Y charming grandfather’
to maintain her temper throughout. It’s a delicate balancing act with the character questioning everything she once believed to be true and learning that her husband never actually divorced his first wife and may have had a string of other relationships, too.
Ruth acknowledges that it has been an emotional experience putting the project together: “Of course I never knew my grandfather. And it was amazing being on set and seeing the clapboard with “Mrs Wilson” on it. It’s better than fiction, it’s real life, and great to finally put it on the screen.
“But it was a scary process, being so vulnerable and exposing the family in that way. It’s something we talked about a lot and I tried to be very sensitive towards them.”
Making the drama has also changed her relationship with her own family.
“My grandmother wrote from her own perspective and only knew about one wife. She had also destroyed every other mention of him in diaries and letters. So she had this one thing she was giving to the family, her narrative, her journey.
“But because we’ve brought in the other wives, we’ve given our Alison much more agency as she herself goes searching for the truth. I’m not sure my granny wanted to search for the truth. She’d had enough. It’s been the most profound experience of my life, to be inside this character and go through what she went through. I’ll never do it again, thank God.”
SHE ADDS, tellingly: “She was very religious, my grandmother. I found that she was always there, always present but at the same time she wasn’t very open. I think having done this I totally understand why and I totally understand how much passion she had inside her, how much imagination she had.
“My grandfather wrote novels but she wrote this wonderful memoir with passion and heart. She was the writer. In the end, I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to do what I’ve been able to do here. A week into the production I did feel, ‘I wish someone else was playing her’. But I knew anyone else would be very conscious about playing my grandmother, ultra-sensitive and whitewash it a bit. But in playing her myself I wanted to protect her, too.”
And despite his behaviour, she would have loved to meet her grandfather.
“Alex was a brilliant actor and I got it from him! I just wish I could have him around for dinner and put him on the spot: ‘What were you up to?’ I wish I could meet him.
“He must have been amazingly charming but I always believed that he must have been sensitive. I didn’t believe he’d been a cad. I thought he’d been someone who was almost unknowable and that’s why women were really interested in him.
“And all the children had such love for him. He must have been a really good dad. And that’s why Iain Glen [who plays Alex] has done such a good job, because he remains mysterious to the end.”
Mrs Wilson, BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm