The Cockfields | Interview with Joe Wilkinson (Simon)

What was it like to write series two of The Cockfields [alongside David Earl], and did you have a good idea of the direction you were taking the story and the characters?

Yes we did. Quite early on we realised where we wanted to take the arc of the series, and then we were just excited to spend more time with these characters again. And what’s wonderful is that once you’ve written the first series, for the second series you have more of an understanding of the characters, and you have their voices in your head – they almost live in your head. This may sound weird, but myself and David do impressions of all the cast as we’re writing the scripts.

Did it feel somewhat bittersweet with Gregor [Fisher] joining the cast as Ray Cockfield, taking over the role from the late Bobby Ball?

Yes, it really did. I was heartbroken when Bobby passed because I really hit it off with him, and I had such a lovely time working with him. It was such an honour. The Cockfields is set on the Isle of Wight, and I was actually on my own looking out to sea when I got the unfortunate phone call, I’ll always remember that. My first instinct was of just wanting to put the pen down. We lost a superstar and a one-off with Bobby. But then we were incredibly lucky to get another superstar in Gregor, who is completely different to Bobby, so you just can’t compare them. Two brilliantly different people, and I hope Gregor felt that, because whilst there was so much love for Bobby, there’s also so much love for Gregor.

Susannah Fielding joins the cast this series as Simon’s fiancée, Esther. What was it like working with her?

Susannah is great, such a brilliant actor and she’s so much fun to be around. We really did hit it off and we’ve become good friends. I felt like that in the first few minutes, we just got on really well and had a lot of fun. She just fitted in so well. Because her character Esther is the outsider, and she’s the one that’s finding her way with this new family, Susannah brought such a natural warmth that I think the audience will literally just fall in love with her. In her scenes it’s not really about what’s being said but about what’s going on in her brain as she’s observing this family and their dynamics. You can tell what she is thinking without her having to say anything! Susannah does it so naturally that it’s lovely to watch.

Did you feel a mother/son bond with Sue [Johnston]?

Yes, definitely. I think the fact that Sue has a son who’s of a similar age to me there was a lot to pull on and we’ve become very close. Hopefully that comes across in the scenes that we have together. There’s a genuine warmth and affection between us, and she’ll always have her arm around me. We didn’t have to fake it, I genuinely love spending time with her.

The Cockfields really captures the nuances of family dynamics and observes them incredibly well.

That was one of the things we wanted to do. We wanted to tell the story of the relationship between a lad and his stepdad, of how family relationships change as everyone gets older. It’s the battle of loving them to bits but also wanting to strangle them. Me and David [Earl] drew from our lives, and we really tried to be very, very truthful. You know these characters but then as writers you come up with new situations that don’t exist, and then the challenge is getting the truth of how those characters would react and behave in those situations. I think you can tell in a scene when something feels truthful.

Tell us a bit about working with Nigel Havers and Sarah Parish [Larry and Melissa].

They’re incredible actors, they’re both so funny. They just inhabited the characters straight away. They bring so much comedy because they were slightly more heightened. If you look at Ray and Sue, even when they were being annoying, it was always from a place of love and was always for the benefit of Simon But then you bring in these somewhat selfish characters of Larry and Melissa! When you watch them playing those two characters, you think surely they can’t very nice people in real life, but they are both absolutely lovely, so I was like, ‘Wow!’

Do you think viewers will see members of their own families in The Cockfields family?

I think all the characters are grounded in truth. Someone will say, ‘Ah, my Dad is just like that’, or ‘My brother’s always doing that.’

Ben [Rufus Green] is just hilarious as Simon’s step-brother, David.

Ben is a one-off. When we wrote the character of David, we realised that he was going to be very, very hard to cast. Then Ben came in and we were like, ‘Well, there we go, we’ve found our David.’ He was amazing, he’s so funny. Just his presence in a scene makes it funnier.

In series two of The Cockfields, Simon is taking his fiancée Esther back to the Isle of Wight to see his family. Have you any funny experiences of doing that in your real life?

Well, let’s put it this way – most of them have gone in the show! Everything you watch on the screen is either from David’s or my life. They do say to write about what you know.