All About Manchester

Sally's winning ways

The Royal Exchange Theatre has become a home from home for Manchester actress Sally Lindsay, who returns to the round stage for the second time in less than a year to star in Neil Bartlett's Everybody Loves a Winner. A week into rehearsals for this brand new play, which will transform the iconic theatre into a bingo hall, the former Coronation Street favourite tells All About Manchester she does not believe in luck.

You made your debut at the Royal Exchange Theatre last November as Helen in Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey. Nine months later you are back, starring in another high-profile production. What is it that you find so attractive about this place?

I've wanted to work here ever since I first started coming to this theatre in my early teens. But for a long time the opportunity just didn't come along. So to be offered two roles in such a short space of time is amazing.

A Taste of Honey was a gritty and controversial drama. Was it a conscious decision to move on to something so different with Everybody Loves a Winner?

I have never made a conscious decision about anything in my career. I always make a decision when a job comes up. I've always been very interested in new writing and Neil Bartlett's Everybody Loves a Winner was quite an exciting prospect. Neil met every single member of the cast before he wrote anything, so the play was written for me and Ian [Puleston-Davies] and the rest of the cast.

What's the play about?

It goes through a day in the life of a bingo hall. I play Linda, the manageress, Ian Puleston-Davies, who is a brilliant actor, plays Frankeh the bingo caller, and then there's all our ladies. And we find out about the lives of all these characters and what bingo means to all of them.

So it's about bingo then?

Bingo as a metaphor for life. In a game of bingo, just like in life, there are some winners, but there are mostly losers. The subject may be frivolous, but it's actually a very deep play. And it's very difficult to describe. It's very funny at times, it's very sad at times... The best line in the play is: "Hope...does it have a number?" So it's about hope and about why people go to bingo halls. What do people want from bingo and what does it give them?

What do you think?

I think to some people it's a place to have a cup of tea and talk to their friends. There's another brilliant line in the play that goes: "We believe in more than 18 words in an 18-hour day." Some people only have that and that's why they come to the bingo hall - for comfort and friendship. Other people come to win money because it will bring them to another place in their lives. I think in every bingo hall there's probably someone with a big gambling problem, just like in every pub there are people with a drinking problem. But when you delve beneath the surface you understand how the need for something else is so deep within all of us. It's a fascinating play.

It's also a very interactive play, isn't it?

Massively interactive. In the second half we actually have a proper, legal game of bingo. So everybody has to buy their tickets in the foyer for 50p and they get to win £5, £20 or £200 on the night, so we play until somebody wins. This makes it very unpredictable. There are a lot of doors you can go through. Neil describes it as the only play whose end we don't know. We know what the end scene is gonna be, but the game can't be fixed so we genuinely don't know who's gonna win and how everybody's gonna react to that. So it's very...

Scary?

[Laughs] Scary. It is a bit. That's why we've got five weeks' rehearsal, just so we cover every base, I think.

Can you tell us a little bit more about Linda?

She's 37, a year older than me, she's single and she's run the bingo hall very efficiently for ten years. She's quite a strong character and she's the most intelligent person in the room. She's educated, she's very good at her job and can do everybody else's job twice as well as they can. And we find out about her background and about her emotions during the play. Almost all the characters have a deconstruction in the play. We find out about what is going on in everybody's head, including Linda's.

Do you get to do any singing or dancing?

I don't, but the girls do. There's lots of Greek choral work from the bingo ladies and there's also a lot of brilliant movement.

Have you found this easier after your previous role at the Royal Exchange?

No, God no! Whenever I get a new role I think 'oh, this will be alright because I've done that...' but that's ridiculous because each new job comes with different challenges.

But you must be a bit closer to this character than you were to Helen, right?

I'm close to every role I do because I always find something in myself that we have in common, or because I know someone who's like that. They always become part of me by the end of the rehearsal. Linda went down a different path than I did in my life and I have to find a way to portray that. If I didn't do as well in my career as an actress, where would I be now?

Managing a bingo hall?

I'd probably be managing somewhere - a cafe or a bingo hall, why not? So I suppose yes, I am close to this character, but I've got to step into that parallel line.

Do you play bingo?

I do now. Well, I don't play it regularly, no. But Neil and I and the crew have played a few times. It was fun and I won £20 at Hyde Road.

Do you consider yourself lucky?

I think luck is what you make it, as my gran always used to say. It's lovely to be able to believe in luck. It's like when you believe in religion. I've always been very jealous of people who so ardently believe in something; it must be such a comforting thing, but I don't have that. I think life is so very random and your luck is what you make it.

Do you think that everybody loves a winner?

Winning gives you fame and excitement for that moment. When the person in the audience wins, he or she will be the most famous person in that room.

But that's not love, is it? If anything, all the losers in the room will feel jealous...

[Laughs] Well, that's what we question in the play.

What's Neil Bartlett like? Is he as fun to work with as he looks?

Oh, he's brilliant. He's so bright and funny and clever. And he really gets the absolute best out of you. If you come up with something better, he'll go, "I never thought of that, that's fantastic". Even though he's written the play and is directing it, he's so open and so free with his direction that you feel you can say anything. It's a real ensemble. It's fantastic. And he's wonderful. He's a great, great guy. I really like him.

Other than the fact that this is a Neil Bartlett show and that you and some other talented actors are playing in it, why should people come and see it?

It's a brand new piece of theatre for a start. It's warm, it's funny, it's emotional, it's live, it's interactive - you don't have to play, but you'll feel damn silly if you don't! And you can win 200 quid at the end of the night. That's always a good reason to go somewhere. I don't think it's like anything you've seen before, I really don't. I don't know any play like it.

Everybody Loves a Winner is a co-commission with Manchester International Festival. What other MIF shows are you looking forward to this month?

I've been so head down with this show that I've not thought about it much yet. Plus a lot of the shows are on at the same time as our show. But once I am completely confident with it, I will absolutely explore the festival. I can't wait.

You are also a supporter of 24:7 Theatre Festival, which is also on this month. What's special about this festival?

I think it's a great platform for young actors. I've always believed that casting directors will come to a tiny little pub theatre, but they won't bother coming to a big show. So 24:7 gives young artists somewhere to go and show themselves.

There is so much happening in theatre in Manchester at the moment, isn't there?

Absolutely. And I think in television as well - it's so much more alive, probably because of Mediacity. In London you can be the best actress in the universe but people will not travel for two hours to come and see you, which is really unfortunate. But because Manchester is smaller and more concentrated, everybody knows if there's a star rising.

What's in the pipeline for you after Everybody Loves a Winner?

I start filming the second series of Scallywagga, which is a BBC 3 sketch show filmed up here in the North, literally the day after I finish this. That goes right up to September and I have absolutely no idea after that.

Everybody Loves a Winner runs until Aug 1 at the Royal Exchange Theatre. For more information visit www.royalexchange.co.uk.

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