From Detective To Fairy Queen
Sunday Times, 13 November 2005
With more Inspector Lynley on the way, plus a radical BBC Shakespeare and the film Dear Frankie, Sharon Small is now flying high, reports Jeremy Austin.
Talking to me in her home, Sharon Small is instantly recognisable. The broad forehead, sharp features and piercing eyes make her seem as familiar as a member of the family.
Famous for her role as Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, the actress is very much in demand for a host of other parts on television and in film. But despite the familiarity, Small remains an enigma. Currently filming the fourth series of Inspector Lynley for the BBC, she has a string of other high-profile performances to her name — Glasgow Kiss and Sunburn, not to mention her role as Hugh Grant's former girlfriend in About a Boy and more recently the lead in Dear Frankie, the well-received Scottish tearjerker. Normally this kind of CV would elicit a string of high-profile interviews in glossy magazines. But that is not the case with Small. Why?
"I don't think I am interesting enough," she says.
But she also admits to being shy, which makes her uncomfortable talking too much about her life off screen. And there's another reason: she prefers to keep herself and her boyfriend out of the papers.
"I don't like to let people into my private life," she says. "It is a good thing to get your profile up, but I am quite shy and I can't be too bothered thinking about what I am going to wear if have to get the Tube or go shopping."
In a profession that thrives on public recognition it's an unusual point of view and she admits: "I would be lying if I didn't say a part of me wanted to be famous. Everybody wants to make their life count. One of the ways to do that is do to something of note — and I was unlikely to get a Nobel prize. I don't have a press secretary or a press agent, so I don't invite anything."
Her latest role, though, has brought with it a wave of attention. Cast in the BBC's much-vaunted Shakespeare season, she plays Titania in a reworked version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Starring Imelda Staunton, Bill Paterson and tubby comedian Johnny Vegas, it dispenses with the tights and Shakespearian dialogue. In its place Theo and Polly visit Dream Park — a bit like Center Parcs — to celebrate their daughter Hermia's engagement.
"There are definitely going to be some purists wondering what the point is without the language," she says, but adds it will give youngsters the chance to learn the story, a point she plainly understands.
"I didn't really have a very good understanding of Shakespeare, I just knew I had to learn some quotes for my O-grades. It was only when I went to drama school, learnt and studied it and played the characters that I appreciated the emotion in there. It was like magic."
More germane, she says, she gets to play the love interest to Vegas's Bottom. Surely this is the high point in any actor's career, particularly when Vegas is wearing a hairy face and ears after having his head turned into that of a donkey?
"He takes it really seriously," she says. "He is a very funny man and we laughed a lot, but when he had a scene he was focused. It had to be genuine. I had to be in love with him — this ridiculous man who looks like an ass."
Small does not come from a theatrical family — although she laughs when I ask if there was much drama in the house.
"That's debatable," she says. Born in Glasgow in 1967, she is the eldest of five children. She lived in Clydebank before moving at the age of 10 to Kinghorn in Fife.
"Going from Glasgow to Fife — it is very seasidey. It is a little bit innocent on the east coast. I didn't want to move, but we settled in really quickly and people were very friendly.
"Scotland is a colourful place and I miss it sometimes. I have been down here in London for 20 years. That's amazing to me. My family still lives up north."
There was always music in the house while she was growing up, but it was not until she reached 16 that she encountered anything more than the annual pantomime.
"It was at the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum. I went with the school. Wildcat Productions was performing The Beggar's Opera. I was blown away and thought that's what I want to do," she says.
"I saw all these people becoming these characters, singing and acting and dancing. I though I wanted to do all of those things."
But, again, it begs the question, if she is so shy, why would she want to do it?
"It is difficult to put into words. It is an attraction, in a way, to wanting to tell stories, of putting myself into these characters. I enjoy that.
"I enjoy the feeling of playing other characters. I don't expect anyone thought I would go into it. I hadn't been one of those child stars with people saying: 'Oh, she's going to be an actor.'"
Eventually she enrolled in the drama course at Kirkcaldy college, a couple of years above Ewan McGregor, Dougray Scott and below Shirley Henderson. Until that point her only experience of acting had been reading what was on the curriculum at school. These days, the naivety and shyness are gone and we can look forward to Small playing Ken Stott's girlfriend in a new series of Rebus. It is the kind of role that brings with it, she admits, a certain kind of attention.
"I have some very lovely letters from gentlemen of a certain age," she says, particularly for Havers.
"They think she is very nice. It is lovely if someone comes up to you and says they enjoyed an episode."
So gaining attention through her work is not all bad.
"I had a telephone call from a friend who said she had just spent the past two hours sobbing. I thought ‘Whatever has happened?' but it was at Dear Frankie."
The film, shot in Greenock, had the warmth and sentimentality of the best downbeat Scottish love stories. Small plays Marie, who employs Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), a runaway single mother, in her chip shop.
"It is a very sweet and loving film. It is lovely. It is a small film with a big heart," Small reckons.
But what attracted her to the big screen?
"It was such a strong story about love between people — a mother and her son. It was the script," she says. Then she thinks a bit.
"And the chance to be in a film."
Perhaps, at last, fame is around the corner for this reluctant leading lady.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, BBC1, 8.30pm, Nov 28.
