In Crowded Family Drama, Claudie Blakley Is A Suspect

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The new Flesh and Blood defies genres — it’s a mystery, and a family drama, and a psychological case study. That contrast originally drew series lead Claudie Blakley to the script, but it doesn’t mean she’s willing to give anything up in a new interview.

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Transcript

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

Following the death of her husband 18 months earlier, widow Vivien is picking up the pieces of her life in a sun-dappled coastal retreat on the English Channel, with her three charming and successful adult children who simply adore her.

CLIP

Mary: Well, they moved down …… from London over forty years ago now, to start a family.  Mum, dad three kids.  Well, it’s the perfect place for kids to grow up, isn’t it?

Jace And Vivien has a new love in her life: boyfriend Mark Kinneally, a retired surgeon who also adores her. But Vivien’s children suspect that Mark isn’t what he appears to be — and while they’re worried for their mother, each of the three siblings has their own concerns to deal with.

CLIP

Helen Oh, come on!

George: I’m not a project for you to manage.  Sex isn’t like that.  And it doesn’t respond to demands.

Jace But could the twin stresses of eldest daughter Helen’s work and home life really have lead to her taking part in a gruesome possible murder during her mother’s birthday party by the sea?

CLIP

D.I. Lineham  We’ll be in touch regarding a more formal statement at the police station.

Mary Formal statement?

D.I. Lineham Yes.  A person is fighting for their life in hospital.

Mary But … but it was an accident.

D.I. Lineham Well, maybe. Maybe not. But if it’s not, and the news from the hospital isn’t good,  then it’s murder.

Jace Claudie Blakley knows the truth of what happened at that birthday beach gathering, and she joins us to discuss her thrilling performance as the overworked and underappreciated Helen in Flesh and Blood, working with Robert Altman on Gosford Park, and bake offs in the village of Cranford.

Jace And this week, we are joined by Flesh and Blood star Claudie Blakley. Welcome.

Claudie Blakley Hello! Nice to be here.

Jace Flesh and Blood defies genres. It’s a family drama. It’s a murder mystery. It’s a psychological thriller. What was it about Sarah Williams’s script that attracted you to the project initially?

Claudie Yeah, I think it’s like it’s about family so it’s a sort of domestic drama about a family. And I sort of found it instantly relatable, I guess. You know, I’ve got a quite big family myself. And it’s from a you know, a big family. And unfortunately it starts with a dead body. And then so immediate, you’re immediately as an audience, you’re like, well, who is it? How did this person end up in this situation? And who did it? And then you think it’s going in one direction and then quite quickly, it’s sort of reversed to three months earlier and then it becomes something else. And you follow the lives of these three siblings. And it’s very interesting. And I think the character is really kind of drawing you in. And I left the script immediately because I thought it was different and I thought it was quirky. And yeah, and it’s got sort of two things going on which appeals to me. You know, there’s a story on the surface and there’s one running underneath. There’s a kind of this heat sort of running underneath it that you’re always, as an audience member, kind of aware of. And so you’re always kind of thinking of, even though it’s sort of making you laugh and the characters are kind of making you laugh, you’re always wondering what’s going on underneath. And it has this sort of eerie quality. So, yeah, that struck me straightaway, and I was in immediately.

Jace I love the way that Helen is introduced in the script for episode one: Helen, early 40s designer trouser suit pours yourself a gin and tonic bright organized. She doesn’t mean to be bossy,  just that she has a knack for seeing the bad not to get things done. I mean, how does that how does that sum up your take on Helen?

Claudie Well, I love that description. I mean, that was given to me for my audition, actually. And I think that’s absolutely true with her. She’s a you know, she’s a control freak. And I think professionally, she’s doing incredibly well. She’s kind of soaring. She’s flying professionally. And I think that she’s got to take on this particular persona at work, which is very appealing to me that you’re kind of taking on this persona at work. That’s not necessarily how you are in your personal life, but you’re taking this persona on, and you’re wearing this suit and you’re feeling this power and you’ve got to get a job done. And she’s very good at what she does. So unfortunately, that might translate, back to back to her professional personal life, it translates in kind of a bossy, bossy way, which is not, you know, brilliantly received by her family. And unfortunately, her life is a little bit of a shambles at home and she’s sort of taken her eye off the ball. So when I read Helen, I thought, oh, this is really interesting that, you know, there’s sort of two things going on. Well, there’s more than two things going on because there’s hope. But as a professional life, as a person life, her marriage is falling apart. Her daughter is sort of being dragged into this horrific social media world and which she has sort of no control over. And she’s kind of losing respect. She’s lost the respect from her daughter. So which is really, really sad to her. So her life is really sad. And then also her she has this kind of sibling rivalry going on. I don’t know if she’s ever really got on with her brother and sister, but they’re kind of thrown together because their mother, who is that anchor, who is their rock, who is you know, they all love their mother so much. And unfortunately, she’s now met somebody else. So. So it’s like the rug is completely pulled out from under her feet. And I think she’s really sort of questioning her  role in life and wondering who she is and what she’s doing. And that’s where we meet her. So she’s pretty unstable, actually when you first meet her.

