Were you a fan or the previous Talking Heads?
I was very much a fan of Talking Heads from the first time they were aired. I hadn’t watched them more than twice, if that. They stayed with me for years after just one viewing in most cases.

What did you do to prepare for the role?
I remembered Stephanie Cole being brilliant in Soldiering On previously, and had so merged her with the character that at first I found myself trying to get inside the head of Stephanie Cole! Wrong. Once I started learning it, Muriel became more my own. Each word is like a nerve ending and the sentences are a tracery of vessels leading to the brain at the centre of it all. Say the lines and you feel the rhythm of the character. My script was littered with different coloured markings, loops, pictures and links tracking thoughts, noting alliterations and rhymes and clues to character. It was like detective work and I was wonderfully guided by Marianne Elliot on Zoom rehearsals.

Tell us about the unique format of filming Talking Heads?
With everyone being alert to the risks of the Covid19 pandemic, we stayed well apart and the compact crew made for great concentration and quiet. The hardest bit was having to do my own hair and make-up with remote instructions from Naomi Donne calling out “up a bit, down a bit” from two metres away!

Tell us about your story and your character Muriel?
I don’t want to give too much away but I can say Muriel is a doer, rather than a thinker. Too much introspection seems self-indulgent to her. This means that while she enjoys gossip, she is often quite wrong about her nearest and dearest. Over the course of the play she learns to re-evaluate her close family and friends and the husband who she has just lost. Her response is stoical to say the least.

Why do you think Talking Heads has resonated with viewers throughout the years?
I think the audience loves being in the position of confidante being told a story, which the narrator gradually and inadvertently reveals to be not quite the story she/he believes they are telling. We are a step ahead and can laugh at them, but we are not quite sure where it is going as Alan paces each monologue so faultlessly. It’s like meeting a new friend whose thoughts we would never normally be privy to, without actually having to interact. It’s a kind of voyeurism but with compassion.