Sally Lindsay Interview - upcoming BBC Drama, Ordinary Lives

Sally Lindsay is one of the stars in the new BBC drama Ordinary Lives, we had a quick chat with Sally as filming ended.

Tell us about Ordinary Lies.
Ordinary Lies is a drama set in Warrington in a car showroom called JS Motors, about a group of people that work there including the mechanics, salesmen, PA, Head of Admin and company boss. It’s about their lives and how they all work together, but they’ve all got their own individual secret or lie that they are harbouring and therein lies the drama.

Tell us about your character, Kathy?
My character is called Kathy and she’s just approaching 40. She’s very happily married to Ralph and they have two grown-up children as they married pretty young. They’ve got a lovely house and she’s happy with her life. She’s worked at JS Motor’s since she was 17, so she doesn’t know anything else, but absolutely loves it. She’s in charge of everything and knows everybody’s business and is the office gossip! She knows where the skeletons are buried and her boss Mike, played by Max Beesley, literally can’t function without her.

We know every character has a lie – what is Kathy’s story?
Kathy is a very moral person; she’s always done the right things in life. She’s very happy in her life, but decides there’s something missing and therein the lie occurs. When she’s harbouring this lie, she sees something quite horrific that she shouldn’t which affects her greatly and the moral is what should she do about it? She feels she has to do the right thing, but there’s the dilemma.

Is Kathy someone that audiences will be able to relate to?
Kathy is very relatable on a human level; Ordinary Lies celebrates the normality of the British public, which is the beauty of it. We all have regular lives but sometimes things happen that make them irregular. I think the more normal Kathy is, the more brilliant the story is, as you don’t see it coming.

Kathy is a big dog lover. Was it fun working with the dogs?
Working with dogs proved to be a slight problem as I have a dog allergy! When I got the part I was told that I’d be working with a dog quite a lot so I got allergy tablets. It wasn’t a small dog either - it was like a grown man in a dog outfit, it was huge! We used to joke that he unzipped his costume and had a fag at lunchtime!

Had you ever worked with any of the other cast members before?
No, I hadn’t worked with any of them before, but I seemed to have such a lot in common with a lot of the cast. Michelle (Keegan) was on Coronation Street like me and Jo (Joyner) has twins like me, Max (Beesley) is a drummer and my husband has known him for years as he’s a drummer too. I’ve known Jason (Manford) since he was 17, I remember him doing stand-up but that was a long, long time ago. So I’ve known all these people but we’ve never actually physically worked together. Juliet May who I did my episode with was phenomenal – I’d work with her again tomorrow if I could – and she’s got twins!

There were five people who had twins on set!