Ten years ago, Stefan Golaszewski introduced us to 59-year-old Cathy in his sitcom Mum. It was the day of the funeral of her husband, Dave, in the chaos of her suburban semi-detached before setting off. Her dopey son, Jason, was there with his goofy new girlfriend, Kelly, as was Cathy’s pushover brother, Derek, and his snobby partner, Pauline. Dave’s parents were picking at nibbles, too, making borderline problematic comments. And there was a quiet, kind man, Michael, trying to reach Cathy in this mayhem to give her a bouquet of flowers.
Michael was an old friend of Cathy and Dave. Over the next three seasons, he slowly revealed his true feelings to Cathy. It started with a little hand grab. Then came the admission that, after Michael’s mum died, the last thing he talked to her about was, “You.” Garden centre trips followed (“We’ve been to three and you still haven’t bought any chairs!”) as did Cathy’s doubts (“What if I just miss Dave?”). Then, one day, she gave in to her feelings: “It sort of crept up on me.” After a final declaration of love in the rain, the pair walked off into the sunset with a bag of crisps and bottle of bubbly.
Fresh from his first hit relationship sitcom, Him & Her, only Golaszewski could make the line “Thanks for helping me scrape shit off my drive” sound romantic. Peter Mullan as Michael was the master of longing, while Lesley Manville captured Cathy as a woman at long last putting her own happiness first. The show picked up multiple Bafta nominations, and won the hearts of viewers who rooted for this quieter love story between two ordinary people in their 60s. After all, how often does TV celebrate that?
“Lesley, are you hiding?” Mullan says on an early morning video call, as we meet to mark this decade anniversary.
“I was on stage last night and was on until very late, I’ve only just got up!” Manville says. “I was told it was audio only, so I’m still in my jim-jams.”
It’s true that there has been some miscommunication, but the one blank square, somehow, stirs the chemistry.
“You’re the sex siren of the West End!” he tells her. Laughter erupts.
“You wouldn’t think that if you saw me now,” she insists, later adding: “Just look at the poster for Les Liaisons Dangereuses. That’s how I want you to remember me.”
Do you remember meeting for the first time?
LM: We’d met at Dinard film festival years before and then I guess we next met at the read-through for Mum? We’d just said “hello, nice to meet you” blah blah, then the next thing you know we’re on a round table with all these amazing people.
[I ask how they feel about being Golaszewski’s first choices.]
LM: Well, it would have been terrible if you’d started this interview by asking: “So, Lesley, I hear you were the 15th choice for this.”
What do Cathy and Michael love about each other?
LM: You’ve got these three people and they’re so close and one of them dies, and the other two are still mourning the loss of this person. Cathy and Michael’s friendship is as strong as it always was. What a great basis for a romance! It’s an amazing friendship; it’s crucial. So, I can kind of understand that. Can you, Peter?
PM: Yeah! I’ve got friends to whom that has happened in real life.
LM: Oh really?
PM: Yeah, there were three – and very, very close – then one died and the other two got together.
LM: Wow.
PM: That’s since Mum … but not because of Mum!
LM: Jason kind of frowns on it, partly because he doesn’t want his mum to be with someone other than his dad. But also because there’s a kind of stigma: “You can’t be with dad’s best friend.” But he had to get over that.
What were your favourite romantic moments?
PM: For me, it was the declaration of love in the rain.
LM: Oh God, Peter, yes!
PM: Yeah, that was quite special. Not least because it’s the only time Stefan didn’t pull me up on the fucking lines.
LM: He is a stickler for the lines being absolutely spot on … I’ve just remembered what you said, Peter: “You melt me like butter!”
PM: It was the only time Michael had ever brought all of this forth. He’d held all of that in. So from an actor’s point of view it was great to finally allow that.
LM: There’s also the little lovely moment with the fireworks and you just see their fingers connecting. I think that’s the first time there’s ever any acknowledgment that there’s something going on between them that’s quietly gone beyond friendship. Hands touching is a gorgeous thing. It reminded me of The Age of Innocence: the scene where Daniel Day-Lewis takes Michelle Pfeiffer’s glove off really slowly and it’s the most erotic thing.
Is there anything you wish Cathy and Michael did differently?
LM: I think it ended pretty perfectly because it was a little anarchic sweet moment, kind of childlike, of them just prancing off into the woods with a bottle of champagne and leaving the whole bonkers family behind. I wouldn’t have changed a thing!
PM: I agree completely.
