Abigoliah: Hello everyone. Welcome back to All British Comedy Explained. I’m Abigoliah, and with me is Tom Salinsky.
Tom: Hello there.
Abigoliah: So this is another part of our interview series. And our guest today is a hugely experienced stage, television, and film actor who has played Lady Macbeth, as well as appearing on TV shows Doctors, Casualty, and Silent Witness. And you can also see her in all 14 episodes of The Office. We have today the fabulous Emma Manton.
Tom: So with The Office in particular, I was really fascinated to find out about the process because it all looks completely improvised. But we know that Ricky and Stephen spent a long time working on the script, so talking to Emma about what it was like being on that set was really interesting. And her story about how she got the job was also amazing.
Abigoliah: Yeah, kids who are getting into acting today, I just want to say Emma’s story is not normal.
Tom: No, it’s a wonderful example of just right place, right time. Yeah, but she just seems like she’s a fascinating person. Yeah. This felt like being sat next to the right person at a really good dinner party.
Abigoliah: Exactly, exactly. And I don’t think we should deprive our listeners any longer of this fabulous experience. So here is Emma.
Abigoliah: Emma, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate it. So you are an actor. You’ve done so much. But one thing you’ve done, and I’ve recently just watched, is The Office. You were in The Office?
Emma: I was, I was. I was 21 when we did the pilot. It was my first job out of university, and–
Abigoliah: Wow.
Emma: I mean, it was literally life-changing for me.
Tom: So had you been to drama school or just university?
Emma: No. And I hadn’t even studied drama at university.
Abigoliah: I hate you right now. I – wow. I’m totes jelly.
Tom: So how did you get the job? What – what was the process?
Abigoliah: Tell us everything.
Emma: It’s such a stupid story. And nobody gets jobs this way. It’s completely absurd. I did – I mean, I’m not a complete chancer, although largely a chancer, but I had done a lot of youth theatre, and I’d done a bit of work with the National Youth Music Theatre, and I knew it was what I wanted to do. But I’d done – I was very young when I was 17, and drama school would have destroyed me. So I went to university, and in my summers I used to go to France and work as a holiday rep on a campsite. And I met a family in my final year I did out there, and the dad of this family was a carpenter at BBC Television Centre. So I moved down to London after this season, and he said, “Well, just come in and I’ll show you around and we’ll, you know, we’ll have a go.” And I had this lovely week sort of just messing around and being around people. And he got me a job in the bar. And that was over the millennium. So I had a lovely Christmas and New Year. Actually, side note: having the biggest celebrity encounter/name drop I have in my life, that I had to look after Muhammad Ali for Sports Personality of the Century. So 21-year-old me getting thrown into that.
Tom: That’s extraordinary.
Emma: Yeah. It was, it was. There were a good few years. Everything felt very easy for a while. But then I had sort of the New Year hit, and I had this moment of going, “No, come on. You’re so close to what you want to do. And the casting department are over there,” and they’re on the same corridor as the BBC Club where I was working in the bar. So I just had this moment and thought, “No, I think it’s today.” And I went and knocked on Tracey Gillam’s door. And I think what happened was she’d literally just been tasked with, “Can you find some actors who will be happy to just come and be around so we can use them if we want to, for this pilot that we’re making?” So I walked in through the door and she just went, “Oh, well, do you want to do that?” And that was The Office.
Tom: Amazing.
Abigoliah: So you didn’t have to do, like, an official reading or anything. You just walked in and was like, “I’d like to be an actor,” and they’d be like – they said, “You start on Tuesday.”
Tom: Yeah.
Emma: It was ridiculous. And it was – I mean, it was – I think what happened, I’ll never know for sure. But I think what happened is she gave my photo to the producer and he sort of vaguely recognized me. Of course he did, because he came into the bar. Because about two weeks later he came into the bar and did a double take when he saw me and went, “You’re going to be in my show.”
Tom: Is this Anil or Ash?
Emma: It was – yeah, it was Ash. Yeah. Then we did the pilot, and it was so low-key, that pilot. For those of us that weren’t Ricky and Stephen – it was for Ash and Anil, of course – but for us, it was just a week in a slightly run-down studio in Teddington. And I knew it was funny, I knew I was enjoying it, but – and I sort of knew who Ricky was because of The Eleven O’Clock Show, but it was something that we used to watch after the pub at university, and I thought it would probably be that sort of thing.
Tom: So what were your reactions when you read the script for the first time? You could see it was funny on the page, could you? Because some people couldn’t, including some people at the BBC.
