‘Grace is feisty but capable, a away from Daisy in Downton
Actress Sophie McShera has spoken of her delight at landing a leading role in a new Calderdale-filmed BBC TV period drama.
The Bradford-born star, who plays Grace Hartley – the partner of notorious counterfeiters gang ringleader ‘King’ David Hartley (Michael Socha) – in the upper Calder Valleyset series, The Gallows Pole, said it had been nice to be back home in West Yorkshire and working with director Shane Meadows to bring the ‘outspoken and capable’ female character to life.
It’s a far cry from Sophie’s role as Daisy the kitchen maid in all six series of the hit show Downton Abbey.
“WhenIfirstmetShane,he spoke about how it was important to him to bring the female characters more into the story – and I think just by giving those women space they came totheforeandbecameintegral to the whole thing, especially in getting the community on side,” she said.
“LessisknownaboutGrace than David and she doesn’t really appear in the novel (Gallows Pole), but there is no way shewasn’tinvolvedinwhatthe coiners were doing – she definitely wasn’t just in the background.”
The Gallows Pole: Sophie McShera as Grace Hartley in the BBC TV adaptation of the novel by Calder Valley author Ben Myer’s on the Cragg Vale Coiners story.
The character of Grace is feisty, outspoken and capable – she is described by Hartley at one point as “mouthy but wise” – and a million miles away from Daisy in Downton Abbey.
“Yes, they are quite different. I absolutely loved playing
Daisy and I learnt so much while I was playing her but I really relished the prospect of coming to this new character, showing a different side to myself and what I can do.”
The legend of the Coiners, previously little known outside Calderdale, was brought
to wider public attention by Calder Valley writer Ben Myers’ award-winning 2017 novel The Gallows Pole which inspired the new three-part BBC series.
It is a Robin Hood-style story of wealth redistribution in that the counterfeiters gang,
led by David Hartley, collected coins,clippedthem,madenew coins out of the clippings and then gave them to members of their community, all of whom were in dire need.
The venture became one of the biggest frauds in British criminal history, but it was
born out of desperation not greed.
The group comprised destitute weavers and farm workers whose lives and livelihoods were adversely affected by the beginnings of industrialisation in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The formerly