My Biggs break

SHERIDAN Smith was in Australia, filming a TV series and driving to meet the woman she was playing in the real life story. And then she saw a place sign – Doncaster. “Isn’t that weird?,” she says. “We’re on the other side of the world and there’s a sign for Doncaster. And they tell me that she lives in Doncaster. Doncaster in Melbourne. And I thought, that’s weird, because I live in Doncaster.”

The “she” is Great Train Robber’s ex-wife Charmian Biggs, whose extraordinary story is told in a five-part ITV1 series. Smith plays the woman who met Ron on a train, fell in love and went on the run with him after the robbery.

For Smith, it’s the latest role in a career that marks her out, in showbiz terms, as “hot property”. She’s gone from broad comedy shows like Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps to winning Olivier awards two years running, first for the musical Legally Blonde and then the wartime drama Flare Path. Not bad for a girl from Doncaster (well, nearby Epworth if we’re being strictly accurate, but she counts Doncaster as home).

Yet she remains strangely unconfident, as if she can’t quite believe what has happened. When we speak she’s a day away from beginning rehearsals for one of the toughest stage roles for a woman, Hedda Gabler, at London’s Old Vic. “Don’t remind me,” she says, when the Ibsen role is described as the female equivalent of playing Hamlet.

“It’s so good to step out of your comfort zone. You’ve got to keep testing yourself, haven’t you? I’m filled with self-doubt on every single job. I was on this one, wasn’t I?” she says, turning to producer Kwadjo Dajan.

He doesn’t dispute her observation. “Sheridan was doubting herself on the night she won an Olivier award. She came back on set and said how bad she thought she was,” he says.

“We’ve cast some fantastic actors in various dramas we’ve made, but Smith’s audition for Mrs Biggs was the strongest audition any of us had ever seen. She came in and stormed it. She left us speechless.

“I think that self-doubt pushes her on and makes her stronger and stronger because she also wants that extra edge and every time we thought she’d surpassed herself in her performance, she’d go ahead and do it again.”

It’s as if Smith thinks she’s a fraud and is going to get found out. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t do training. I just feel so grateful for the opportunities,” she says. “I loved doing the comedy roles and the working class parts, but to get a role like this in Mrs Biggs was beyond my wildest dreams.”

Smith is a little tearful after the launch of Mrs Biggs, having watched the first part and excerpts from other episodes in an audience that included the real Charmian Biggs. A scene in which the Biggs’ young son Nicky dies in a car accident had an emotional effect on both women.

‘THAT scene was the hardest because no mother should have to lose a child,” says Smith. “I can only imagine how horrendous that must feel. My mother lost her eldest son, my brother, so I tried to draw on that. The whole thing with this job is that this is a real person, and so it’s not like playing a fictional character where you can turn it on and off, fake some scenes. You’ve got to go there because somebody went through this.

“I did have to go to some really dark places, especially at that time when we had the cameras rolling and I had a bit of a breakdown, to be honest. It’s hard to switch it off. You have to draw on your own emotions. That’s why I got quite upset watching it. Obviously they wanted to be sensitive to Charmian so she wasn’t on set that day and this is the first time she’s seen it. To hear her voice, wobbly, afterwards at the press conference, that set me off.”

Inevitably, Smith has wondered what she’d have done in Charmian’s situation. “It was such a different era. She loved him and had two small children with him, and you want the father of your kids to be around. I don’t know how I’d react,” she says.

“I know I wouldn’t have the strength that she had to get through so many events that happened to her. I would have crumbled at the first hurdle. I think she’s incredible, she’s selfless and giving.

“I know I wouldn’t be as strong as her and I admire that, that she came out with her head held high, went back to university and lifted herself for the sake of her children. She’s an incredible lady.”

One aspect of Mrs Biggs she did enjoy were the fashions from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. “How cool were the clothes?” she asks. “That was great to dress up because you immediately step back in time and feel a completely different person, especially because I’m a bit of a tomboy and Charmian’s a lady.”

Now Smith’s playing Hedda Gabler. After that, she’ll appear opposite David Walliams in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream next year. “The hardest thing will be keeping a straight face, I’m sure. When he puts that ass’s head on he can be saying anything under his breath,” she says.

• Mrs Biggs begins on ITV1 on Wednesday at 9pm.