Interview: Sophie Thompson on She Stoops to Conquer

Sophie Thompson is just one of those utterly brilliant British actresses who pops up everywhere from Harry Potter to Eastenders and now in the National Theatre’s new production of She Stoops to Conquer. We meet in a special audio recording room somewhere deep within the National’s labyrinthine Southbank home.

As is the case with a busy and frantic rehearsal schedule, Sophie arrives looking thoroughly knackered wearing a sort of period-esque dress, high-heeled shoes and a light glaze of sweat. Although being an established actress, this is her first production at the National and her enthusiasm for the place is infectious. She describes it as a building packed with ‘brilliant people, all doing brilliant things’. Being in a bland rehearsal room all day she gains a real feel for the production and how it will look by walking through the National’s vast complex and seeing people ‘painting bits and building bits’ for the play wherever she turns.

When first approached, she admits she was very apprehensive, saying ‘I’ve never done this kind of material before, but it felt like a real, brilliant challenge to have a go at it and to work with Jamie [Lloyd] on this play, with this wonderful company.’ She describes these factors as a ‘myriad of ingredients, which makes you want to be in that cake’. She explains that ‘because I’d never really done a restoration play I sort of saw it in my head as a bit of a dusty thing. When I read the play I thought ‘oh crikey’ I’ll have to do lots of fanning and huffing and puffing. I feel I was seeing it in a dusty light and [Jamie] sort of blew the dust off and was like ‘well actually, its this’.

When asked how close the play is to the original style in which it was first performed, Thompson states that ‘in our production, we’ve chosen to be very true to the century that it was written in. All that Mark Thompson’s done with the design, the costumes and the set – it’s got a real authentic feel, which I’m really enjoying’.

Central to rehearsals have been lessons in dance, etiquette and how to use a fan properly. Thompson says: “we’ve got this amazing movement by Ann Yee, who did the movement on Comedy of Errors. She gets us all moving about and connecting up in that way, physically, which is fantastically helpful”.

The costumes are certainly a major factor in a production such as this, being a statement of its context and its class divisions. Thompson explains that when she sees ‘the dress getting more and more beautiful and the corset and everything and you think golly I hope I can create a Mrs.Hardcastle that can live up to this blinking frock!’

But much like the runaway success of the National’s One Man Two Guv’nors and the Old Vic’s Noises Off, the play is very much about the humanity of the characters. Thompson suggested that ‘apart from all the trappings and everything, the people are not so different from us. Although they behave in rather an outrageous and huge way, you want it to be true. So people can relate to them and go ‘oh I know a woman just like that’’. Having recently been in a few very modern plays, she seemed really encouraged by the fact that the Hardcastles are, in actual fact, ‘fantastically dysfunctional and in a way that makes it rather a modern family’ due to the fact ‘they both have children, but by other people’.

I asked what it was about the play’s focus on class and the ‘merriment’ that ensues that was so appealing to audiences across all demographics. Thompson saw it as simply ‘people being brought down to a level’ by ‘silliness and daftness’. She adds with a giggle that ‘we’re all daft human animals and we all embarrass ourselves and fall over and fart at posh dinners!’. Was that in the play or was that something she has been known to do at posh dinners? ‘It might well happen with nerves and the rest of it’ she adds in her Mrs.Hardcastle voice. ‘Hopefully the Olivier audience won’t hear it’!

Thompson seems to have great affection for her character who she says ‘pretends to be a bit posh in front of Hastings because she’s a bit of a snob but it’s also because she want’s to belong and she wants to go to London. It’s the vulnerabilities of people that will always continue to make us laugh and cry’.

As is the case with this variety of theatre, it seems it is a brilliant chance just to have a good ‘chortle’. Looking back towards where she had just ran through the play, she smiles and just says ‘it’s just funny, and we’ll never know why’.

She Stoops to Conquer opens in the Olivier at The National Theatre on the 24th January. Tickets are still
available at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. All remaining tickets on the night are available to students for £10 at
the Box Office. The production will also be streamed live to cinemas across the UK on the 29th of March as
part of National Theatre Live.