‘We all know someone who has died. We’ve all been there’
KEELEY HAWES is fast becoming one of the most powerful people in television. Not only has she starred in some of our most memorable dramas such as Bodyguard and Line Of Duty, but she now makes them too, with her own production company.
Last year, she helped to create the powerful and disturbing Honour about the tragic killing of a 20-year-old girl, and this year, it’s a heartfelt and timely new ITV drama, Finding Alice, which reunites the production team from The Durrells, in which she had top billing.
Says Hawes: “Roger Goldby [director], Simon Nye [writer] and I had such a brilliant experience over the years on The Durrells, and when the drama came to an end we started thinking about ideas... and came up with Finding Alice. We were all interested in the subject of grief. It was something we wanted to explore further.
“And Finding Alice is co-produced by my company Buddy Club and I’m an executive producer alongside Roger and Simon. Putting a team together is one of the parts I really love. You get involved with everything, really. Production shutting down due to Covid-19 was a real learning curve. For everyone, in fact!”
Simon Nye, who also wrote Men Behaving Badly, again deploys his trademark humour. “We all brought our own bereavement stories,” he says. “It’s a lucky person – especially when you get to my age – who hasn’t experienced loved ones dying. We deal specifically with a sudden unexpected death when you are caught unprepared.
“Harry [Alice’s husband] in Finding Alice leaves behind a mess – financial, emotional and more. Hopefully the show is a rich blend of our ideas, all feeding in.” But first, says
Hawes, 44, married to Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, her character is dealing with shock.
“We did lots of research and quite often a woman will put her face back on and do her hair after losing somebody. Presenting herself to the world as though everything is quite normal. That is what Alice does for a while. Until the unravelling gets too much.
“It’s absolutely fascinating to look at the seven stages of grief. We all know someone who has passed away. We’ve all been there. One of the only things that unite unites us all is death and loss. You look at the seven stages of grief and think you won’t feel like that. But of course it’s totally natural. You feel cheated and angry and furious with the person. You feel desperate and guilty that you maybe feel OK one day and a bit better. It’s abs absolutely tortuous.”
Not forgetting the chaos of your partner’s missing pass passwords, which we see in the drama.
“All of that is factual,” says Hawes. “It’s astonishing in this day and age that you can’t withdraw money from your partner’s account. On top of everything else it just seems deeply unfair tha that having lost someone you then can’t live your life wit with any sense of reality.
“As A well as dealing with your grief, shock and awful sadness you are then expected to be able to deal with that side of things as well. It’s very common that one person in a relationship pays all of the bills and has all of the passwords. And if they die then the other person is stranded.”
In a star-studded cast, Hawes’s on-screen parents are Nigel Havers and Joanna Lumley.
“I have admired Keeley for a long time,” says the Ab Fab actress. “She is such a good, accomplished and varied actress. I also thought the story was brilliant. You always read the story first because no matter how
THE HITMAKER: Keeley Hawes as a mum in The Durrells
and in Bodyguard with Richard Madden
There is a terrifying edge of absurdity sometimes that makes you laugh at funerals
nice your own part is, if the writing isn’t there, if the story isn’t gripping to the audience, it’s not going to work. I thought Finding Alice was enthralling from the very beginning.”
The drama, says Lumley, 74, reinforces the idea that in death there is also humour.
“We all know there is a terrifying edge of absurdity sometimes which makes you want to laugh at funerals. The smallest thing. Because your sensibilities are so heightened. Words come out, things you didn’t mean to say or do happen because of this extreme sense of heightened awareness, responsibility and anxiety.
“Finding Alice has some very funny lines. Why shouldn’t Alice bury her husband in the garden? I think people around the country will go, ‘Good for her’. It’s fascinating on so many levels. It did make me wonder what is wrong with the idea of being buried in the garden at home? I think we’d all love to be in our own sweet land. No matter how small or humble it is. We’d love to know that granny is in the back garden.
“It also made me think about the amount of money people spend on expensive coffins which are then burned at cremations. It’s such a waste of money and wood. They could have one end of the coffin that flops open and you could shoot out the beloved body to be cremated and then the coffin could be used again.
“I hope Finding Alice prompts people to talk about death. Even if it is just about the practicalities. Get it all sorted before you go.”
IN THE drama, Alice places items in remembrance of her partner Harry on top of his coffin. Would Lumley do similarly? “Rather than on top of the coffin I might ask for them to be put into my coffin,” she says. “I collect, for some reason, wild and beautiful bird feathers so I’d like some feathers. Not an enormous amount. But I’d like my big vulture feather, my red kite feather and some of the others to go in.
“I’d like some books in case I can read on the other side. I would like to take some