In conversation with actress and drama graduate Natalie Gavin

Actress and Huddersfield drama graduate Natalie Gavin paid a visit to her former university and spoke to us about her recent performance at the Leeds Playhouse for the play, written by Charley Miles and set during the Yorkshire Ripper's reign of terror, entitled There Are No Beginnings and her love of costume dramas following her role in BBC One’s Gentleman Jack

There Are No Beginnings

Natalie talks about appearing on stage at the Leeds Playhouse alongside former Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh for the Charley Miles' play There Are No Beginnings.

The play opened with the Yorkshire Ripper’s first murder in 1975, an event which felt like it marked the beginning of the end of innocence, a time when mums stopped leaving their doors unlocked and allowing their children to play in the streets.

The four female lead characters, including Natalie as Helen, portray throughout the play their lives through the six years of the Ripper’s reign of terror. The moment Natalie's character realises that she is in fact a prostitute and her boyfriend is no boyfriend, but a pimp, is critiqued by The Stage “as a beautifully nuanced piece of work”.

 

Gentleman Jack

We also asked Natalie about her role of Alice in the BBC period drama Gentleman Jack written by the award-winning writer Sally Wainwright which is based on the real-life diaries of remarkable Regency landowner Anne Lister.

Natalie explained about the thrill of performing in costume dramas and how they are the next best thing to travelling back in time.  She also told us how Yorkshire's historic landscape with its cobbled bridleways and natural scenery, allowed much of Gentleman Jack to be filmed completely on location in the actual grounds of Shibden Hall where the BBC drama is based. 

 

Being a drama student

Finally, Natalie told us about her time as a drama student and why she holds such fond memories of studying at the University. She explained how her tutors encouraged her from the very beginning by recommending she put her degree on hold to concentrate on the start of her acting career and how, a few years later, she was then fully supported with her transition back into studying and once again becoming a student.

Natalie's acting career

Natalie is a northern-born actress and a University of Huddersfield drama graduate whose onscreen acting career began when, in the second year of her drama degree, she was cast as Anna for the Channel Four hit show Shameless.

Following her onscreen debut, she was cast as Lou one of the main characters in the TV drama series Prisoner's Wives. Becky in the TV drama series The Syndicate came soon after as did the character Alma Capstick in Jericho, a period drama and television series.

More recently she appeared in Ackley Bridge as the character Nadine Murgatroyd and last year worked alongside actress and leading lady in Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones. Natalie played the character Alice Hardcastle in the period drama based on the real-life diaries of remarkable Regency landowner Anne Lister of Halifax's Shibden Hall. The series was written by the award-winning scriptwriter Sally Wainwright, who also wrote the BAFTA award-winning television series Happy Valley which starred Sarah Lancashire.

Prior to Gentleman Jack Natalie played police officer Tina Tranter in the hugely popular television crime drama series, Line of Duty.

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