Being in a top-rated, much loved television series can be both a boon or a bother for an actor who becomes identified with a particular character and find directors reluctant to cast them in a different sorts of role.
Happily Jack Ashton, best known as the Rev Tom Hereward in Call the Midwife, has escaped being typecast. So much so that in York Theatre Royal’s new production of the coming-of-age classic Little Women, he is playing not one but two very different roles.
The link is that both are suitors of the titular Little Women – John Brooke and Professor Bhaer, the love interests for Meg and Jo. Not that Jack downplays the problems of leaving Call the Midwife after five years as the vicar of Poplar in the series set in the late 1950s and 1960. “It was difficult, more difficult than I thought,” he says. “It was hard for a few years for my agent to get me seen for something. If you’re known as a particular character it can be hard to do something that’s opposite to that and challenge yourself which is what you want to be as an actor.”
In the past he’s said that Call the Midwife changed his life, a reference to becoming a father – of Wren, six, and Lark, two, through his relationship with co-star Helen George. “It was a lovely time in my life,” says Jack. So much so that the last time he acted in York in Strangers on the Train newly-born Wren came on tour with them.
The production of Little Women at York Theatre Royal, a theatre with which he’s been associated since his early days as an actor not long out of drama school, certainly offers the chance to do something different – two different characters in one show. One of them, the German Professor Bhaer, has an accent. Jack’s been working with a voice coach, saying he’s both “excited and mildly anxious” at the thought of his double role.
One appears in the first act, the other in the second act. The characters are very different and sharply drawn by adapter Anne-Marie Casey, he feels.
He hasn’t read Little Women although has seen the most recent film version and coincidentally has just finished working with Saoirse Ronan, who played in the movie.
While he hasn’t worked before with any of the other actors in the York production he has worked with director Juliet Forster before.
The three York productions in which he was directed by Juliet punctuate his life, going from young man just out of drama school in 2006 to present day leading man. The productions he appeared in at the Theatre Royal including The Guinea Pig Club, Twelfth Night, The Homecoming and Escaping Alice.
York remains one of his favourite places. “It’s such a great city. I love coming back, it’s a no-brained when that kind of offer, like Little Women, comes along. I have really good friends in York and I’ve befriended Rita and Paul, the original people on the digs list. I got so lucky because I stayed with them the first time and have continued to stay with them every time since. I’m looking forward to seeing them and reconnecting with them,” he says.
He’s realistic about the pitfalls of being an actor. “Sometimes people think an actors life is quite glamorous. We just audition and audition, and sometimes people say ‘yes, we want you’. Most of the time they say ‘no thank you very much’.”
He has several projects waiting to be seen including Bad Apples – the one with Saoirse Ronan – and a small role in Lockerbie, a Sky drama series about one man’s battle to learn the truth about the bombing in the tragic Scottish story, along with his role as Harry Chilcott in BBC Radio 4’s long-running series The Archers.
And returning to the topic of Little Women, does he have any sisters? Two older sisters, he replies, adding: “I can definitely relate to it being able to get a word in edgeways.”
Written by Steve Pratt.
Little Women: York Theatre Royal, 21 September to 12 October.
Box office 01904 623568 | yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