Jace I mean, I love the fact that she’s on a train. She pours herself a premade gin and tonic out of a can on a commuter train. What is this moment on the train signify for her? Is the gin and tonic a reward or is it an escape?

Claudie I think probably initially it used to be and a reward. And now it’s kind of a necessity. You know, it’s become kind of like she need to. So it’s she’s been thrown into this kind of massive responsibility at work where she’s got to sort of take over this Trust. And even though it’s she’s been working towards it, now that she’s got it, I think it’s a really frightening thing for her. And it’s like a really massive responsibility. And so the drink becomes more and more of what she needs to just be able to deal with life. If we have to deal with what she’s dealing with at work, which is quite frightening, I think, because she’s having to let a lot of people go. She’s having to make a lot of people redundant. Even though she’s she’s very professional and she get some of that and she knows the job she has to do, I think it doesn’t sit so well with her and she needs the drink to be able to cope with it and yeah, becomes more and more reliant on it.

Jace That moment is juxtaposed with Mary’s commentary.

CLIP

Mary So Helen is the eldest child and the cleverest. You always knew Helen would do well.

Jace How is Helen shaped by those expectations? Is there a sense that she has to surpass her potential? Is that what she’s constantly struggling against?

Claudie Yeah, I think. I think. I think there’s a lot expected of her. Is that kind of eldest sibling thing that I think the father was, you know, the mother and father sort of gray. They were workers. You know, they really worked hard for what they achieved. And I think that was what he instilled in Helen. Maybe kind of maybe the other two sort of got away with it a bit more. But with her, there was a lot expected of her. But academically, I think she always did well at school,  but don’t get me wrong, I think she’s always wanted to do what she does. And I think that’s the thing. She’s all she loves what she does. So her heart has always been really in it. And had the support from her husband and had a really, really lovely marriage. But There’s been too much focus on her work, on her professional life and not enough focus on her personal life. But yeah, I think a lot of pressure from her father was put on her when she was younger, but I think she thrives on it.

Jace It’s the details in her phone conversation that stand out.

CLIP

Helen Did you get something for tonight?

George Yep. Yeah, I got the wine.

Helen You didn’t forget my stuff?

George And the dry cleaning …

Helen Can you take my shirt out of the dryer please and hang it up straight away so it doesn’t get creased.

George Yes, straight away.

Helen Thanks. Bye.

George Ok, bye.

Jace How important is the illusion of perfection to Helen? And what is this doing to her relationship with George, who is sort of sneaking hits a weed whenever he can?

Claudie Yeah, she’s trying to hold on to perfection where she can’t. Because I think everything’s slightly slipping through her fingers and everything’s becoming really fractured and and so where she can be have perfection. She will. And it’s normally at home with George and that’s where it comes out, you know, sort of manifests in quite a kind of bossy, perfectionist way.

Jace We get to the inciting incident now. Helen’s mom, Vivien, surprises all the children by bringing them over to announce that she’s met someone, a boyfriend surgeon named Mark Kinneally, who arrives at the house a minute later. How does Vivien’s news shake up the structure of the family following her husband’s death?

