Julie Hesmondhalgh, best known for her portrayal of Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street and most recently in Alan Bates vs the Post Office, performed a one-woman show, These I Love, to raise funds for the Octagon theatre in Bolton. I was lucky enough to go and see the performance, which was intimately in-the-round, was self-scripted followed by a Q&A session.
Julie spoke about her working-class upbringing in Accrington, Lancashire and the influence of many people on her career. The biggest influence being her father; a bright, humorous individual who worked in the factory by day but liked to write poems, letters and tell stories by night. The audience were taken into a world of Julie’s childhood performing impromptu monologues in the living room, skipping along the beach in Fleetwood or Blackpool and pouring water from the top window onto her Dad, who was waiting by the front door outside!
Julie’s relationship with her Dad (John) was the closest of bonds. But her Dad had his own demons to battle, losing his own mother young and his father committing suicide when he was a teenager. The letters and diaries that Julie recovered after her father’s death captured some of these dark times and she remembers the nights when her mum was left to look after the children and the house whilst dad walked alone along the canal for hours on end. In this performance, excerpts of these letters were weaved into the show and had been recorded by local school children from Julie’s old primary school, Hyndburn Park Primary School. These recordings, played with a picture of John behind on the big screen, were a simple but effective way of portraying the sheer emotions in these diaries, giving us a glimpse of John’s inner struggles.
It was with the encouragement of a local drama teacher who encouraged Julie to apply for theatre school in London where she was accepted along with 4 other local East Lancashire people – outnumbering Etonians 5-1! After theatre school she was working part-time as a cleaner whilst trying to fund her drama dream and some years later landed the role as Hayley on Coronation Street – a role her parents and everyone in Lancashire was very proud of!
The performance was filled with humour and anecdotes of growing up in the north, but it was the end that really captured the audience. Julie ended by speaking about her dad’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and visiting him in the care home. This coincided with her retiring from Coronation Street. Whilst she admits that she was not ready to say goodbye to John, she was glad she visited him in his final days where they could laugh about the good old days and his funny impressions that he would perform for the staff.
This was the first time Julie had performed These I Love in full without reading from the script, having previously performed sections to friends and family. Her mum had been to see the production the previous night. It was a highly personal piece and as expected it was performed incredibly to take the audience on a journey, the same journey Julie had been on herself, discovering the darkness that lay upon her father and using art to grieve, heal and laugh again.
Rating: ★★★★★
These I Love played for four nights at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, before a two-night run in Newcastle ending on March 2nd
