Actress Clare Evans Argent talks about her role in Harrogate Dramatic Society's next production The Mother

Please tell me about yourself……

I’ve lived in Harrogate for over 20 years and have been a member of HDS since 2009 and played the role of Sandra in Brassed Off. I’ve been acting since I was about 10 years old. I was lucky that there was a fantastic youth theatre group in the town I grew up in, which I stayed with until my early 20’s. We were lucky enough to perform at the Edinburgh fringe twice and also performed on the London Fringe. During the 90’s, I was a member of the Questors Theatre in Ealing, which is the biggest amateur dramatic company in the country, where they have 500 acting members and put on about 12-14 plays per year.

What other shows/plays have you done and which have been your favourites and why

Beyond my first production, Brassed Off, I have also appeared in The Maids, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Seasons Greetings, God of Carnage, Death of a Salesman, Othello, Death and the Maiden and The Arsonists.

My favourite roles have been Beauty Queen of Leenane where I played Maureen. Martin McDonagh’s play The Beauty Queen of Leenane was delightfully black but also very funny. And you don’t often get to play someone who kills their mother by hitting over the head with a poker! And I love when you get to immerse yourself in an accent - this was set on the West Coast of Ireland.

Another favourite was God of Carnage - a brilliant play by Yasmin Reza. It was a true ensemble piece, with 4 characters who were all on stage pretty much the whole way through. We had wonderful time in rehearsal and performance. The performance also included a very dramatic ‘vomit’ moment, which was a little too realistic and kept the audience guessing how we did it.

Tell me about playing the role of ‘The Mother’ in ‘The Mother’ at the Harrogate Theatre.

The role of Anne (The Mother) in the play is a complex one. She is a woman who has lost herself and her purpose in life - her children have grown up and left home and her son, who she is fixated on, never seems to call or visit. She has convinced herself that her husband is having affairs and his business trips are not all they are made out to be. But, the way the play is constructed makes us question Anne’s reality. She is a woman who is unravelling mentally and too reliant on pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her empty life, but we are left unsure what the real version of events is. It is definitely a challenging role to play!

Why should people come and see The Mother?

This is a brilliantly written play. There is a tension and unease that runs through it and will have the audience questioning what is real and what’s not. The intimate space of the Studio Theatre is so suited to plays like this, as I think it really adds to the intensity and atmosphere.

The Mother plays at the Harrogate Theatre from 14 – 17 February in the exclusive Studio Theatre. Book limited tickets online at: www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk or call: 01423 502116.