Claudie Yeah, I shakes them up so much. I think in terms of their relationship with each other. The siblings are I would say they’re not friends, but, you know, there are those kind of siblings that they don’t, we don’t hang out. They don’t socialize. The only times that they actually probably see each other is with their mother. And they kind of within five minutes, they’re like bickering five-year olds. I don’t think much has changed since they were young. And so their relationship is really quite juvenile and naive. And they I think in terms of their childhood, I think it was pretty perfect. And, you know, they were given no holidays. They had, you know, the love and respect from their mom and dad. But now they’re old and their private lives of sort of slightly falling apart. They hide that from each other because they don’t have the kind of relationship where they can tell each other things. And they want to give the impression that they are, you know, that everything’s great and they’re doing really well. And they’re like, you know, they’re like that’s sort a swan Image if you like that kind of on the surface that, you know, hey, look at me. But underneath their roles, they’re all, you know, really struggling. So in terms of that, their mother is their rock, that she’s everything to them. And so when she’s not there, they kind of have to look around them and they have to rely more on each other. And what unites them, weirdly, is their suspicion of the new man that she’s brought into the fold. And they are suspicious that his intentions aren’t necessarily good, and they become really protective and worried about their mother. And it kind of weirdly brings them together. And yeah, I can certainly relate to that. My mom, my I lost my dad when I was 26 and so had she. She met somebody and when she came home and told us we were immediately suspicious, which is awful really, but you’re just very protective over your, especially as your mother, you know. And so that’s a very interesting subject. I think.

Jace Vivien issues a rather cryptic remark about her late husband possibly being unfaithful.

CLIP

Jake Dad’s only been gone a year!

Helen It’s over eighteen months.

Natalie Come on, do you expect her to sit around mourning for the rest of her life!

Jake No, that’s not what I’m saying.  I just think that you’d be…

Natalie Well, Dad wouldn’t have minded!

Jake Well, he’s not here to say, is he?

Natalie No, well, he’d just want her to be happy …

Jake Yeah, well look, we only scattered his ashes in March!

Helen Oh Jake, shut up!

Jake Why should I shut up?

Helen Dad would be perfectly ok with mum moving on –

Jake I don’t think he would be –

Vivien I don’t care what your father would have thought.  God, he was no angel!

Jace Could that statement be made of any of them in this family? Despite the outward appearances, is there a sense here that no one is truly who they might seem?

Claudie I think that’s excellent. And that’s spot on and I wish I’d have said that. You know, that’s what’s so interesting about this. There’s so many secrets. There’s so many lies that they are all sort of slightly pretending to be somebody they’re not. And yeah, but I think they’re really floored by that. I think they put their daughter on a pedestal. They thought their mom and dad had this perfect marriage. And it’s like, what? What do you mean your marriage wasn’t? It’s like, no wonder I’m useless. And I think it really hits them hard to think that this relationship that they put on a pedestal was that was far from perfect. And then they. And then, you know, the fact that they thought, oh my God, my mom when my mom suffered all this alone and didn’t share any of this with us. And yeah, no, it’s definitely a dysfunctional family in that respect.

Jace I mean, considering those contentious relationships between the siblings, how do those fractured relationships compare to that between you and the actors playing your onscreen siblings, Lydia Leonard and Russell Tovey?

Claudie Oh god, I couldn’t stand them. Oh, no. It was you know, we are so lucky. And I could tell in the read through because the way it’s sort of written for the siblings is that the lines sort of, they interrupt each other. So there was always a kind of line where the next person should start their, you know, just start talking. And so there was always in sort of overlap, you know, how siblings kind of finish each other’s sentences. Well, that was in the script at moments, but we we started just doing it, like, naturally and all the time. And so that’s a really lovely thing. And to be allowed to do that is so lovely. The director just gave us free rein. Just to interrupt each other. Which is very rare. Not only are you lucky that other actors don’t get their back up about, you know, jumping on the end of the line or whatever, is it so, so sound allowed us to try to do that where sound normally has a real issue with that. So we kind of just it just flowed. And I think that’s really important. I think that’s why it kind of looks quite real. And yeah, we sort of mucked about a lot between takes, which is a bit naughty, but I think there’s that, there’s that thing that feeds really nicely into the scenes. And, you know, it kind of just action was called and we were already in that kind of lovely, sort of naughty, you know, were quite piss-taking with each other, which worked really well. Yeah. And I think that really works on screen when you’ve got when you’ve got that little glint in the eye and a little bit of naughtiness in reality that kind of transfers really nicely on screen. So, yeah, it was a really lovely job in that respect. Yeah.

Jace Mary is a very unusual presence in the household. But she’s their nextdoor neighbor. She’s a sort of surrogate mom who helped to raise the kids while Vivien was working. How would you describe Helen’s relationship to Mary? What does she represent to her?