Emma: I don’t know that I ever saw a full script at that point, but I certainly knew when I was watching them do it that it was making me laugh.
Abigoliah: Was there a lot of corpsing on set? Did you guys have trouble maintaining straight faces?
Emma: Yeah. And there’s even a moment of me corpsing that’s in, I think, episode one or two, when there’s a moment with the stapler in the jelly.
Abigoliah: I was wondering if that was, like, acting or if that was really laughing.
Emma: Well, it was really laughing the first time. And then that just seemed like the natural way to react to that.
Abigoliah: Of course.
Emma: So then you’re saying – and that was when – I don’t know if it was ever really officially decided that my character was called Emma because at one point Martin referenced me as he was walking past. I can’t remember whether that made it in or not, but yeah, that’s when I became called Emma. Emma from Accounts, and have been ever since.
Tom: So did you sort of do the actor thing of giving yourself a great big, detailed backstory and, do you know, like, does she have pets? And did she always want to be an accountant? And did you work all that up, or did she just stand where you were told to stand and pull the face you were told to pull?
Emma: There was a wonderful thing with Ewen Macintosh, who was playing Keith. Because we sat next to each other, where he’d written a piece on a piece of paper: “I am head of accounts,” and the thing was trying to get that in shot on our desk. We were head of accounts. And then I think it was series two: suddenly, on my desk, from the art department – I have no idea why – someone put an anthology of lesbian literature on my desk. So I was like, “Oh, there’s my backstory.” But largely it was sort of coming up with something in the moment. There were a couple of times they turned the camera and said, “Just talk about redundancies.” And I remember that’s when Ewen came up with a completely insane improvisation around – he’d just come in to do a delivery and had been here for ten years. Which I’ve heard – I’ve heard Ricky talk about it on interviews where he said he was never sure whether that was Ewen’s best acting or whether it was… whether he was actually, you know, taking the piss. We’ll never know.
Tom: Did you get the impression that Ricky and Stephen knew what they were doing, or did it seem more like they were really feeling their way? Because this was so new and they were pretty inexperienced, weren’t they?
Emma: I suppose in hindsight they were. But I was 21 and they were grown-ups, and I’d seen Ricky on the telly. So as far as I was concerned, he was the god and fount of all knowledge. I knew I recognized him, and Mackenzie had been on The Eleven O’Clock Show as well at that point. No, they seemed very on top of things as far as I was concerned. And just people – people who can make people laugh like that is just genius as far as I’m concerned. And being – just watching that. And it’s really hard to know with Ricky when the camera’s on and when the camera’s off, because he’s just the same.
Abigoliah: I once heard an interview with Jerry Seinfeld talking about making movies, which he didn’t like, and he was like, “It’s like being at the DMV, but for famous people,” because you just spend so much time sitting around. Did you feel like being in the office with a smaller role – was it ever boring, or was it interesting? Or because you guys, I guess you were always on set. Like, it wasn’t like you were sat behind the camera. You were on the camera pretending to be in an office.
Emma: So the way – I mean, the way that I’ve sold this to myself over the years is that it was the best training ground I could have ever asked for because there was no pressure, particularly, for me. But I could watch TV being made, and I could hear these conversations being had. And now, whenever I go onto set, I’m so at home because over four years I had that experience. At the time, there were some people who found it so boring that they didn’t come back for season two. And that was before we realised that we’d actually signed a rather nice royalties agreement that I don’t think is very often given to actors anymore.
Tom: So The Office has been the gift that keeps on giving.
Emma: Yeah. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s not life-changing money, but it usually comes at the point when I’m wondering how I’m going to get through the next month.
Tom: Yeah. Well, it’s nice to keep being paid for something you did some considerable number of years ago now.
Emma: Exactly. But no, it was – it was intensely boring, a lot of it. And also bearing in mind this is the days before anyone – we certainly didn’t, I don’t think many of us had mobile phones. Or if we did, it was only, you know, the old Nokia ones, and we didn’t even have computers that worked. The only computers that worked were the ones that were in shot. So the monitors would be shifted around quite a bit. So if you had a monitor that was plugged in, it meant you could play Minesweeper or even Solitaire. So that was such a good day.
Tom: Otherwise you might have to read a book…
Emma: A book. Yeah. Oh, God. No. None of that. Read my anthology of lesbian literature.
Tom: Yes, exactly. There’s a story that when they were making Doctor Who in the 70s with K9, both Tom Baker playing the Doctor and John Leeson as the voice of K9 liked to do the crossword. But of course, the K9 prop is just a prop. But a couple of times, if they both had the same newspaper, even though they were in different rooms, they were able to fool people into thinking that the Doctor and K9 were actually working on the same crossword.
