On The Cover Sally Lindsay “It’s Lovely To Do My Job Again”
Sally Lindsay tells us about the challenges of working during a pandemic and why her latest drama will have us hooked…
Since leaving Coronation Street 15 years ago, Sally Lindsay has become one of our best-loved TV actresses. But like most of us, she has spent a lot of time at home in the past year.
Riding out the lockdowns with her musician husband Steve White and their 10-year-old twin sons, Victor and Louie, in Manchester, her normal life as an in-demand TV actress and presenter has changed somewhat. So when she was asked to star in new Channel 5 drama, Intruder, at the height of the pandemic, she was just happy to get back to doing what she loves.
“It’s lovely to be able to do my job again,” she says. “It was a different way of doing things, but I feel so lucky. It’s interesting to be working during a pandemic and I think any actor would say it’s not ideal, but we all tried our best.”
There were strict Covid restrictions in place on the shoot last October and November, but on location in Dublin Sally says there were some wonder ful moments too, where she almost felt like she was on holiday.
“I enjoyed the scenes where I’m walking along the seafront, because I’ve never seen that part of Ireland before – and it felt quite liberating and normal, doing that with my mask off!” she says. “I love being near the sea and the scener y in the drama is phenomenal.”
Those walks were a welcome respite not only from Covid, but also from the hard-hitting nature of the four-part drama, which tells the stor y of a botched burglary. The plot centres around affluent couple Sam and Rebecca, who find two teenage intruders in their beautiful West Country home. All hell breaks loose when Sam kills one of the intruders, Syed Khalil, in a paranoid rage and tries to cover the murder up.
At first, they seem to have got away with their lie, as the police take their story at face value, but the plot takes a twist when Sally’s character Karen Bailey arrives on the scene.
Karen is a Family Liaison Officer (FLO) who meets with the murdered boy’s father and suspects that there’s more to the case than meets the eye.
Sally admits that she felt comfortable in the role, because she understood the character – handily, her mum works in a very similar field, as a social worker.
“I think FLOs are extremely perceptive people, very much like social workers. Bailey is influenced by my mum’s experiences of reading the room, but also being terribly sensitive and empathetic, because ever ything you hear may or may not be true. Bailey is used to it, just like Mum was, and I’ve drawn on a lot of that experience.”
Intruder is the latest addition to Sally’s sparkling CV. The actress, who played barmaid Shelley Unwin in
“I love being near the sea and the scenery in intruder is phenomenal”
Corrie from 2001 to 2006, has taken on a wealth of different projects in the 15 years since she left the ITV soap.
She’s starred in comedies such as the BBC’s Still Open All Hours and Mount Pleasant on Sky One, and even voiced a Wallace
&Gromit character. And she hasn’t been afraid to deviate away from acting, presenting series such as Channel 5’s Posh Sleepover alongside l g id Nigel Nig l HHavers and d Britain’s Most Expensive Houses. In 2011, she was a regular on the LooseWomen panel, too.
But in 2019, she dipped her toe into something a little darker and was universally praised for her portrayal of a woman who lost £83,000 in a phone scam in Channel 5’s Cold Call. Intruder is written by the same creative team behind this drama and Sally says it was lovely to reunite with them for the show.
“The team is brilliant. Gareth, the director and writer, is quite direct about what he wants, and his style is very film noir – this drama is all about trepidation and anticipation, and in that way it’s Hitchcockian.
“The script we’ve got is unbelievable.”
Intruder is on MondayThursday, April 5-8 at 9pm on Channel 5