OOK’
after Harry from Spooks, and it is now
on her Wikipedia page. “He doesn’t
mind, he has never seen Spooks.”
When Harry was a baby Walker
wondered why there weren’t crèches
at theatres. “I couldn’t take three hours
out of my day to audition, but now it’s
better, people are taking their babies to
rehearsals.” She identifies with the
working-mother guilt Hannah feels in
The Split. “It is part of being a parent;
terrible, suffocating levels of guilt on a
daily basis.”
We are talking at the National Thea-
tre, where Walker is rehearsing the
19th-century Welsh playwright Emlyn
Williams’s The Corn Is Green. She plays
a teacher who starts a school in Wales
for young miners (one is based on Wil-
liams). She’s excited about the Welsh
choir who will be on stage: “they made
the floor reverberate with their voices!”
Walker never thought of acting as a
career even though she has been doing
it since she was 12, when her mother
sent her to a youth theatre. Her father
was a scrap-metal dealer and thought
it was a ridiculous thing to do. Walker
was the first in her family to go to uni-
versity, studying English at Cam-
bridge (again, self-effacingly she
says she “wasn’t particularly
gifted academically but I loved
my course”). It was there that
she met Sue Perkins, who
wanted to get more women
into Footlights and brought
Walker along. “But I didn’t
think acting could be my job. I
didn’t know any actors, I couldn’t see
how you got there and wanted to work.”
After university she continued acting
in her friend’s plays, above pubs (“I’d do
the play so that I could get to the bar
after”). It was at a pub play, with Rachel
Weisz, that she was spotted by an agent.
Still, getting cast on television was
impossible. “I didn’t fit these worrying
character breakdowns — ‘she’s 6ft, men
turn to look at her as she crosses the
room’. I’d walk in — 5ft 2in — thinking I
didn’t fit that look. But I did fit in the
theatre.” Those dramas about 6ft femme
fatales have been phased out. “Drama
reflects the temperature culturally and it
is time for change. There are stories to
be told about men and women over 35
and I don’t think that will slip back.”
Despite her elevation to near national
treasure status — and another BBC
drama called Marriage with Sean Bean
— she is on edge about what’s next.
“When this play is over I’m going to be
unemployed. I’m riding a nice wave but
it is going to curl at some point. It’s feast
or famine and you can never quite enjoy
time off if you don’t have something
lined up.” Does she have any desire to go
to Hollywood? “I don’t know — Holly-
wood for me is watching Marvel films
with my son.” cThe Split starts tomorrow on BBC1;
The Corn Is Green, Lyttelton, National
Theatre, London SE1, Thu-Jun 11Since the end of lockdown the
West End has concentrated
on light-hearted fare, but
here is a production of To
Kill a Mockingbird to restore
some high-brow oomph to
Shaftesbury Avenue. Harper
Lee’s novel about race and
rape injustice in 1930s
Alabama has been given a
fresh varnish by Aaron Sorkin,
the screenwriter of, among
others, The West Wing. It has a
big cast and is skilfully staged.
Rafe Spall has the task of
making us forget Gregory
Peck’s 1962 film role as Atticus
Finch, the widowed small-
town lawyer appointed to
defend a black man accused
of sexual assault. His client,
Tom Robinson, has a withered
left arm yet the rape was
plainly committed by
someone with two strong
hands. Was nervy Mayella
Ewell truly assaulted by the
mild-mannered Robinson? Or
was her father Bob the rapist?
Spall brings a modern,
slightly furry wash to Atticus.
There is little 1930s formality.
His hair is dandyish and he
wears designer stubble. I
could have done without that.
In general the performance
is excellent. This Finch is
easygoing with his children
and brotherly to his long-
serving black housekeeper,
Calpurnia (Pamela Nomvete).
His patience with racist
neighbours can be seen as
naively tolerant or politic, or
both. Part of the value of Lee’s
story is that it questions our
presumptions. Is the law
always right? Are violence and
cover-ups always wrong?
Bartlett Sher’s production
is brushed gently by music
from a downstage guitarist
and harmonium-organist.Rafe Spall wows in Aaron Sorkin’s play — pity about the stubble
Scene changes
are achieved with
ingenuity. The pace
is good. It does not
feel almost three
hours long.
The story is
narrated by Finch’s
six-year-old daughter,
Scout. She, her brother,
Jem, and their friend Dill are
played by thirtysomething
actors and here the
production stumbles a little. It
is understandable that child
actors might struggle with
such roles, but I’m afraid my
teeth started grinding every
time Scout and Dill ran on and
curled their heels, pretending
to be kids. Their presence
becomes an irritant in the
otherwise superb court scene,
where the children chip in to
explain what is happening.
When Robinson (a fine,
unshowy turn by Jude Owusu)
is about to be cross-examined,
Jem tells the audience
portentously, “This is it.”
Oh dear. Sorkin also betrays
an American weakness for
whoop-lines with a couple of
overwritten interventions.
Don’t let that or a couple
of iffy Southern accents deter
you. The nobility of Finch’s
fight for his innocent client is
stirringly done. Spall reasserts
himself as a significant stage
force. His performance is
balanced by a spittingly nasty
Bob Ewell from Patrick
O’Kane. Throw in a dodderybut decent judge
( Jim Norton) and
a terrified Mayella
(Poppy Lee Friar)
and you have a
seriously satisfying,
satisfyingly
serious evening.
At the other end of
the pool, in rubber ring and
armbands, bobs a version
of Hamlet “for young
audiences”. Lasting an hour,
it is an efficient boiling-down
of the plot by Jude Christian,
but the show owes more to
Play School than Shakespeare.
The actors are done up in
candy colours. Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern could be
clowns. Laertes (female,
naturally) skips off to
university saying, “See ya
later, love ya,” to Polonius.
Some touches work.
Ill-fated characters, after
death, don a silvery veil.
Ophelia is given Hamlet’s
suicidal lines. The matinee
crowd enjoyed chanting
“murderer!” at Claudius.
Teenagers might have been in
their element, but the
children looked to be mainly
pre-teens and there was a
surfeit of fidgety giggles.
Much as one wants youngsters
to discover Shakespeare,
it might be wiser to leave
it a couple of years. This
enterprise, perhaps designed
chiefly for Arts Council
box-ticking, feels forced
and patronising. cFor theatre tickets, visit
thetimes.co.uk/ticketsTHE
CRITICSQUENTIN
LETTS
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gielgud Theatre, London W1
HHHHHamlet
National Theatre, London SE1
HHSuperb scene Poppy
Lee Friar and Rafe SpallHigh-brow oomph
MARC BRENNERIf I’m in
a crimedrama I get
frightened I’llblurt out who
the killer isRACHELL SMITH/CAMERA PRESS| THEATRE
3 April 2022 11