Lines that left Joanna in tears

SHE spoke Welsh when she scooped her Bafta for After Love, saying: ‘Diolch yn fawr iawn, as we say in my country! Bafta, thank you so much . . . some stories have surprising endings, don’t they?’

But actress Joanna Scanlan admits she was reduced to tears of frustration while attempting to learn her lines for a TV drama filmed in Welsh.

‘It was like swimming in the sea — in the dark, in the middle of the night — on occasions, as I failed again and again, to understand the language,’ said Scanlan, who plays grieving mother Sharon Roberts in Channel 4’s six-part The Light In The Hall.

Wirral-born Scanlan grew up in North Wales, but had only just started learning Welsh when the part was offered to her. ‘I thought I wouldn’t be able to learn so much Welsh dialogue, and had to be talked out of quitting the project by my husband,’ she recalled. ‘It was only thanks to my 19-year-old niece, Robin, who is a Welsh speaker, that I finally started to learn. She caught me crying in the kitchen, after one particularly frustrating attempt to learn my lines, told me to get a grip and drilled the words into me!’

The Light In The Hall, which was filmed in both Welsh and English and co-stars Alexandra Roach, will air on Channel 4 this autumn, with Welsh subtitles. The Welsh language version, Y Golau, premieres this Sunday on S4C and on BBC iPlayer in Welsh with English subtitles.

Scanlan, who starred in The Thick Of It and The Larkins on TV, won her Bafta for playing Mary Hussein, a widow who discovers her husband had a secret family, in the feature film After Love.

She cheekily suggested, after her triumph, that she could play the next James Bond, but says: ‘So far, Barbara Broccoli hasn’t called.’ Despite that, Joanna has a busy year ahead, including series two of The Larkins for ITV.