Claudie I think she’s really comforting. You know, I think, you know, we’ve lived next door to her. She’s known us all our lives. And she’s always been. You know, when mum was busy or mum, you know, she’s a working mother. She couldn’t pick us up from school or whatever. Mary would come and pick us up from school. So she’s not that kind of comforting sort of auntie or, you know, babysitter that you’ve had all your life and that you just, you know, that you love and you have so, you know, she’s out. She’s a rock for us, Mary. So, yeah, I don’t wanna say too much about Mary, but to know she’s always that is all is lovely. And even when they’re older, you know, like how obviously how we meet them in the series, they all still go to Mary and lean on Mary, which is quite nice. You know, it’s really comforting.

Jace The first episode is intercut between the past and the present day where Mary is giving a statement to the police in this first episode. It adds a framework through which the action can be viewed. But there’s a sense that Mary is on the outside of the family as much as she is on the inside. Does that contradiction give flesh and blood a unique perspective that these characters are sure of being seen by someone outside of themselves perhaps with their own agenda?

Claudie Yeah. Because, I mean, if that if she wasn’t there, it would just be very a very, very, very, very different quality about it. And it could be some, you know, a drama that you might you know, you’re comfortable watching and you kind of know that sort of genre. But Mary adds a whole ‘nother kind of strand. And I think it’s that’s another sort of unsettling thing, because you’re watching it again from another angle and you’re watching it from her angle. And she’s sometimes not quite as she seems is she? So you’re wondering all the time, what is this woman thinking and why is she so interested in this family? Is it bordering on obsession? And so that it adds this other kind of oddness to this to the drama. And I think, you know, that’s what’s so special about it. And I think it would just it just wouldn’t be the same if you didn’t have her. It would just be something that you kind of may be seeing, you know, before. And this is certainly something that you’ve never seen before. So it’s very interesting, I think.

Jace Before this next question, let’s take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors…

Jace You appeared in Cranford alongside Imelda Staunton. What was it like working with the Imelda on Flesh and Blood?

Claudie Oh, so lovely seeing her again and then. Yeah. I turned up at the read through. She lept up out of her seat and run over. No, because I was so nervous and I as soon as I saw her she gave me a big hug. And it was nice. I hadn’t seen for years and you know, we weren’t in corsets and funny wigs and stuff. We know we’ve got to wear normal clothes. Well hers arent’t that normal. But you know what I mean. Modern. And again, in Cranford, it was just wonderful because it was just loads of naughty, naughty ladies who, you know, we used to have bring your own cake days and we sit and eat those cakes and, you know, they’re just full of stories and everyone was just a laugh and, you know, nobody was precious. And so I’m just a huge admirer of Imelda and I just absolutely love what she does. I think she’s such a clever, clever, brilliant actress. So, yeah, to be the scenes with her, I just loved working on it because I just think she’s fantastic the way she’s just utterly engaging in and just pushes that boundary a little bit, you know, just the quirkiness and just was utterly truthful. And I yeah, I really admire her. So it was brilliant work. Oregon.

Jace There’s a closeness between Helen’s husband, George and Natalie that surprised me in this first episode. What is Helen’s take on their rapport? What does she see them doing?

Claudie Yeah, I think it comes down to not really knowing your sister. And if they if they’d sat down and had a conversation about it, he she would have had nothing to fear. And it wouldn’t be a jealousy thing. It would just, she would get it. But because they don’t have that close relationship, I think she doesn’t like it at all. I don’t think seeing her sister so close to her husband is not very nice. Especially when she really, really suspects her husband in the later episodes something, you know, and she’s now worried that he talks more to her sister than he does to her. And I think this is a real wakeup call for Helen. Like, hang about. Should I have really took my eye off the ball here because my husband doesn’t talk to me anymore, he talks to my sister more than he talks to me/ And so I think through the episode, you, Helen, gets a scary realization that she could lose she could lose her husband and had really no idea that this was ever going to be a possibility, because she’s always he is a rock and he would always be there for her. But no, I think this is the thought of losing George is the scariest, though, in the world.

Jace So I want to talk about Mark Kinneally. He’s come onto the scene. Suddenly, Vivien’s in hospital. His behavior does seem insidious. He’s ingratiated himself into Vivien’s life really quickly. And then suddenly he’s moving into the sibling’s childhood home. How does Helen view Vivien and Mark’s romance by the time we get to the end of the first episode?

