Ahead of a lead role in the second series of ITV’s Malpractice, Zoë Telford discusses the power of good writing, and reveals her preference for playing complex characters
If you enjoyed ITV’s gripping thriller, Malpractice, you’ll be excited to hear that it returns for a second series this month, with a brand-new cast, and an explosive new storyline to pick over. Based on writer Grace Ofori-Attah’s first hand experiences as a junior NHS doctor, and produced by World Productions, the team behind Line of Duty, the first season explored the legal investigation into whether a doctor’s actions had resulted in a patient’s death, and was highly praised by both audiences and critics, with The Guardian describing it as “an unflinching portrayal of the pressures of frontline medicine.”
The second season will once again delve into this high-stakes world, tackling ethical dilemmas and personal crises with laser focus realism. The story this time will centre on an ambitious consultant psychiatrist who is secretly linked to a junior doctor. With both careers potentially on the line, things dramatically unravel for the leads in the most explosive way. Zoë Telford plays the consultant psychiatrist, opposite Tom Hughes as the junior doctor.
“The reason I wanted to be a part of the show, broadly speaking, is because of Grace’s writing. I’d seen the first series, and loved it,” Zoë tells me. “I was expecting it to be quite fast-paced, and to feel quite real and visceral, and it was that. Very much so. I just thought it was a terrific piece of work with some outstanding performances, and something that I was really keen to be a part of. And so, I was thrilled to be given the opportunity.”
She is hopeful that this second series will be equally well received. “Certainly, in terms of the writing, it’s a real rollercoaster,” she tells me. “It was thrilling to read, and to be a part of, and I hope that we have done it justice. I think that Grace has something unique, because obviously it comes from a place of lived experience. It’s ostensibly a thriller, like the first series was, set within the very authentic and familiar setting of the NHS. So, it’s all sorts of things – it’s a thriller, it’s a cat and mouse thriller, but it is also, for me, it’s a study on moral ambiguity and the grey areas which, of course, we all kind of live in, in life.”
Unsurprisingly, the exact storyline is being kept under wraps, with ITV revealing only the briefest of details. They say: “When on-call psychiatric registrar Dr James Ford (Tom Hughes) finds himself caught between an anxious new mother’s postnatal check-up and the sectioning of a psychotic patient, no one could predict the tragic outcome.”
Zoë explains how her character comes into that story. “So, the first one was set in A&E, whereas in this one, the action takes place between the obstetrics and the psych unit in a fictional hospital near Harrogate,” she tells me. “I play Kate McAllister, who is a consultant psychiatrist, who leads the team on the psych unit. She is deeply committed to her work, and to the wellbeing of her staff and patients. She has kind of poured her heart and soul into her work really, possibly to the detriment of her personal life, where she may have dropped the ball…”
Keen to bring realism to her role, Zoë was able to draw on real life experience. “It was important to me to just kind of bring as much truth as I could find to the role. I was really lucky in that Grace, who wrote it, is also a consultant psychiatrist,” she explains. “So really, in terms of my preparation for the role, there were lots of conversations with Grace. Talking to her and, you know, getting her lived experience, and also that of her colleagues. I spoke to another friend of hers quite a lot, who is also a working consultant psychiatrist. Just to get a clearer understanding of the kind of systemic pressures that a consultant psychiatrist may be facing in the NHS today.”
Complex and three dimensional, this is exactly the sort of role Zoë likes to get her teeth into. “If something is well written, and across the board, all the characters are saying things that you can imagine human beings saying, then that’s a really good place to start. You’d be amazed at how many times that isn’t the case,” she reveals. “And obviously I do love to see complex characters, and I do love to see complex women, and they are the parts that I want to play. It’s not of any interest to me to play a one note character, as indeed it is not for me to watch them. So that’s kind of the parts that I search for, and that’s the work that I want to watch as an audience member. It’s an important part of my job, to be discerning about the kinds of parts that I take. And I find that as time goes on, I feel like my focus is getting sharper, and so I feel more attuned to the work that really interests me.”
