I’m going to be candid here, although I auditioned for Barbara Castle, I knew creating this character and playing her with conviction was going to be a huge challenge, a challenge which was at times a little bit intimidating. 

I began with immense amounts of research into the real Barbara Castle, noting her achievements and losses, following her life and tracing her path through parliament and beyond. But facts were not enough, facts aren’t human, they don’t tell you what makes a person tick; they don’t tell you how someone walks, what their hopes are, what they fear and why they are the way they are. They give you a bit of an inclination but there are many gaps left to fill. So, how do you find out who the real Barbara was? The woman behind the lists of achievements.

I started digging further, and found things that allowed me to get a sense of Barbara the person, not Barbara the politician. The first place I looked for detail was the script; stage directions and even the lines of other characters are incredibly informative. One line that is repeated throughout the show when referring to Barbara is “Fiery, like her hair!” - even in her own lines, Barbara does not shy away from confrontation of the masculine toxicity on display within the patriarchal world she inhabits. I then watched videos of the real Barbara, sometimes delivering her new bills before Parliament, sometimes meeting constituents or opening events, and I watched her giving interviews in her twilight years about her incredible career.

Watching the real Barbara Castle allowed me to observe how she moved and held herself, how she interacted with different kinds of people, how she softened with those she resonated with (people who weren’t born into privilege, and like her had to fight for everything they had), and how she confronted those whom she believed to be out of touch, self serving and corrupt. This informed not only how I held myself in my scenes, but also the attitude I adopted towards the characters to which I was interacting with. Finally, I read her retorts to sexist journalists and politicians, and quotes about her from colleagues such as Harold Wilson, which allowed me to grasp how she spoke to those who were against her, and how those who were with her truly felt about her. 

All of this research allowed me to build a profile which was incredibly detailed, helpfully Barbara loved the small details too, and allowed me to enter into rehearsal with conviction.