Lorraine Ashbourne has had a massive year. “I know! People keep saying: oh God, Lorraine, get off the telly, we want somebody else,” she says. “But it has been extraordinary.” She kicked things off in January with ITV’s entertaining disaster thriller After the Flood, playing Sophie Rundle’s tough, grieving mother, Molly. As the year went on, she returned to two of her biggest and most significant roles yet, as the former secret spy cop Daphne Sparrow in Sherwood, and Grandma Joan in the wrenching, hilarious second series of Alma’s Not Normal. Has she ended up in such outstanding shows because she’s picky? “Absolutely not. I’ll do anything! I’m a cheap date. It’s just timing that these things have fallen into place.”
Right now, Ashbourne is at home in north London. She grew up in Manchester, where she went to drama school. She met her husband, Andy Serkis, there, when they were both starring in a play at the Royal Exchange, in 1989. But she has lived in London for “40-odd years, so I’m a Londoner”. The couple’s three adult children still live at home with them, and Ashbourne’s parents are staying; her father has just had his 90th birthday. “We’re run ragged. It’s a busy household.”
Away from home, she is experiencing what we might call a career Lorraine-aissance. “I’ve just had a ball,” she says. The first series of Sherwood ended with the surprising reveal that local crime boss Daphne Sparrow was once an undercover police officer with the code name “Keats”, who had been hiding in the local community since 1984. “I can honestly say that I’ve not yet spoken to anybody that knew or guessed Daphne was the one,” she says. She recalls going in to rerecord some dialogue for it, and asking the studio technicians if they knew who it was yet. They hadn’t got a clue. “What a great thing to pull off,” she says.
If Daphne was in the shadows of series one, then writer James Graham moved her front and centre for series two. It covers even bleaker territory, as gang war and gun violence come to Nottingham, and some of Daphne’s other buried secrets burst into the open. “It was very different playing her in the first series to the second series,” says Ashbourne. “In the first telling, Daphne was really quite elusive. She was just sort of quietly simmering and strong in the background.”
The second series was more demanding, and playing Daphne proved to be more difficult. “To be honest, I felt that in the first series, everything was encapsulated and closed and finished beautifully. I didn’t expect a second series at all, so it came as a surprise.” In its return, the daughter Daphne had given up for adoption as a baby resurfaces and becomes embroiled in the Sparrows’ underworld. “I felt like I had a lump in my throat for about four months, because she holds everything inside. She’s carrying so many secrets.” The series culminates in a fantastic face-off, as Daphne and fellow crime family matriarch Ann Branson, played by Monica Dolan, battle to the death on a pier by the lake, slinging insults as they go. “It’s great to play dangerous women. The two of us together had a field day.”
Ashbourne also returned as the outrageous, extravagant, leopard-print-loving Grandma Joan, in Sophie Willan’s autobiographical comedy Alma’s Not Normal. She met Willan years ago, over a cup of tea and a slice of cake. “I liked her, I thought she was gorgeous, and she just said: ‘I see you as my gran.’” Ashbourne agreed to read the script. “And it was fucking mad. It was just like, wow. I thought, I don’t know whether I like this or not, but I’ll do it. She was nice. I’ll go along with it.” It wasn’t until the cast, including Willan, Ashbourne and Jayde Adams, came together for a read-through that it fell into place, setting it on the path to Bafta-winning glory. “I’m really, really proud I was there at the beginning,” she says.
In the second series, Grandma Joan is diagnosed with the cancer that will eventually kill her. Such is the magic of Alma that it is desperately sad and yet stuffed with belly laughs. Ashbourne says it was emotional for her, because Willan was so close to her grandma in real life. “I just wanted it to be brilliant for her. It’s an incredibly brave thing to do, to open up like that about your mind, about your life, about your family, about your background, and what she’s done.” She says there’s nothing like Alma on TV. And whether she’s flashing the neighbours, showing off her penis sculptures or semi-kidnapping her daughter’s schizophrenic boyfriend, Grandma Joan is a force of nature. “I’ve played some fantastic characters through my life, but this is at the top. Joan is vulgar and dirty and sexy. She’s just gorgeous to play. She should run the country,” she laughs. Was she tempted to keep any of the leopard print? “I have a strange relationship with leopard print since playing Joan, I have to say. I don’t quite see it in the same way.”
Ashbourne has just finished filming Riot Women, the new series from Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright, about five women in Hebden Bridge who form a makeshift punk band. It is the first time they have worked together, and Ashbourne says it feels like the right time. “I consider this my victory lap,” she says. “I’ve got to be careful not to talk about it too much.” Are you in the band? “I am in the band.” What instrument do you play? “I play the drums. Or I try to play the drums.” She had to learn for the role. “I suppose any instrument takes tremendous discipline and timing, and I’m rubbish at all of them. But at my time of life, when I’m thinking, ‘I must take up an instrument,’ it’s come into my life. It’s been brilliant.” They have played three songs together, live, in front of an audience of hundreds. “So I feel like I’ve been in a rock band. It’s been amazing.”
Recently, Ashbourne read that the optimum age for women’s confidence and self-esteem is 60. (She is 63.) “So, come on! Riot Women addresses that we have so much to offer. Yes, I am menopausal, and I have hot sweats. My ovaries are drying up nicely. My children don’t need me any more, I’ve got ageing parents, but we’re ripe to take things on. And I guess I feel a little like that about my career. It’s like, yeah! I can do this.” She is about to go back to work on Bridgerton, having played the Featheringtons’ housekeeper, Mrs Varley, since the start. And After the Flood will return for a second series, with filming due to start next year. “But I think I want to retire, to be honest with you,” she jokes.
Ashbourne rarely does interviews. “I don’t really like talking about myself, full stop,” she says. “I like delving into other characters and their world, as opposed to mine.” But surely, after the year she’s had, people are starting to recognise her a bit more? “It’s certain places, certain times – like in the knicker department at Marks & Spencer.” Usually, people ask where they know her from. “And you’re reluctant to go: ‘I’m an actress,’” she says, projecting the last word. “And you go through your whole repertoire, and they go: ‘No, I’ve not seen any of them. Oh hang on a minute: are you on my darts team?’”
