Categories Interviews Peaky Blinders Print Media

A Quick Q&A with Aunt Polly of Peaky Blinders

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Helen McCrory Tells What to Expect in the New Season Three

by Staff | Channel 24 | October 19, 2016

Cape Town – The hit show Peaky Blinders returns for a third season on BBC First (DStv 119).

Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) is drawn into a maze of global intrigue in the electrifying new season of Steven Knight’s acclaimed family saga.

Approached by a secret organization on his own wedding day, Tommy finds himself at the center of an international arms deal that could change the course of history.

His legal and illegal businesses have made him rich beyond his dreams. .He now inhabits a Roaring Twenties world of beautiful people and sumptuous mansions, and he has found love at last. But Tommy’s relatives have become increasingly difficult to handle, and threaten to blow the Shelby family apart.

Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory) is Tommy’s second-in-command, the person he most trusts with the secrets and ambitions of the family business. But the return of her son Michael to the fold has made Polly uneasy about the company’s illegal enterprises. When she befriends a member of the upper classes, Polly imagines different possibilities for her future, and begins to ask herself questions that could strike at the very heart of the Peaky Blinders.

McCrory sat down for a quick Q&A about her characters and what to expect in the new season.

Where did we leave off with Polly in series two and how do we find her in series three?

We left Polly in series two having been reunited with the son that had been taken from her when he was young. She understandably feels hugely guilty about her past and wants to defend him with everything she has.  Campbell, played by Sam Neill, sees this weakness in her and uses it to humiliate her, compromising herself in order to save her son. Polly is further humiliated by the fact that her son and everyone else knows what she has done and so she does what Peaky Blinders do and she kills Campbell.

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Categories Interviews Print Media The Deep Blue Sea

‘Heart in her mouth’: Helen McCrory brings compassion to a tragic role in The Deep Blue Sea

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Helen McCrory’s Hester in The Deep Blue Sea

Peter Craven | September 29, 2016 | Sydney Morning Herald

Helen McCrory​ is at 48 one of the big-time actresses of the British stage, a classical actor who can burn up the stage in modern roles as well. You might have seen her as Cherie Blair with Helen Mirren in The Queen or as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, or on TV in Peaky Blinders.

In 2005 I saw her in the West End in what is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest comic role for a woman, Rosalind in As You Like It to Dominic West’s Orlando. McCrory’s voice was deep velvet and her wit razor sharp, a Rosalind for the ages.

Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea.Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea.CREDIT:RICHARD HUBERT SMITH

National Theatre live broadcasts have shown her in The Last of the Haussmans with Julie Walters, and as a riveting Medea. Now she’s doing a modern classic, Terence Rattigan’s​ The Deep Blue Sea.

“I worked with [Harold] Pinter on Old Times and when I asked him who his favourite modern playwright was he said Rattigan,” McCrory says. “How bizarre, I thought – how deeply bizarre. Surely they couldn’t be further apart in content and style?” Pinter with his menacing pauses, his uncanny ear for dark implications.

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Categories Honorary Degree University of York

Helen Awarded Honorary Degree from University of York

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Department of Theatre, Film and Television

by Staff | University of York | July 15, 2016

The Department of Theatre, Film and Television is delighted that Helen McCrory has been awarded an Honorary Degree. Award-winning British actress Helen McCrory has received an honorary degree at our summer 2016 graduation.

Prior to receiving the award, Helen visited the department and met with a small number of staff and students. She was very impressed with the facilities and is keen to develop a relationship with the department.

Helen has performed in numerous theatre productions, including at the Royal National Theatre. Her film and television roles include her portrayal of Cherie Blair in The Queen, Narcissa Malfoy in three of the Harry Potter films and Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders – for which she won a Best Actress Award.

In 2016, she will appear at the National Theatre, London in The Deep Blue Sea, and is currently filming We Happy Few, directed by Lone Scherfig.

Source: University of York

Categories Print Media Reviews The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea Review: Helen McCrory blazes in passionate revival

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Terence Rattigan’s powerful portrait of emotional turmoil in postwar Britain is beautifully played – if only the sound effects weren’t so disruptive

Michael Billington | June 9, 2016 | The Guardian

Intemperate feelings … Tom Burke and Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea.
Intemperate feelings … Tom Burke and Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea. Photograph: Richard Hubert Smith

Terence Rattigan’s best play has been long overdue for revival at the National. Fortunately, it gets an impassioned production by Carrie Cracknell that illuminates Rattigan’s psychological understanding and boasts a shining performance from Helen McCrory. Its only blemish is an intrusive sound score that suggests the characters are living not in west London in the 1950s but on the edge of Krakatoa during its eruption in the 1880s.

On a happier note, Tom Scutt’s design follows the example of the 1993 Almeida revival in creating a grey-green apartment block, with transparent walls, that reminds us that Rattigan’s play offers us a microcosm of 1950s England. The focus is palpably on Hester Collyer, a judge’s wife who has sacrificed ease and comfort to live with Freddie Page, a boyish war hero who cannot meet her emotional needs and who has no place in the modern world.

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