Emma: Oh, fantastic.
Tom: So talk us through this. So how long did it take to film the pilot? Was it a couple of weeks?
Emma: No, just a week. One week.
Tom: Just one week. So you turn up to the studio in Teddington, you shoot this slightly eccentric but very funny one-off pilot for a week, and then what happens?
Emma: I went back to France and was entertaining kids on a campsite, and I got the phone call asking if I’d like to come back and do the season. When I was dressed in a bright yellow rain mac, in the pouring rain, and surrounded by children, and someone probably dressed up as Rory the Tiger, as it was at the time. Thought, “Yeah, sure, I’ll come back and do a BBC series. This is easy.”
Tom: And the pilot’s been broadcast. I’ve seen a couple of clips and it feels quite the same, but not absolutely the same. Were you aware that there was a shift when you came back to start doing the regular episodes?
Emma: So there were two – there was a sort of pre-pilot that was a lot of people who ended up being in it in various guises. I wasn’t part of that. We did the first sort of full-length pilot, which was exactly the same as episode one. So when we came back a year later – sorry – there were a few people who’d found it so boring they hadn’t come back. There were a few extra people, of whom Ewen Macintosh was one. And they already felt like the incomers. I remember – we got the core team who’d done the pilot. We were the real office workers.
Tom: The OGs.
Emma: Yeah, exactly. And then when we got to season two and we had this influx of people from Swindon! It was very easy to imagine.
Abigoliah: Did you get recognised from it when it was out?
Emma: I can be sitting with the entire cast of The Office, and people will come up and recognize every single person at the table except me.
Abigoliah: Really?
Emma: Yeah.
Abigoliah: And you’re like, “I’m the girl who laughed at the Jell-O stapler.”
Emma: Exactly.
Abigoliah: That’s me.
Emma: I’m the one he pats on the head. That’s me. I’ve discovered there’s a certain type of young man – well, young man – men in their 30s and early 40s for whom it was such an important part of the way that they view comedy that I can, within just a few minutes of being in a conversation with someone, think, “Oh, you’re someone who was a big fan of The Office,” and they’ll often leave it a few days before fessing up that they – that they love The Office.
I did a job last Christmas and the person I was playing opposite was very strange with me for the first few hours and then just confessed that he was a huge fan and I was – I was of The Office. Not of me. But then I was – but I was so – I was so–
Abigoliah: Sorry. That’s just such a not-tragic qualifier, but almost an English one: “Of The Office. But not of me.” Of course not of me. Sorry. Go on, Emma.
Emma: No. Horribly, horribly British in that way. But he – I was just really, really disappointing to him because he kept – I sort of start to recognise this glint in his eye when he’d come wandering over. I was like, “Oh, God, he’s going to say an Office quote, and I’m not going to know what it is.” Yeah, because he’s seen them all the time and I haven’t seen them for 20 years. But he did make me watch some of them.
Tom: Oh, what was that?
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s gotta–
Tom: Be sort of what I’m doing to Abigoliah. But I’m not showing stuff that she’s in. What’s it like? What is it like rewatching it after all these years?
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Emma: Well, I think probably the question is – that question is for you, Abigoliah, because I think there’s a real, real sort of mix right down the middle of comedy from that time: some that is just – we watch it now through new eyes and go, “What were we thinking?” And then some of it, we watch it and go, “No, actually this has stood the test of time.” And it might be my bias towards something that I was in, but I think The Office has stood the test of time most.
Abigoliah: Oh yeah.
Emma: I’m glad you think so too.
Abigoliah: So I had seen the American Office and the newly minted Australian Office that came out this year. But I never saw the OG. I’m a sequels girl, and so when I sat down to watch The Office – the OG – with Tom, I loved it. I think it stands the test of time. It’s just so subtly ridiculous. You know what I mean? I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
Emma: I’m so glad to hear that. In some ways, it’s Ricky sort of being one step ahead of the conversation – or as he still seems to be – just gently pushing the boundary. Or less gently in some ways. But that we’re being invited to laugh at the mediocrity of middle-aged white man, right? And his casual racism and his casual ableism and his casual misogyny. We’re being invited to see the ridiculousness in that, in exactly the way that is – we should be having these conversations in a way that’s not – it’s not got this huge social justice agenda. It’s just saying, “Look at that. Look at that. Isn’t he ridiculous?”
Tom: And it felt incredibly fresh. But actually David Brent is just another example of that perennial British sitcom hero: the little man, the authority figure who doesn’t really have the chops. So it’s Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army, or it’s Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister. They’re all different.