Claudie Oh, definitely, the suspicions are starting to sort of rear their ugly head. You know, I think he started already very quickly to move the relationship on in an in an uncomfortably fast pace that you just that that feels very unnatural. So although I would want my mom to be happy, I think Helen, as a practical human and thinking all the time of practicalities and money and the FT chat and, you know, she’s a kind of, you know, save your money kind of gal and be protective in that way. She she is definitely. She’s definitely got her sights set on him in terms of protecting her mother after the first episode, and then it just gets steadily, steadily worse.

Jace At the end of the first episode, we know an incident has occurred, what Mary deems an accident, but which the police are considering a possible murder. The specifics are very much deliberately concealed, making this as much a done-what as a whodunit. Does the withholding of the crime give Flesh and Blood an additional layer of mystery?

Claudie Definitely. Yeah, without a doubt, because it’s the first scene. And then we go back three months. So we had always as an audience wondering, who that was, who did it? Why is that happened? And that’s always at the back of my mind. Yeah, and that definitely adds that kind of uncomfortable, kind of unnerving sort of feeling in your stomach while you’re watching it. And no. And then you’ll. And then you go on to watch, you know, siblings argue and domestic scene, which feels quite normal. And then put it, how is it normal if we’ve just seen a body?

Jace What can you tease about what’s coming up over the next three episodes of Flesh and Blood?

Claudie Well, all I’ll say is, the new boyfriend makes more and more bold moves in order to win our mother’s heart, and we get more and more suspicious. We get closer together as siblings and we form a little kind of gang to find out what he’s all about. So we do some digging and it’s quite interesting. And running alongside of that, we all secretly all trying to hold our own lives together, which are completely falling apart. So there’s lots going on.

Jace One of your earliest roles was as Ophelia in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Royal National Theater in 1995. Did you always want to be an actor?

Claudie I’m afraid so. I’m afraid so. Yeah. Growing up, I did kind of pantomimes, and I joined a little amateur dramatics because my mom used to act in the amateur group, I as a kid would go and play a tree or a fairy or a mouse or, you know. And I and I just to me, I got that bug of being on stage and loved that kind of playing to an audience every night and becoming someone else. And yeah, I got that bug really early. So I was one of the lucky ones. I always knew what I wanted to do from a very early age.

Jace Your dad, Allan Blakely, was the rhythm guitarist of the tremolos in the 1960s and auditioned for Decca on the same day as the Beatles. Your mom Lin is an actor. What did they, your parents make of your career choice? How supportive were they of your decision?

Claudie Well, I my dad passed away quite some time ago, but I’m really, really pleased to say that he, you know, saw me work the phones. So, yeah, he saw me do my first two jobs, one of them being Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Funnily enough. He sat next to Tom Stoppard and elbowed him in the side, and said, “That’s my daughter.” And so that was really sweet. And yeah, he got to see that. And I was really pleased that he did. Oh my God. My parents were fully 100 million percent behind me, 100 million percent. And my dad used to take me to auditions and when I was young. Yeah. And I think that having that’s behind me gave me the courage to do it. And I think it’s a difficult profession, you know. And so to have the support of your family and the belief of your family and the kind of, you know, the confidence of your family that believe in you and think you’ve got, you know, the ability to do it, that gives you the courage to do it. So I’m really lucky in that respect.

Jace You did star in Robert Altman’s star studded, to put it mildly, 2001 film Gosford Park as the poor mistreated Mabel Nesbit, who gets a very raw deal. What do you remember of this experience, particularly given the high wattage nature of the cast?

Claudie I remember all of it. I remember the first meet and greet when I was literally pooing myself and I was just sitting there with Derek Jacobi who told me he was pooing himself. So I felt that was very reassuring because I just thought, how can you be worried about this, you’re Derek Jacobi? So I realized quite quickly that doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the biz and who you are. It’s working, you know. On the first day, scary for everybody. So that was put me at ease and then to be encouraged. He had Robert Altman had a sort of makeshift screening room set up on site, on location. And we were encouraged by him every evening, often after filming to go in and watch the rushes with him. He would he would want us to, you know, talk about it and contribute. And it was just, you know, so collaborative. And he just wanted to share all the time and talk about it. And he gave. Oh, my God. I mean, I was we were all equal. And he loved working — no offense to Americans at all, but we as Brits we’re just completely undemanding. And we didn’t we used to sit around and no one asked for anything, and we’re happy to be there. So he he kept saying how much he loved working with us because we weren’t making any demands.

