\u201cHopefully, it\u2019ll change. But at the moment, we\u2019ve been sent home for 10 days, and, you know, you can\u2019t go out of the house \u2013 it\u2019s madness, really, but let\u2019s hope it changes. And that we all stay sensible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I Am Victoria, the first in a second series of one-off dramas created by BAFTA winner Dominic Savage, is not explicitly about the pandemic but the arc of its central character, Jones\u2019s Victoria, feels especially resonant set against the backdrop of the past 16 months. Indeed, Jones tells RadioTimes.com<\/a> that her own experiences with mental health over the last year-and-a-half helped shape the drama, which like every instalment of the I Am\u2026 series\u00a0 is mostly improvised and draws from ideas contributed by its lead actor.<\/p>\n \u201cMy agent called and said that Dominic wanted to meet me \u2013 and I said yes, because I knew of his work, though at the time, I didn\u2019t know the I Am series. But when I went to meet him, he told me about [the first series]. And I was just fascinated by the fact that he took women\u2019s stories and then he kind of shaped them into something that\u2026 it wasn\u2019t exactly their story, but it came from<\/em> them. I thought, oh my God, that\u2019s amazing.\u00a0<\/span>I definitely want to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n Jones\u2019 initial ideas for her episode involved themes of motherhood \u2013 having given birth to her first child in 2016, only to lose her own mother 10 months later. Then, in May 2018, she pulled out of the West End show Frozen after collapsing backstage, telling The Guardian<\/a> a year later, \u201cI\u2019d been feeling edgy. Nervous around people. Not being able to converse properly. Not being able to get my points across. And being in the theatre didn\u2019t help. I don\u2019t think theatre was the cause, but I think it heightened it.\u201d<\/p>\n By early 2020, she tells me, \u201cI felt that I had just got hold of my own anxiety and depression, and then the pandemic hit. My father was in ICU three months in. And during that time, me and Dominic, we were talking about what modern life does to people, and how the claustrophobia of the pandemic has really brought into focus who people are, and what they were defined by \u2013 people who\u2019ve been defined by their work, and then no longer had it, people looking to social media to who they should be, and losing themselves completely. We talked about what modern life does to people, certainly women of my age, who come from a different generation, and they\u2019re now kind of a little bit lost as to who they are, what they should look like, who they should be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This \u201cbig mishmash\u201d of topics, coupled with Jones\u2019 \u201cown personal perspective of being a working mother, and what that means\u201d all ended up fuelling I Am Victoria, which was filmed in a single location due to COVID restrictions. \u201cSo even though it\u2019s not about what happened, the lockdown, it has resonance of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The claustrophobic film sees Jones\u2019 character struggle to keep up appearances as her underlying anxieties bubble to the surface, impacting her relationships with her friends, her husband Chris (Ashley Walters) and her sister Deborah (Alice Feetham). \u201cVictoria doesn\u2019t see that she has a problem,\u201d Jones explains. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s really important to say to people that\u2019s it\u2019s OK to talk about these things, these things that are affecting us. And also, modern life is great, all of the advances in technology are wonderful, but it does affect us as human beings. And it does affect who we think we should be. I think a lot of people are lost. And Victoria is lost.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jones hopes that I Am Victoria will help those who have been suffering in silence to realise that there are ways of getting help, but also that it sparks a discussion about better resourcing for mental health treatment. \u201cMental health is something that affects everybody, it isn\u2019t \u2018us and them\u2019. And I think that\u2019s what we need to recognise, that it isn\u2019t something that affects some people or that labels certain people. It is an everybody thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think the larger question, which is why it sits so well on Channel Four, is that you can pay for private therapy, but it costs a fortune. You can go to the NHS, and you can get a certain amount of sessions, but then it stops, or you\u2019ll go on a waiting list. So the resources for help\u2026 that\u2019s a conversation Dominic and I wanted to open up. And I think it needs to be addressed, certainly, given that we\u2019re still in the pandemic, and that people\u2019s lives have been so affected by this. That I think is something that the government really need to address on a bigger level.