Emma: Basil Fawlty.
Tom: They’re all different versions of that same archetype. And it’s something that we keep rediscovering year after year. But it’s such a wonderful source of humour. Yeah. But everyone who does it infuses it with their own special DNA. And then with The Office, you had that mockumentary style, which, while it wasn’t minted there, really was influential. And, you know, I was talking to Abigoliah about this and – watched it. It really is true that there’s British comedy television before The Office and there’s British comedy television after The Office, and they’re not the same.
Emma: I agree, I agree. I think not. We don’t give enough credit to the actual – the logistics of putting it together. The fact that it’s graded to look like a documentary. There were a lot of conversations I remember overhearing about the character of the camera. You know: who – why would the documentary team be filming this scene in the first place for then David Brent to walk in and interrupt it with his comedy moment? And they put a lot of thought into it, and the team around it were just fantastic and kept coming back through the whole thing.
Tom: Was that a big adjustment for the camera operators? Was that something – a way of working that they weren’t used to? Or was it natural? Because I assume that they were either comedy or drama crews. They weren’t documentary crews.
Emma: That’s a really good question. I have no idea.
Tom: We were talking to Geoff Posner about shooting Acorn Antiques, and he was saying one of the biggest problems is you’re trying to do a gag like somebody standing in the wrong place with a camera, or an actor stands up and bangs their head on the boom mic, and the training for the boom operator or the camera operator is so deeply ingrained that it took ten takes just to get them to do it wrong.
Emma: Yeah, I suppose – I suppose that must have been quite an adjustment. It was an incredibly good team who really liked each other. Or they seemed to. Maybe unless I was missing something, maybe they were just being polite.
Abigoliah: Do you keep in touch with anyone from The Office? Stephen and Ricky and Martin – are they all in your phone?
Emma: I’d love to say yes. I’ve seen Mackenzie recently. He came and did an event that I’d organized at the Globe. And he came and performed in that and brought his daughter. Oh, cool. Yeah, he’s a good man. And although I haven’t seen Martin recently, I did play the mother of his son in an episode of Doctors. So Joe Freeman – that was Joe’s first job. And it was such a lovely thing to be able to say to Joe, “My first job was with your dad, and now your first job is with me.” And he’s – I mean, he’s now flying. I don’t know if you’ve seen The Institute, but he’s playing the lead in The Institute for HBO, I think it is. And he is amazing. But occasionally he’s sent me a little message saying, “As my first screen mum, I thought you might be interested to know,” and tell me something fabulous that he’s doing. So I sort of feel like, although I haven’t actually spoken to Martin, there’s a connection. Yeah.
But then the people like me – yeah. We all kept in touch, really. And got back in touch recently when Ewen Macintosh sadly died. We had a memorial for him in central London, and Ricky and Stephen recorded something and Martin recorded something. Oh, and I completely randomly bumped into Lucy Davis, who now lives in LA, and she was over in the UK for 48 hours and walking along Old Compton Street. And I was walking in the other direction and we literally just locked eyes and went, “Oh my God.” So I managed to nick an hour of her 42 to go and have a coffee with her, and that was lovely.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s so cool.
Emma: Yeah, yeah, it was a nice bunch.
Tom: So you came back to shoot the series, which I guess would have taken another six to eight weeks.
Emma: I think it was seven weeks. I think it was a week, a week and a day for each episode.
Tom: And then you have to wait for it to go out. And did you think it was – you hoped it was going to be a success, but did you think that was likely? And then what was it like when it started to become part of the cultural conversation?
Abigoliah: Yeah, that’s what I can’t understand, is the people who were like, “I’m not coming back for series two.” I’m like, “But why?”
Emma: Well, it was such a slow burn. It’s really – now we know what a success it was, it’s easy to forget how it was received at the time. I mean, I had nothing to compare it to, so everything was just amazing as far as I was concerned. But it really did go out under the radar. But I do remember – I remember two things when I realized, “Oh, I think this is actually quite big.” One was standing at a bar and hearing the people next to me having a conversation where they couldn’t work out whether it was real or not. That was amazing. So that must have been really early on, because obviously it didn’t take long for people to know what it was.
And then sitting on the Tube on a late-night Tube and someone had left behind one of those TV listings guides that used to go inside the free papers, and opening it up, and right across a huge double page was the photo of us all. I’m right in the middle of it – at the back, but I’m well placed in that picture. It makes me look much more significant than I am in that picture. It’s a good one. And having no one to share it with, having this huge moment in my life, and there was no one to even just point it out to the person next to me. But it wasn’t until it started winning awards, I think, that people started knowing what it was, which was why the DVD sold so well, because obviously we didn’t have catch-up. So everyone went out and bought the DVD and everyone had the DVD at one point, and now it’s in every charity shop.
