When I last spoke to Alexandra Roach, in December 2019, it was in a private meeting room at the five-star Covent Garden Hotel in London. We sat on an extravagantly upholstered chesterfield; she wore tailored black and scarlet lippy; a waiter brought fresh-leaf Earl Grey and luxurious slivers of shortbread. Today the 33-year-old actress is in her Bristol sitting room, free of make-up and perched on a birthing ball (her first child is due this summer); our meeting is via Zoom and we have brought our own beverages.
That first interview, pegged to the British indie film 2nd Date Sex co-starring George MacKay, never ran — a casualty of lockdown 1.0 and cinema closures. But here we are again, to discuss a bigger, more visible project, Viewpoint, ITV’s tense police surveillance five-parter out this month. She plays a messy single mother, Zoe, part of a tight-knit, gentrifying central Manchester neighbourhood. When Gemma, a teacher who lives opposite, disappears, a police surveillance unit led by Martin (Noel Clarke) sets up in Zoe’s flat to monitor their lead suspect, Gemma’s partner, Greg (Fehinti Balogun). But do they also need to keep an eye on Zoe? She is rash, drinks too heavily, mixes with the suspect and is already spying on her neighbours.
Based on an idea by Harry Bradbeer, the award-winning Fleabag director, the series was due to start filming last spring. “We’d had our costume fittings, rehearsal schedule,” Roach recalls. “Then everything was stood down. We spent the next five months waiting for it to get picked up again — five months that obviously helped with tapping into the character’s loneliness and need for connection.”
Having a project on hold made her one of the lucky ones. “So many friends, especially those who work mostly in theatre, have lost their livelihoods. Many have fallen between the cracks of government support too.” Roach’s husband, Jack Scales, a club promoter, has had to step away from that vocation and return to his training as a graphic designer.
When Viewpoint was able to start shooting in Manchester’s Northern Quarter last summer, Roach and her colleagues “felt a massive responsibility”. Theirs was a strange new world of bubbled-up cohorts, make-up artists in full PPE, masked rehearsals and learning to gauge their director’s reaction not by smiles but by gestures. “We really did feel we had to stick to the rules and prove it could be done,” she says. “And we did. Even after Manchester moved into Tier 3 we managed to get through the whole shoot without having to step down production once, which felt like a huge achievement.”
Advertisement
It is half a lifetime since Roach told the head of drama at her Carmarthenshire comprehensive that she wanted to go to Rada and the teacher “laughed so hard she had to prop herself up by holding on to the wall”.
Roach recalls thinking, “I’ll show you.” After an award-winning stint in the Welsh-language soap opera Pobol y Cwm and seasons with the National Youth Theatre of Wales, she did go to Rada. But as a working-class, Welsh-accented student she found it tough initially. “I was so homesick. I recently found letters from my mum — she was writing every three days, clearly concerned I was going to pack it in.”
What got her through were the tight-knit friendships formed with fellow students Seline Hizli, Susan Wokoma and This Country’s Daisy May Cooper, and the encouragement of Rada’s then head of acting teaching, Dee Cannon. “She saw I was struggling and pushed me to find the method I now use.”
Cannon, a renowned industry figure who trained scores of stars, died of cancer last October. “This was the first project I’d done without her on call,” Roach says. “Like many in the past year I feel I’ve lost someone without being able to properly pay my respects.”
Rada “built up a steeliness” that felt “almost serendipitous” when Roach was cast as the young Margaret Thatcher in 2011’s The Iron Lady. Notable character roles since include the potty-mouthed Becky in Dennis Kelly’s cult Utopia, the ingenue Helene in Julia Davis’s spoof period drama Hunderby, and DS Joy Freers in Paul Abbott’s mordant procedural No Offence. Viewpoint’s Zoe feels different. “So often I’m in a false nose, wig or teeth but here I look like me. And Zoe is exposed too; I was really drawn to how complicated and flawed she is as a woman and mother.”
Advertisement
Working with actor-writers such as Davis and Joanna Scanlan, creatives steering their own careers, has been an inspiration for Roach. Independent-minded Bristol, where she moved from London four years ago, is the base for her production company, Yes Mate, co-founded with the writer and theatre-maker Jenny Duffy. They have several projects in development, including one with Drama Republic (Dr Foster, The Irregulars). Last year a call-out for women to share their sensual experiences of lockdown resulted in an Instagram series, Sex Lives. “It’s good to find joy outside of acting,” Roach says.
She fully expects motherhood to be one of “my more challenging roles to date” but is delighted to already have an exciting (unannounced) television job lined up for 2022. For now her plans are modest and nearer to home. “Me and my mum hope to meet when the shops reopen and do some baby shopping together. Hopefully in Cardiff, halfway between us.”
She met her husband through their shared passion for clubbing. A marriage vow was to “never stop dancing”. How have they managed that in the past year? “Hmm,” she sighs. “Early on we’d watch live DJ sets at home. But as time wore on what I craved was that connection of the dancefloor, being part of something bigger.” It’s lucky, then, that she has rolled-over tickets for Glastonbury 2022.
Viewpoint is on ITV1 later this month