Two longtime favorites of The Hobbledehoy are Rob Brydon (The Trip) and Katherine Parkinson (“Pauline” on Doc Martin, “”Jen Barber” on The IT Crowd ). This clip is from Brydon’s terrific podcast, Rob Brydon & __________ .
To listen to the full audio interview on the Brydon & podcast, The Hobbledehoy reluctantly suggests Spotify
The IT Crowd actor on losing things, the lure of Shakespeare, and starring in a stage version of 70s sitcom The Good Life
London-born Katherine Parkinson, 41, studied classics at Oxford University and acting at Lamda in London. She played Jen in the sitcom The IT Crowd, for which role she won a Bafta. Other TV credits include Doc Martin, The Honourable Woman, Humans and Defending the Guilty. She now stars in EV Crowe’s new play Shoe Lady at the Royal Court in London and will soon appear as Barbara Good in the stage revival of sitcom The Good Life in Bristol.
What’s Shoe Lady, about?
It’s a brilliant piece of writing by Emma Crowe that’s impressionistic and poetic – which probably makes it sound incredibly worthy but it’s really funny. Essentially, it’s about an estate agent who loses her shoe on the way to work and everything escalates from there because she can’t seem to fit into the world any more. It’s about how close we all are to the edge and the surprising fragility of things the middle classes take for granted.
Are you close to the edge yourself?
Oh my God, I’m over the edge. No, it did resonate. I’ve done lots of theatre lately and wasn’t especially looking to do more but I couldn’t resist this because it was so unique. Sometimes theatre can be poverty porn – plays about the working class being watched by the middle class, which feels uncomfortable and touristy – whereas this feels like a truthful piece of writing about somebody’s particular circumstances [ . . . ]
Katherine Parkinson is making her return to TV comedy with the BBC.The BAFTA-winning IT Crowd star has spent the last few years dodging killer robots on Channel 4’s Humans, but her next TV project will see her rangling a class of pupil barristers
In BBC Two’s forthcoming Defending the Guilty, Parkinson plays a pupilmaster called Caroline whose job is to wake up her bright-eyed students to the confusing and often disappointing realities of the law.
Source: Katherine Parkinson sets new BBC sitcom Defending the Guilty