Tom: Because I remember the Christmas specials going out and what a huge event that was. I mean, literally everybody crowding around the TV desperate to find out how these storylines are going to resolve, and if they’re going to resolve, and what kind of catharsis we’re going to be left with.
Emma: Yeah, I came in – I was sharing a flat with my sister and brother-in-law at the time, and my brother-in-law, incidentally, is in the training video in season one, I think. It’s Peter Purves and the two actors, and he’s the actor in the – so he’s married to my sister. But I remember coming home and he was standing – he was watching the end of that episode, and he’d stood up and was sort of stood with his hands clasped, just looking at the telly as this last thing unfolded. Yeah, I think they got it right.
Abigoliah: So after The Office, you went on to have a full acting career and you do television, you do film, you do stage. Do you have a preference?
Emma: I’ve sort of joked recently that I started my career in the most successful TV show ever written, and since then I’ve worked almost exclusively in theatre. I’ve had some nice little bits along the way, but my career has been built mostly in theatre. And in the last ten years I’ve done a lot of Shakespeare with the Royal Shakespeare Company and little bits with the Globe. There’s such a – it’s a completely different experience, I think, as an actor, the two.
I love being part of the gang in theatre. It feels like theatre can exist with the actors and everything else is supporting that. Whereas with film and TV, it’s almost like the actors can be added at the last minute and often are. Everything else is the process. And that’s the gang. And then the actors sort of come in and out on top of it, which is also lovely to relinquish responsibility: just literally play, play the moment, play the scene and everything else is out of your control. And there is part of my brain, especially as I get older, that really likes that you deal with that.
Tom: And is Shakespeare something that you’d had a love for when you were much younger, or is that something you’ve discovered only relatively recently?
Emma: I was 31 when I started at the RSC, and that was my first Shakespeare, although I liked it as an intellectual exercise. I did an English degree and I knew I understood it. I felt like I was one of the people who was good at understanding Shakespeare, but in terms of how to bring it to life, I didn’t have a clue. I think I look back on a couple of auditions I did and think I just didn’t know what I was talking about. But then joining the RSC, it was again – it was a little bit like it was with The Office – that I’m working with people who are the best at what they do. And sharing a space with people who are brilliant at it is the best training there is.
So Michelle Terry and Ed Bennett, who are playing the two leads in – we did Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in conversation with each other – and I don’t think there’s two actors who are better at speaking verse or who understand Shakespeare more than those two. And it just looked so easy the way they did it. And now I’ve had – then I joined the learning team as a freelance practitioner, where we go and work with young people all over the country and internationally now as well, on using rehearsal room techniques to make Shakespeare accessible for young people. And that’s just transformed my understanding of it and my love of it and my way in now. It’s everything I do.
Abigoliah: Just so I know I have the right thing in my head: RSC stands for Royal Shakespeare Company?
Emma: Yes. It’s not the automobile company.
Tom: That’s right.
Emma: Yes.
Abigoliah: But more importantly, like you never studied Shakespeare, like, classically. See, this really wows me because I thought Shakespeare was like classic piano: you had to go to Juilliard or you never got to do it. So how did you wind up auditioning for RSC…?
Tom: You walked down the corridor and said, “Can I do Shakespeare, please?” And they said, “Yes, sure. Come on in.”
Emma: Yeah.
Tom: Like–
Abigoliah: Playing Lady Macbeth.
Tom: I understand your M.O. now. This is why I’ve not been more successful. I just haven’t marched in through enough doors and said, “Can I have a job, please?”
Emma: I think what we’re realising is that my entire career, I’ve just been a complete chancer. I’m utterly unqualified for everything I’ve done in my life.
Tom: Well, listen. That’s how you get the job. Keeping the job requires actual ability.
Emma: Well, it was – I mean, there was a production – the RSC were doing a production of Robin Hood.
Tom: That’s not Shakespeare.
Emma: No, it was a Christmas show. And they needed this sort of Venn diagram of people who could act, played musical instruments, and also would be happy being suspended above the air and sliding down things and all sorts of things. And I’d been doing a bit of aerial circus as a hobby because I loved it. And I play the flute, so I sort of felt like my name was in the middle of this Venn diagram. And met the wonderful, wonderful director, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, who’s Icelandic, and he’s rigged up a sort of flying thing, like a counterbalance thing, in the audition room. So you hold on with one bit, and he counterbalances you on the other side, and as you run, he sort of jumps in the air and you fly and make pretty shapes. It was really fun.
