{"id":2121,"date":"2021-07-25T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T08:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1278175"},"modified":"2021-07-25T10:00:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T08:00:50","slug":"frances-de-la-tour-on-itv-drama-professor-t-the-future-of-the-theatre-industry-and-voicing-the-queen","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/frances-de-la-tour-on-itv-drama-professor-t-the-future-of-the-theatre-industry-and-voicing-the-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Frances de la Tour on ITV drama Professor T, the future of the theatre industry and voicing the Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The veteran actor takes on the role of Adelaide Tempest in the new ITV detective series. <\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 25 July 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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In a career that has spanned more than five decades, Frances de la Tour has appeared on our screens in a huge variety of roles. She first made her name as Miss Ruth Jones in \u201970s sitcom Rising Damp, then became known to a new audience as Madame Maxime in the Harry Potter films, and more recently starred alongside Sirs Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in the hit sitcom Vicious.<\/p>\n

Her most recent role is in Professor T<\/a>, a detective drama adapted from a Belgian series of the same name, which is currently airing on Sunday nights on ITV. In the show, de la Tour plays Adelaide Tempest, the overbearing mother of Ben Miller\u2019s titular criminologist, and it\u2019s a character that she had a whale of a time playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a wonderful character, because\u2026 well, she\u2019s monstrous, really!\u201d she tells RadioTimes.com<\/a><\/strong> over the phone. \u201cWhich also makes her very funny.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s dark. I think fundamentally, it\u2019s because it was originally a Belgian series,\u201d she continues. \u201cAnd I love those what we call Scandi noirs or, you know, the Walter Presents dramas. He gives us all these incredibly dark but interesting series and characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the character of Professor T himself is astonishingly complex, so the mother and the son is a powerful relationship. I mean, they\u2019re very dependent on each other and love each other, and fight each other. So the part did offer a lot of avenues to explore and to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Of course, a detective series with a flawed central character is no new thing \u2013 and indeed Miller has compared his character to both Sherlock Holmes and Dexter<\/a> \u2013 but de la Tour reckons that there is enough fresh appeal to Professor T to make it stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in a way, you have to have that flaw somewhere in the character,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd there have been many, like Cracker and all sorts of really great TV things, where there are main characters that have problems, whether it is alcohol or terrible relationship with their wives or something like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is unusual, because he\u2019s got OCD and that can be very funny but it\u2019s also tough,\u201d she continues. \u201cAnd I think you see both sides, you see that it\u2019s incredibly tough for him to think like ordinary people, for want of a better word. But also, you know, it gives scope to be very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, the role required working very closely with Miller, but she said that the mother\/son dynamic was easy to get a handle on, in part because the former Death in Paradise<\/a> star was so \u201cwonderful\u201d to work with.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a real leader,\u201d she says. \u201cBut he never sort of threw his weight around or anything like that, he was just very caring about the whole thing. And he\u2019s very quiet. He said, let\u2019s just go to another room and rehearse this for a few minutes, which we did with the director, and found all sorts of lovely layers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd once you\u2019ve done the first scene, and you\u2019ve explored it then it seeds the next scene. And you just have to tell yourself, this is not what we do in theatre. In theatre you have four\/five weeks of rehearsal so you can start from a blank page and very slowly start colouring in. But in television or film, you have to guide it. And really, they\u2019re almost two separate crafts.\u201d<\/p>

If there\u2019s anyone who knows about working in both of those crafts then it\u2019s de la Tour. Throughout an extensive stage career, she\u2019s won three Olivier Awards and a Tony, and she says that, while finding the balance between the two forms is very important to her, it\u2019s theatre that has provided her with the basis for her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spent my life in the theatre, mainly,\u201d she says. \u201cI know all actors get known for a successful television thing, but that\u2019s not our lives. I\u2019m old now, I mean, I\u2019ve spent 55 years doing it, and I would say 45 of those years were on stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd without theatre, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do the television,\u201d she continues. \u201cThey often say if you want longevity in this business, be a theatre actor. Because there is a point where producers look for what they call gravitas, which is an actor that has been at it a long time. And yes, you can spend your whole life on screen there\u2019s no question about it. But personally, I don\u2019t know anything different other than thinking about what it would be like on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the film and TV industry has certainly had to take some hits in the last year, it\u2019s nothing compared to what the theatre business has had to deal with \u2013 and indeed de la Tour herself admits that at times it\u2019s felt like the industry was \u201cdying on its feet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read more Drama Big RT Interview<\/a>s:<\/strong><\/p>\n