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Pulling from her own experiences with mental health to formulate the story and to play Victoria felt \u201cexposing\u201d, Jones admits \u2013 \u201cI\u2019d come home to my husband and say, \u2018God, we did a scene today, and it was really raw, because I\u2019ve been through it\u2019, I\u2019d already lived it as me.\u201d \u2013 but she also describes the experience as \u201ccathartic\u201d and \u201ctherapeutic\u201d, allowing her to channel the anxieties that had been exacerbated by the first lockdown. \u201cB<\/span>y the time I got to do Victoria, I was ready to just open up and scream and let it all out,\u201d she says. \u201cWhich I certainly did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The fact that I Am Victoria was almost entirely improvised, with Jones, Walters and their cast-mates working only from a \u201cskeleton outline\u201d and shooting takes that were sometimes up to an hour long, further blurred the line between truth and fiction. \u201cIt verges on this kind of weird place where you step into your own reality as Victoria and Chris, and you forget that you\u2019re making this show. Because you\u2019re so in it, and the stuff that you\u2019re saying becomes so real, because you\u2019re not learning lines, you\u2019re not repeating things, you\u2019re not doing things from different angles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a certain level of panic,\u201d Jones admits. \u201cYou\u2019re like, what if nothing comes out? And then, of course, because it\u2019s so close to my experiences, something does come out. But it\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>really scary. It\u2019s like a f**king triple X ride at a crazy theme park \u2013 you come off and you\u2019re absolutely shaking. You\u2019re like, \u2018I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ve done or said\u2019 and Dominic\u2019s like, \u2018But I do and it\u2019s all good.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was so thrilling, exhilarating to get it out in that way. <\/span>I would feel like that again in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jones filmed her I Am\u2026 episode during a COVID-enforced break in filming for upcoming BBC drama series Vigil<\/a>, in which she plays a police officer investigating a death aboard a submarine,\u00a0and says that returning to the rigidity of more traditional filming was challenging \u2013 particularly with new restrictions now in place. \u201cIt\u2019s hard. You\u2019re always battling with lines, or repeating scenes, or \u2013 certainly during the pandemic \u2013 how things can be filmed. God, it was really hard going back to a submarine show where everyone is really close together in a claustrophobic set. And then doing Gentlemen Jack, this huge period drama, under the constraints of how we now have to live and work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While I Am Victoria was emotionally demanding and Vigil is, Jones says, a \u201creal thriller\u201d which required her to be \u201cphysically fit\u201d, playing force-of-nature Anne Lister in Sally Wainwright\u2019s returning BBC series is challenging in a different way again. \u201cBecause she speaks really fast, she walks really fast, she has all these props \u2013 a hat and a cane and this and that. So you\u2019ve got to be match fit to do all of those things and then entertain at the same time. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe last few jobs I\u2019ve done have all been so different. And I feel really blessed, especially given the time that we\u2019re in, to be able to do three amazing jobs that all challenge me in different ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Is there any part of her, though, that yearns for something that\u2019s purely fun, perhaps a return to the flat-out slapstick of 2012-14\u2019s A Touch of Cloth? She laughs. \u201cI loved A Touch of Cloth! I often think Charlie [Brooker, writer] should bring us back to go again. But, y\u2019know, Gentlemen Jack\u2019s fun, so I\u2019m getting to tickle my funny bone with that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n She pauses, then continues. \u201cActually, I\u2019ve always wanted to do a musical. That is still my big thing. I just want to sing and dance and be like, y\u2019know\u2026 tits and teeth! So that\u2019s still on my bucket list. It would be great to just do something that\u2019s balls-to-the-wall fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I Am Victoria airs on Channel 4 on Thursday (5th August) at 9pm. Read more of our Big RT Interviews<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Visit our Drama<\/a> hub for more news and features, or find something to watch with our TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n “I was ready to just open up and scream and let it all out. Which I certainly did.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2671,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/08\/suranne-jones-on-how-her-own-experiences-with-mental-health-shaped-channel-4s-i-am-victoria.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\"I was ready to just open up and scream and let it all out. 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