It was crazy, that show. The whole stage was built into this huge slide up behind the proscenium arch. So you had to climb up 20m and then slide down onto the stage. And we had – yeah, we came in on ropes through the rig, and there was a big pond in the middle of it, and there were fights and fire and all sorts of things. So yeah, then I was an RSC actor, and then people seemed to assume that meant I could do Shakespeare. But sort of on quite a serious note, a lot of the work we do is about trying to get rid of that idea that you have to be – you have to have learnt something to be able to access Shakespeare. They are just words. They’re just put together in a way that we don’t use now. But it’s, you know – Shakespeare’s clowns are people who are out of their depth often. You know, Bottom. You know, in exactly the same way that we’ve just been talking about. It’s building on a tradition. Absolutely. Yeah.
Tom: So do you think you’ve got a particular approach now to speaking the verse and to making it intelligible for a modern audience?
Emma: I think the most important thing to do when you’re starting with any of it is to make it sound like speech. I’m not someone who believes you should necessarily pause at the end of each line or things like that. I think that’s a helpful process to go through, but I think it has to sound like a human speaking to another one. I don’t mean you should put loads of pauses in everywhere, but I think the more modern it sounds, the easier it is to understand, and our job is to make it understood. Yeah. Do I have a particular approach? Getting up on your feet and saying it out loud before you have to analyse it. Just speak it. Look someone in the eye and speak it and see what happens. Feels like a really obvious way to start, but often not. Especially in schools. We often [are] given this huge swathe of text and say, “Now we’re going to sit down and we’re going to go through it all, and we’re going to put it in our own words,” and think, “Well, okay.” I mean, that’s an approach, but it’s only going to suit a very specific type of brain. And there are so many other ways, and the creative brains are the ones that need to stand up and move about.
Tom: And have you ever read Peter Hall’s account of trying to do what might have been The Merchant of Venice – I can’t remember which play it was – but trying to do a Shakespeare play with Dustin Hoffman?
Emma: No. Tell me that.
Tom: Peter Hall is very much about the text. The text comes first and everything flows from the text. And all Dustin often wants to do is improvise. And after a couple of weeks, Dustin Hoffman finally says, “Do you know what, Peter? You can’t improvise this shit.”
Emma: I love that.
Tom: And then finally they’re able to start work. Well, they are – I mean, you know, people do – they pastiche Shakespeare improvisation. And I have a background in improvisation, and I’ve pastiched a lot of Shakespeare. But there’s an enormous gulf between pastiche Shakespeare that will amuse drunk people in a pub and actual Shakespearean verse. I mean, they bear only a scant resemblance to each other.
Emma: Yeah. I mean, it can be a good way into character, especially if we’re using it to support a certain type of learning. I’m doing some work at the moment with the Globe, looking at things like Romeo and Juliet and how we can teach that in a way that doesn’t make violence inevitable, is the way we’re looking at it. So especially when we’re teaching it to people who might be at risk of experiencing violent behaviours, the improvisation around the moments when you say, “How could someone make a different choice right now?” Or “How could you stop this situation unfolding the way it unfolds?” feels like a way to make it – in some ways – to teach it responsibly rather than just teaching: if you fall in love, then it’s going to lead to a violent end. Or if you live in a violent society, you’re going to experience violence. So: well, yes, but what if you don’t? What if you do something different?
Abigoliah: Oh, wow, that’s really interesting work.
Emma: It’s really interesting. I feel very, very lucky to be able to do this sort of stuff. We did – I’ve been really lucky to be in New Jersey – we’ve been there three years on the trot, pre- and post-election. But this year we were looking at Julius Caesar, which is a play about: how far do we go to protect democracy? Is there ever a point where assassinating a leader is acceptable? And we’re not – you know, we’re just talking about a play. This is Shakespeare.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Just–
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about theatre. We were talking about theatre, internet. We are just talking about theatre.
Emma: Absolutely.
Abigoliah: My mother is afraid I won’t be allowed back in the country the next time I come to visit, so we have to couch everything.
Emma: Shakespeare. Shakespeare, Shakespeare.
Tom: Anything else, Emma, that you’re working on at the moment that might be of interest?
Emma: Well, I’m treating myself to learning how to do motion capture for video games and potentially for film. So, you know, the suits with all the dots on, and learn how to do the things. And it’s – I absolutely love it. It’s so much fun.
Abigoliah: Are you learning how to act through motion capture, or are you learning how to build in motion capture on the computer?