That focus is evident in Zoë’s past work. Most recently, she made a surprise return to BBC’s long-running crime drama, Silent Witness, as Jane De Freitas, a decade after her last appearance. And she has taken lead roles in The Lazarus Project opposite Papa Essiedu and Netflix’s Red Eye with Richard Armitage. Past CV highlights include collaborations with renowned directors like Woody Allen in Match Point and roles in Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile alongside Emily Blunt and David Suchet; the award-winning Litvinenko, Granchester, Criminal Justice, the BAFTA winning Room At The Top, Save Me Too, Teachers, Sherlock, Brassic, and Unforgotten. Her performance in the film Greyhawk earned her a Special Commendation Award at the 2014 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
“In terms of career highlights, for me it really comes down to working with the people that I want to work with,” she tells me. “I really feel like I’m focusing in more on that, and just the people, and the team that I’m going to be with, and those working relationships. And I feel really lucky that over the past few years I’ve been working with some directors that I just love, and that is just such a joy. I really get a kick out of that more than anything, in terms of my working life. It’s kind of electric when you work with people, and you feel like you understand one another in a kind of molecular way. You know, they get all the things that you’re wanting to bring forward – it’s really exciting. I just want more of that, really.”
Though she is reluctant to tell me who is on it, Zoë does reveal that she has a list of directors she would love to work with. “I won’t go into the names, but there are people, yes – I’ve got like a hit list, for sure,” she tells me.
Originally a dancer, Zoë recalls how it was her mother who encouraged her to try her hand at acting. “I remember my mum encouraging me to go to drama classes when I was a young teenager, and me really not wanting to go,” she admits. “I can’t explain it really, other than it just all felt a bit too vocal. I still sort of feel like that now… You know, so much of acting is physical, and visceral, and not cerebral at all, and I guess I felt like a bit of an outsider.”
She did eventually give in to persuasion. “I did a bit of drama later on, and my teachers were very encouraging,” she explains. “But it took me a while – it took me a long time to really commit to it. But I suppose through life and experience, I realised over time that actually it was central to what I wanted. I don’t know if you’ve felt this about anything, I’m sure you have, because we all have things where the penny drops. I think it was just a real kind of lightbulb moment, where I felt like this was really central to me, and to my happiness, and so I needed to pursue it, and I needed to pursue in a serious way.”
“I’M A LONDON ADDICT – I HAVE TO GET MY FIX, SOMEHOW, AND THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING THAT BRINGS ME INTO TOWN”
The rest, as they say, is obviously history. Zoë does still dance, but only in her own home. “I can still cut some rug!” she laughs, when I ask. “I mean not in any serious way, but I still throw some shapes around my kitchen most days really!” She very much feels that she is on the right path and finds it hard to imagine doing anything else. “I don’t know what I would have done if not this,” she admits. “There’s no straightforward answer to that question, because I don’t think there really is anything else… possibly music, but I kind of feel like I’m in my rightful place.” Speaking of music, you might find her current instrument of choice surprising. “I’ve just started to learn the drums,” she tells me. “I think in the drums I may have found my instrument – I just love bashing the **** out of them. It’s just great, I highly recommend it. It’s kind of like rubbing your stomach and tapping your head – your hands and your feet are doing two different things, and there can be something quite meditative about that, because you’re just having to really concentrate on what you’re doing. And it’s a visceral thing.”
So, is she torturing the family with her practice sessions? “No, I have headphones – can you imagine?” She exclaims. “It’s an electronic set that I’m renting from my drumming teacher. You know, if I get good enough, maybe I’ll buy myself a set. That would be a significant step on my drumming journey. Yeah, I have headphones, and I just kick everyone out of the study. They eye roll and then they just go off and do something else.”
This isn’t the only unexpected revelation of this interview. “I just love sitting on the tube,” Zoë admits. “I grew up in Norfolk, but I moved to London when I was 16, on my own. And I think we moved out when I was in my 30s, so yeah, a big chunk of my life was in London, in Islington. I love, LOVE London. I mean we are in the countryside now, but I’m a London addict – I have to get my fix, somehow, and there’s always something that brings me into town. I love it, I just love the energy of London. It is such a melting pot. Getting the tube is a novelty for me. You get to see so much – you know, you just get to stare at people, fairly up close, for quite long periods of time, and I love it. I really get a kick out of it. There’s this beautiful quote from American director Irvin Kershner, who said that, ‘There’s nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face’. And I really feel that when I look at people. I certainly do find human beings endlessly fascinating, and I don’t think that will ever run out.” It feels like this is no bad thing for somebody who lives their life in other people’s shoes.
