Actress Kara Tointon talks about her latest role as a tortured, manipulated wife in the celebrated psychological drama Gaslight. Showing at Woking's New Victoria Theatre Jan 23-28
Since leaving EastEnders in 2009, actress Kara Tointon has gone on to forge a successful stage career starring in such highly acclaimed West End productions as Pygmalion, alongside Rupert Everett and Dame Diana Rigg, and Absent Friends with Reece Shearsmith and Katherine Parkinson.
Now she is taking on the role of Bella in Patrick Hamilton’s spine-chilling thriller Gaslight, which comes to Woking’s New Victoria Theatre this month. The play, which is perhaps less familiar than the 1944 Oscar-winning screen version starring Ingrid Bergman, follows the turbulent and twisted marriage between the mysterious Jack Manningham (Rupert Young) and his trusting young wife, played by Tointon.
“I haven’t actually watched the film yet,” she explains. “I know they messed with the script quite a bit. Doing it on stage is just a different kettle of fish. It has to work in a different kind of way to make the piece scary for the audience.”
Over the course of the play (for reasons I don’t want to divulge), Jack slowly subjects his wife to seemingly trivial misdeeds that ultimately leave her teetering on the verge of madness.
“She suffers all this mental abuse which is so dark and twisted and you are screaming at her to just walk away. But Bella’s brain begins to accept the mistreatment as the norm, and to try and leave it behind is just too scary to contemplate.
“But they have had good times and the play opens with a rather lovely couple, so the audience is never quite sure what is going on in their marriage.”
This dark, psychological drama is a long way from Tointon’s previous outing as Maria in The Sound of Music Live, broadcast in December 2015.
“Now that was scary,” she laughs. “In a way it was just lovely singing ‘The Hills are Alive’ and ‘Doe-a-deer’, but I have never been as nervous in my whole life. We were rehearsing like it was a big piece of theatre but we were only doing it that one time, which I couldn’t get my head round.
“Normally, once you’re two weeks in, you start to feel it and settle in and you can iron out any problems, but we only had that one night to get it right. I have never had nerves like that, so now I tell myself that if I can get through that, I can get through anything.”
Following a stint in the popular ITV1 period drama Mr Selfridge, the 33-year-old returns to our screens this month in the channel’s new blockbuster, The Halcyon, set in a London hotel as the Second World War breaks out. Tointon plays Betsy Day, the hotel’s resident lounge singer.
“Yes, so I’ll be singing again, but at least it’s not live,” she laughs. “It’s an amazing show and I’ve got some great jazz numbers.”
Lay aside, however, all thoughts of Downton-esque period cosiness. The Halcyon, says Tointon, is “fast and furious, very sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll”.
“A hotel as a backdrop allows you to have plenty of characters coming and going, giving you a glimpse into lots of people’s lives. Especially in wartime, when people are making decisions in a heartbeat. They are living for the moment and seizing the day.”
A bit like the talented Ms Tointon herself. “I’m so fortunate to have been able to mix it up,” she says. “That’s the vision when you set out in this industry and I know how very lucky I’ve been.”
Gaslight is at New Victoria Theatre, Woking Jan 23-28, and Richmond Theatre Mar 6-11 for tickets visit atg-tickets.com
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