan Bolger as Gregory.
The series is set in the West Midlands, where writer Steven grew up.
“It’s so joyful and it’s so beautiful, the way it’s been shot and the way Birmingham and Coventry is shown. It’s remarkable, it’s so colourful,” says Michelle. “Two-tone music brought people together in hard times and that is exactly what the show is about.”
She was thrilled to travel back to when she was a child.
“I loved being back in the 80s,” says Michelle. “The production side is incredible.
“You’d spot certain things like the old Fairy Liquid bottles. Things like that took me right back to my childhood. And the costumes and the whole world.
“It was really fun to be part of it, seeing shop windows with advertising for milk for 50p!”