Zoë talks about lockdown life and The Globe’s future

7 June 2020 22:51

This week has given fans not one but two opportunities to find out how Zoë is getting on during the lockdown – and when she might be able to return to acting.

Sky News interview

On 4 June, Sky News presenter Adam Boulton interviewed her via video link (you can watch most of their chat above).

We heard how Zoë passes the time while her work, such as the third series of Sky’s epic historical drama Britannia, is on hold. ‘I do everything that I do when I’m supposed to be learning my lines!’ she laughed.

Normally she doesn’t watch herself on TV, but Zoë has made an exception for the BBC’s My Family reruns – ‘it’s fascinating to see it’, she said, and realise that the popular sitcom’s jokes are still funny after 20 years.

More My Family outtakes

Incidentally, the makers of My Family have treated us to more highly amusing outtakes following last weekÂ’s first batch of bloopers.

Observer interview

Appearing in the show was a novel experience for Zoë, as she explained in a lovely interview with the Observer newspaper, published on 7 June. ‘The reason I did My Family was I’d never been in a sitcom before.’

She praises the show’s ‘clean, sharp and witty’ writing, and adds that ‘the American humour was – is – my kind of humour because I grew up with it’.

Filming on Britannia’s third series had only just begun when the pandemic took hold. Zoë has been informed that ‘we might be able start again, but with single cameras and so on’, when it’s safe to do so.

Zoë looks forward to the day when theatres reopen. ‘I miss sitting in an audience and hearing that silence when something powerful is going on.’

How we can support ShakespeareÂ’s Globe

As reported by BBC News, the pandemic has put Shakespeare’s Globe, the theatre Zoë’s dad founded, under considerable financial pressure. The Globe doesn’t receive annual funding from Arts Council England. The longer it remains closed to the public, the more it’ll struggle to survive – 95% of its revenue comes from ticket sales, tours, workshops, etc.

Zoë is in no doubt that Sam Wanamaker would’ve ‘put up a good fight’ to save the theatre he worked so hard to build if he’d been around today. If you can spare anything, please consider joining me in donating to Shakespeare’s Globe to help it weather this stormy period.

In The Globe’s words, ‘We need your support more than ever before.’

The theatre is a vital part of the arts and culture scene. As Zoë remarked on Sky News, the permanent closure of this ‘very special place’ would be unthinkable – ‘it has to stay’. So please support The Globe if you can.

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