Brenda Blethyn returns to Malvern in Edna O’Brien’s beautiful play Haunted (From Hereford Times)

Brenda Blethyn returns to Malvern in Edna O’Brien’s beautiful play Haunted

8:00am Friday 19th February 2010 in

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OSCAR-nominated and multi-award winning actor Brenda Blethyn returns to Malvern next week in Haunted, a play written by leading Irish novelist Edna O’Brien with her in mind.

However, when the script first arrived on her desk, Blethyn didn’t read it immediately – and not entirely because it was one of many sent to her.

“I do get sent a fair number, but I hadn’t read Edna’s work so I wasn’t familiar with it, and I did have a lot of other stuff to deal with,” she said.

“But Edna rang me a few times and I finally thought, ‘Let’s put this woman out of her misery’. I was blown away by it. I thought it was beautiful.

“Then I gave it to my partner (art director Michael Mayhew) to read, saying I didn’t have time. ‘You’ve got to read this,’ he said. ‘It’s fabulous’.

“‘I have read it’, I told him. ‘I just wanted your reaction’.

“Straight away I then sent it to (director) Braham Murray asking him to read it – and read it now. When he got round to it he instantly called me to tell me he loved it so much he’d found a place in his schedule for it. I was flabbergasted.”

Set in the London suburbs, Haunted tells the story of a captivating young stall holder, Hazel (Beth Cooke), who enters the life of the quixotic Mr Berry (Niall Buggy).

In his desperation to ensure he does not lose her, he starts secretly giving away his wife’s clothes in exchange for elocution lessons.

But as the redoubtable Mrs Berry (Brenda Blethyn) searches for an explanation for her fast-diminishing wardrobe, Mr Berry soon finds that both of his relationships are increasingly under threat.

“It’s a feast of language coming out of the mouths of ordinary people,” says Brenda. “All the characters are very ordinary, but they all share a love of language.

“It reminds me of the beer ad: ‘It reaches the parts others don’t reach’. It really touches you and gets to the nitty gritty of life.”

Brenda is something of a dramatic chameleon, never typecast and always making a role her own: “I try not to make a show of the character. I like them just to be there,” she says.

“I’m very, very lucky to be cast in lots of different parts, but I’m not fussy about the size of the role I play or if they are sympathetic characters.

“I don’t mind. I’m loved in life, I don’t need to be loved on the screen. That’s why I’ve never been out of work – I do feel blessed.”

One role she particularly loved playing was Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice: “I didn’t think that part would come my way,” she says.

“They’d been casting it for months and not coming to me, then my agent called and said the producer and director wanted to come and see me to talk about the part. It was a bit of a shock, but lovely.”

Brenda has already cleared her diary for the expected transfer of Haunted to the West End when the current tour finishes, but later in the year she will resume filming further episodes of Vera, murder mysteries based on the novels of Ann Cleeves. “We’ve already filmed the first one and even before it’s screened, they want to make more.”

Haunted is at Malvern Theatres from Monday, February 22, to Saturday, February 27. To book, call the box office on 01684 892277 or visit malvern-theatres.co.uk / Brenda Blethyn stars with Niall Buggy in Haunted by Edna O’Brien at Malvern Theatres.