LM: It was joy and naughtiness. People tend to equate middle-aged people with not being naughty any more. But these two are and it’s just delightful.
When did you realise this was a love story for the ages?
PM: I was really surprised. I wasn’t expecting the kind of reactions we got. I knew it was a really lovely show and beautifully written and acted. But I was very taken by people [asking] “Will they/won’t they?”, which was really sweet. I’ve never been in anything else like that!
LM: From my experience of strangers talking to me about it, they were really pleased to see a love story about people who weren’t in their 20s or 30s.
PM: Oh totally!
LM: People at that age can fall in love, Jesus Christ!
PM: What was interesting, too, was that young [people] weren’t disgusted by it. As many youngsters came up to me and talked about it as did people of our vintage. Which was really interesting because, quite rightly, when you’re young, Jesus, who wants to see two old fogies get together? I mean, remember, when you’re young, 40 is ancient!
What has been the most intense fan reaction to Cathy and Michael?
LM: It’s the thing that people stop me to talk about the most. Just this week, someone stopped me and said: “Oh I love Mum, it was my favourite!” And they’re always asking, “Are you gonna do any more?”
PM: I’m the same, I get it at least every couple of weeks.
LM: And 10 years on! How many shows can you say that about from 10 years ago?
PM: Absolutely.
LM: We’re bigging ourselves up here, aren’t we? We’re marvellous!
How romantic are you in real life?
LM: Oh, that’s a bit personal. You can start this one, Peter.
PM: I’m a romantic at heart, yes.
LM: Yeah, me too.
PM: We all are. I don’t believe there’s a human being on earth who’s not a romantic. Whether they show it or not is a different issue, but we all share that gene.
LM: I mean, who wouldn’t want romance? Who wouldn’t want somebody sharing, receiving, giving … Who wouldn’t want that in this messed-up world we’re living in? Keep it simple, just a little bit of good, honest, basic to and fro, love, romance.
PM: More!
LM: Yes, more of it please. I’m not on Tinder, in case anyone is wondering.
PM: At least not at this time in the morning …
LM: Not in my PJs, I’m not! I wouldn’t think Tinder is very romantic anyway. Scroll right, scroll right, scroll right. No that’s not my idea of romance.
Did you keep something from set that reminds you of Cathy and Michael?
LM: When we finished, Lisa McGrillis, who played Kelly, had somebody make us these little dolls of our characters. I’ve got a little Cathy doll with a striped T-shirt, which Cathy wore quite a lot. I certainly didn’t steal any of Cathy’s costumes. [Manville previously said Cathy’s “terrible jeans” made her bum “look as if it goes on for ever”.]
Did you steal any of Michael’s costumes, Peter?
PM: No, and I didn’t steal any of Cathy’s either. But I’ve got a cup and we’re all in a selfie on it. I do have the utterly bizarre little model: mine looks like Beetlejuice.
But in all seriousness, most actors wouldn’t take props because they would jump on you. You can get arrested for it. I can say this now, I guess: I nicked a nose and a pair of ears from Lord of the Rings. I’ll not say who gave them to me but they were terrified.
LM: The nose police are going to be after you now.
PM: Quickly followed by the acting police.
What was your real relationship like off camera?
LM: We do lots of work and people come and go in our lives but you can’t put them all in your phonebook. But Mum was utterly unique. The core of it was the eight of us. We have a WhatsApp group and it’s still going. We were all close.
PM: Baby, I’m with you 1,000%. It’s the only show I’ve ever done where we’ve all kept in touch after. It’s very rare. And in my case, it’s the only one where [we] still keep in touch with that little band of brothers and sisters. It’s beautiful.
LM: And sometimes if we haven’t heard from somebody for a while, somebody will check in and just say: “Has anybody heard from whoever?”
What can Cathy and Michael teach us about love?
PM: It comes in all shapes and sizes and we should have more of it.
LM: Yeah. And for Cathy, at the most awful time of her life, you could never have imagined that this little acorn of love was brewing right there in front of her.
There’s this amazing bit in series one, when – oh God yes, Peter it was amazing what you did – Cathy’s ordering some takeaway for them both and Michael’s just watching her and that’s all he needs to do. It’s just sublime. Cathy is dealing with this grief and Michael is just allowing her to deal with it. You see the love is already there for him and it’s been there for years. The scene of him just watching her open the cupboard looking for a menu … it’s gorgeous.
It’s a beautiful, slow-burning love story. I guess the big thing is, there is no age limit on falling in love.