Jace Did Altman have any advice or direction for you that you sort of took to heart?

Claudie Yeah, he just came up to me in the dinner queue once and said, “I think your mother died. I think your mother died when she was young. When you were young,” and he just planted that seed in the dinner queue. And I just thought, God, that’s brilliant. You know, just he would just feed in little kind of layers, little ideas. I mean, it’s remarkable working with someone like that. You kind of never really knew where the camera was. It was lot of it was made up. He would just be like, oh, don’t. Don’t bother with the script. You know, don’t go the. Oh, he he loved all the accidents, you know. And you know, when Maggie says, “Oh, it’s a funny color, green,” when she looks at my dress. I mean that was completely made up. And that’s one of his favorite lines in the whole film. And just the freedom that he gave. And in terms of, you know, camera, you know, you didn’t have to. You didn’t have to stick with continuity, you didn’t you didn’t have to hit your spots or anything. And it was just a very free way of working. And, yeah, he’s brilliant. He was an amazing man. Lucky, lucky girl that I am, to have worked with him.

Jace One of your best-loved roles is as Emma Timmons in Lark Rise to Candleford opposite Brendan Coyle, who then would go on to star as Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey. Did Lark Rise change your career or the types of roles you were being offered?

Claudie Yes, because then I started sort of getting motherly, very motherly roles, which I hadn’t had before. You know, I was on one of those actors that I’ve sort of played, whether it’s because I was much older then, having children. So I’m in my 40s now and I left it really late. And so I was always felt like a girl, weirdly. And I always played a lot younger than I was. And lucky to have played, keep that stuff going for as long as I could, I suppose. And then when I played Emma Timmons, who’s who’s the mother of five kids. Oh my God. Yeah. Had lots of babies to look after and said it was mad on set. After that, yeah. I suppose I was just considered a sort of more motherly type and I hadn’t had that before. I always had sort of quirky, you know, quirky little naughty sort of girls. Yeah. Sort of happened overnight. It was weird and it is amazing. As soon as you play a role of that kind of high profile sort of look, then that’s how you seen.

Jace The cast of Cranford, including Dame Judi Dench and Julia McKenzie: True or false, you guys would organize bake offs?

Claudie Yeah, I did. But it was. I think I did. Yeah, it was. Wait to hear Deborah Findlay or like Imelda definitely Julie. Yeah, they would all. Yeah, they all thought of brilliant things to do all the time because there were lots of days when it would be all of us. And so they would come up with ideas. And God, it was brilliant. I mean, I got really fat. And I was wearing a corset, and that was just unbearable. You know, eating all these cakes on lunch break and then having to put a corset on, it was just horrible.

Jace Dreadful.

Claudie But really good fun. There were obviously days when you’re in all the time and they would be like the little fêtes and stuff or we’d all be there, but we wouldn’t have much to do so. Yeah. So there was a cake table permanently set up. Yes. Naughty.

Jace I mean, was that one of those sets where you have to pinch yourself because it all just feels so magical?

Claudie Yeah. Honestly, that Cranford and Lark Rise, I, you know,  I always really wanted to do costume drama. I always really wanted to do that because I just thought the idea of just inhabiting a complete different era. Like, so different. And you know wear these wigs and talk in this different way and and the art department, the attention to detail, you would literally be in that time and Lark Rise to Candleford. I mean we were we just filmed on this land. This farm is land in the middle of nowhere outside Bath. I mean, it was just idyllic with with people that became my closest friends. And we all lived in Bath. We all had dinner every night. And it was. Yeah. God, I just. You do have to pinch yourself. You do. It’s lucky.

Jace Claudie Blakley, thank you so very much.

Claudie Thank you. That was great. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Jace If Helen is an overworked executive, her baby sister, Natalie, has problems of her own to sort through.

CLIP

Tony Ok, Nats. Look, be strong.  I’m going to be out of there within the week, I promise you.

Natalie Five years I’ve been waiting for you, alright.  How much longer do I have to wait? Until your wife kills me?

Jace Flesh & Blood star Lydia Leonard joins us October 11 here on the podcast for more.

MASTERPIECE Studio is hosted by me, Jace Lacob, and produced by Nick Andersen. Elisheba Ittoop is our editor. Rebecca Eaton is the executive producer at large for MASTERPIECE. The executive producer of MASTERPIECE is Susanne Simpson.

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