Alice McCarthy on You Game

Performer Alice McCarthy tells us a bit about playing the gender swapped character in the exciting new adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth, You Game

You’re in the middle of rehearsals for You Game, tell us a bit about the play.

The play is a slightly mad dark farce with an uncomfortable sense of humour at its black comic heart. It is based on Anthony Shaffer’s Tony award-winning Sleuth.

And who do you play?

I play Bella Lanson, the gender swapped version of Milo Tindle from the original. She is a young actress who goes to see her new girlfriend’s husband for a drink and ends up having quite the mad 24 hr. She is really great to play as she is tough, spiky, really funny and dangerously bright.

How did you get involved in the project?

I was put in touch with the producers who sent me the script. I really liked the new dynamics of the adaptation, having seen the original, and so we all met to discuss it and it went from there!

Your first job out of drama school was the Olivier award winning Rotterdam – what was it like to work on such a high profile and political show so early in your career?

It was really formative, totally exciting and just an absolutely wild ride. As you said it was my first lead role and Alice was just such a gift to play- vulnerable, difficult, hilarious and awkward. It was also such a privilege to sit with a character and the same team for three years like that. It’s really important to remember that it didn’t start off as high profile- we were in a pub in Battersea at the beginning of the first run totally unsure how it would all turn out! We all felt a great responsibility to tell the story right and it really was three years of so much love and labour. Even though the play was political , and importantly so, we just focused on telling a very simple, human love story