Jessica Baglow
Doncaster-born Jessica Baglow may have just turned 33 but she has already had an acting career of well over 20 years. This week she is playing Lady Macbeth at the Leeds Playhouse in its production of the Shakespeare tragedy.
What’s your first Yorkshire memory?
Me and dad and my two brothers and I left Yorkshire when I was probably around two years old or so.
I’d been born in the Royal Infirmary in Doncaster – and we moved to You Know Where, on the other side of the Pennines. But we came back a lot, and we’d visit my darling grandma and grandfather in Rossington, and they had the most marvellous garden, in which children could run around among the trees and the flowerbeds. Both my grandparents were hugely supportive of my “creative side”, and my grandma, who is now 90, will be coming to see me when I am on stage in Leeds.
What’s your favourite part of the county – and why?
I have a very warm spot for Huddersfield, and that’s because it is where I started my acting career, at the tender age of seven. My mum used to have a little drama school in Bolton, and various casting agents would drop by. One day, one of them suggested that I might like to audition for a role in Where the Heart Is, which first came on screen in 1997, and I was lucky enough to land the part. I could not have had better drama teachers – people like Pam Ferris, Sarah Lancashire and Keith Barron.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in
Yorkshire? My wife Anna and I went to Howarth for a weekend, and we discovered that the place that we really wanted to see, the Parsonage Museum, was shut down because of the Covid restrictions, so we went on a lot of walks and hikes in the open air instead. The landscape is so sad, but poignantly beautiful, very dramatic.
Do you have a favourite walk – or view?
We’d planned to do the Coast-toCoast Walk, but the pandemic put paid to that, as well, so that is one for the coming months, or maybe next year. But put me on the top of any moor, and the panorama is just wonderful. If I am going to have to be specific, then there’s a balcony at Shibden
Hall, where we film a lot of Gentleman Jack, which looks out over the park below.
Which Yorkshire sportsperson, past or present, would you like to take for lunch?
There is no way that you could call me “sporty”, but I’ve read a lot about Nicola Adams, and she seems to be such a tenacious person, full of her own personal determination, and a genuine role model for young women. It would be a delight to sit down with her and to talk about her field of endeavour, and to see if there are any similarities with mine.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, or past or present, would you like to take for dinner?
At the end of last year, I was lucky enough to get a role in a new film called Hallelujah! It is adapted from the play by Alan Bennett, and it’s set in a Yorkshire hospital that is threatened with closure. I play Dr Jess, and there are other much bigger parts played by people like Sir Derek Jacobi, Jennifer Saunders and… Dame Judi Dench. I managed to have a long chat with Sir Derek one day, and he was such a gentleman, but I missed out on meeting Dame Judi, so I’m hoping that this dinner with her will put that right!
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be?
Way down a road which seems to be surrounded by an industrial estate, you find that the countryside opens out, and you can see fields and trees, and horses and wildlife. And there is Holdsworth House, a hotel and restaurant on the outskirts of Halifax that is an oasis of perfection where you’d least expect it.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity?
It’s size, its landscape, its variety, its number of variations, from big cities to tiny villages, from coast to Wolds and Dales. People here aren’t suspicious, and they give eye contact readily. We live in Essex – try saying “thank you” to the bus driver down there, and you are looked on as someone rather odd.
Do you follow sport in the county, and if so, what?
No, not I. But, in mitigation, all my family follow good old Doncaster Rovers with a passion.
Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub?
The Burgoyne Hotel in Reeth – wonderfully run, astonishing food, and nothing is too much trouble for them.
Do you have a favourite food shop? Leeds Market takes a lot of beating for fresh food, sensible prices and great quality. There’s a stall in there called Banh & Mee, which specialises in Vietnamese food, and the kindness and knowledge of the people who run it is immeasurable.
How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you’ve known it?
It’s been a pleasure, over the years, to see so much restoration and revitalisation work, on scales both large and small – a great example is the Piece Hall in Halifax.
Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire?
Anne Lister, who owned Shibden Hall, and who was scared of nothing nor any person. She was herself, and proud of it, a real trailblazer. How I would have loved to have met her.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work?
Greatly, in that I keep on getting asked to come here to work on all sorts of TV, theatre and occasionally film productions. Yorkshire looks after me, and long may it continue to do so.
Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/ performer.?Jane
Eyre. How could a young woman, from a tiny community in the remoteness of Yorkshire of those days, devise such a plot, with so many dramatic but authentic twists and turns?
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be?
I’ll name Shibden as one place, but then I would take them on the Sally Wainwright Trail, to locations where that amazing writer has set everything from To Walk Invisible and Happy Valley to Last Tango in Halifax and At Home with the Braithwaites .She has left us a legacy of television gold, and there will be much, much more to come.
■ Macbeth, Leeds Playhouse, until March 19. Tel: 0113 213 7700.