Christopher Eccleston

Last Thursday, I interviewed the amazing Christopher Eccleston in the Caryl Churchill Theatre of the Department and Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London.

It was a real honour. I was, I’ll admit, a bit nervous; he’s a star and I’m slightly in awe of him, but I was asked to do it and of course I wanted to. To prepare, I read his autobiography, I Love the Bones of You (2019), which is a very unusual memoir, deeply immersed in thinking about family, class, masculinity, being from the north, mental health and, yes, acting: I was rather blown away by it. It has exactly the kind of non-self-indulgent truthfulness that I associate with Chris’s acting. It’s a really rather profound piece of work and I was very moved by it.

And Chris was a joy. He was full of humour and mischief but with an uncompromising seriousness about acting and life behind it all. I was so delighted to speak with him and I think our students got a huge amount out of his presence. It was a very generous thing of Chris to come and talk to us and I hope we have him back soon.

And I was very restrained. I only mentioned Doctor Who once.