Emma: How to act in motion capture.
Abigoliah: Oh, cool.
Emma: So a lot – a lot of what it’s been so far has been how to create characters really quickly so they can be based on what you get from a piece of artwork. So you might get, you know, some huge warrior with a big sword and fire coming out of their hands. And how do we – how do we build the physicality of that character? How do they walk? How do they run? What’s their base pose? How can they go into a scene and then come back into a point where then the player can take over? And it’s – I absolutely love it. And it’s entirely imagination because you’re in a completely empty room, surrounded by cameras and a silly suit on, and you have to do the rest entirely in your brain. Like, this is why I became an actor: to just do that.
Tom: Which some actors don’t like. They say, “Oh, I’m stuck on this blue screen looking at this tennis ball on the end of a bit of string, and I would much rather be standing on a stage looking another actor in the eye.” But I can see that the chance to play in your imagination like that is so rewarding.
Emma: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s all part of the same – it should be part of the same world. You know, we should always be–
Tom: Have you ever done any mask work?
Emma: No. I did a lot of puppetry.
Tom: I can see a connection. Yeah, because I can see an interesting connection between motion capture and mask. Again, it’s all about the body and about what story you can tell with your attitude and your posture. The mask takes away your face as well, which is even more interesting.
Emma: Absolutely. Well, I’m sure it’s absolutely coming from the same school of thought, because often the face is a celebrity in games.
Tom: You’ve done puppetry. You were saying.
Emma: Yeah, yeah. I did His Dark Materials for the National Theatre, and then I did another version of it on tour where I was the snow leopard dæmon, who was the other half of David Harewood’s Lord Asriel, which was amazing.
Abigoliah: Cool.
Emma: Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, I did it twice. There was a point when the only person who knew those worlds better than me, I felt, was Philip Pullman. Now everybody knows them and they didn’t ask me for the TV show, which I’m very sad about, but there’s loads more.
Tom: So I’m taking Abigoliah on this tour of British comedy, and there are some obvious classics. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Young Ones, The Office, Dad’s Army. Right. We don’t need anyone to tell us about those. Are there any unsung gems you can think of? Are there shows that you think, “Why is no one talking about this anymore?” That you think we should add to the list, or even just more popular shows that you think, well, just don’t overlook this one.
Emma: Monty Python must be on that list.
Tom: That was the first one we did. Literally the first one we did.
Abigoliah: Or is there anything out now that you’ve been watching that you enjoy?
Emma: Well, I’d be interested to hear how what started with The Office now leads into things like Fleabag.
Emma: And the use of the camera.
Tom: Yeah.
Emma: Bottom?
Tom: Yes, we just did The Young Ones. So yes, Bottom is a really interesting – I think I really like The Young Ones and Abigoliah had a good time with it as well. But there’s a school of thought, which I do understand, which is that Bottom is a bit less ambitious. You know, it doesn’t go to those crazy, surreal places, but maybe because of that, it’s aged better. Because The Young Ones looks a bit cheap, because they were doing such ambitious things on such a tiny budget, whereas Bottom is made by people who know what it is like to be in a television studio.
Emma: Yeah, I’d be really interested to see what it’s like looking back on Little Britain, because Little Britain was around the same time as The Office. And I wonder what some of that looks like now.
Tom: Yeah. I don’t think all of that has aged super well.
Emma: Exactly.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I’ve seen some clips of Little Britain. At one point, I was hired to be, like, a talking head on a Channel 5 show called Outrageously Funny Comedians. And I wasn’t one of the funny comedians. I was someone talking about it. And I think it was a Little Britain sketch. You guys might know this, where it was like someone playing the Prime Minister and his second in command, but they were, like, in a gay leather daddy relationship. Does any of this sound familiar?
Emma: No. It sounds like a fever dream.
Abigoliah: But, like, my job was, like, to talk about, like, what a great idea it was. And before – like, I watched all the clips and before we rolled camera, I had to be like, “So were they gay?” And the producer was like, “No.” And I was like, “Did everyone think they were gay?” And they were like, “No.” And I was like, “Then why are they gay in the sketch?” And they were like, “Because it’s funny.” And I was like, “Roll camera.”
Emma: Is The Royle Family on your list?
Tom: It’s not on the current list, but it’s definitely one of the shows that I want to cover at some point.
Emma: Or Mrs Merton, or sort of anything Caroline Aherne. I think that’s a huge, huge presence in British comedy.
Tom: Yeah. And much missed.
Emma: Much missed. Yeah. And it should be celebrated.
Tom: All right. And the other question we have for you is: we give away the podcast for free. You haven’t been offered a fee to do this. So what we suggest instead is that if there is a charity that you support, then you can give it a shout-out here and we will encourage our literally hundreds of listeners to go and donate to it. So is there a charity you’d like to mention?
Emma: There is. There’s a charity I support called Phone Credit for Refugees, and it provides top-ups of phone credit for people living in refugee camps around the world so that they can contact loved ones and all the essential services that we need on mobile phones. And it particularly supports women and unaccompanied minors.
Tom: That’s terrific. We will put a link in our show notes. Listeners, please go ahead and click that link and donate because that’s an amazing cause. Thank you.
Abigoliah: I think that wraps it up. Emma, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about The Office and Shakespeare. This has been an absolute joy.
Emma: It’s so nice to meet you both. Thank you for having me. It feels like a wonderful indulgence on my part to get to talk about myself for an hour.
Tom: Not at all. Thank you so much. Cheerio. Thank you.
Emma: Take care.
Tom: Oh, isn’t she a delight?
Abigoliah: I – again, just going back to it – her story of how she got cast in The Office. It sounds like an old Hollywood story of just: “Well, I walked into the casting office and they were like, ‘You’re the dame for the gig.’”
Tom: Yes. They looked me up and down and went, “Kid, you’re in.”
Abigoliah: You’re in!
Tom: But she’s great. And like – like we said in the interview – it’s great to have the lucky break, but then you have to have the chops to back it up. And clearly, she does.
Abigoliah: And she does. And she’s gone on to do such interesting work with, you know, the Royal Shakespeare Company and–
Tom: Puppetry and motion capture and wire work. And she plays the flute. I mean, I can only assume that parachute jumping and pottery are just things she hasn’t got round to yet. Yeah.
Abigoliah: Well, I mean, she’s kind of, like, been out in the fact that she just keeps making and just keeps doing and creating. And I think that might be the secret to a long, illustrious career in the arts: just keep making things, kids.
Tom: And she keeps making money off The Office, which is also a very nice story to learn about it.
Abigoliah: Oh, did I have to bite my tongue to be like, “What are those residuals like? How much? How much?” Guys! Hey, speaking of making stuff though, we are still making this podcast. So thank you so much for listening. If you liked it, as always, ways to support the podcast: obviously subscribe. Leave us a five-star review – helps other people find the pod – and tell your friends and your family about the podcast. All of this is through word of mouth, and we really appreciate you helping us spread the word. So please, please tell people about it. And Tom, tell me, what are we doing next?
Tom: Next up is going to be a really groundbreaking show that was just a little bit before The Office. And it’s The Day Today, which I remember in our episode zero you said sounded like a daytime soap opera, but actually is something rather different from that. And it was an early television exposure for an incredible cast of comedy actors, all of whom are still working today. And one in particular has created a truly generation-spanning, iconic comedy character.
Abigoliah: I’m really looking forward to watching it. And we also have a special interview after The Day Today with someone who worked on it that we’ll be doing as well. You want to tell the listeners about the very special interview?
Tom: We’ll be interviewing the television director of The Day Today, Andrew Gillman, and that’s particularly interesting, I think, because The Day Today is the TV version of a radio show called On the Hour. And so Andrew would have come in to kind of give this audio comedy a visual sense. And I think that’s going to be a fascinating conversation, but we haven’t recorded it yet. So, I mean, for all I know, he’ll be very dull.
Abigoliah: I think it’s going to be interesting. I’m quite excited about it because again, as always, Tom, edit this out if you don’t want them to know. But apparently Mr. Gillman is not someone who does interviews very often, so it’s a real get. He very much was like, “I usually don’t do this, but for you, Tom Salinsky, I will do this.” So we are going to get – it’s going to be an exclusive, I think. Ben Elton will talk to anyone.
Tom: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Ben’s got a book out and you got to make that coin. But yeah. So if you’re enjoying these, please do let us know. You can email us at allbritishcomedy@gmail.com. We’re also on Threads and TikTok and Bluesky and all the others. So get in touch. Tell us what you’re enjoying, what you’re not. Things that we’ve brought up that you have opinions about – let us know.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Also, just real quick, because we never plug it: if you want to watch the podcast, the whole podcast is on YouTube. So feel free to go and subscribe to All British Comedy Explained on YouTube, or of course in your podcatcher app. We’re always here to listen, to be in your ears.
Tom: All right. I think it just about does us.
Abigoliah: Yeah. All right. Till next time, guys, I’m Abigoliah.
Tom: I’m Tom. Cheerio.
Abigoliah: Goodbye.