The actress has a brand new ‘collab’ – playing a solicitor in Jeff Pope’s hard-hitting factual drama about the horrific sex attacks of John Worboys
Philippa has a. new role which is a world away from hilarious Anne(Image: BBC/Merman)
She’s best known for her role as smiley Anne in Amandaland – but Philippa Dunne is taking an altogether more serious role in ITV’s new true crime drama about black cab rapist John Worboys.
Believe Me tells the story of how the victims of one of the most prolific sex attackers in British history fought back after being failed by the system. And Philippa, 44, plays the solicitor who represents three of the women, who decide to sue the Metropolitan Police under the Human Rights Act for their failure to properly conduct investigations into their allegations of sexual assault.
Worboys, played by Daniel Mays, preyed on women under the cover of being a “respectable” licensed taxi-cab driver. He would target solo women to pick up, claim he’d had a win at a casino or on the lottery, then offer them a drug-laced glass of champagne to help him celebrate – which would knock them out. The women often had little or no memory of what had happened to them.
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The drama, to air on ITV next month, focuses on Sarah (Aimée-Ffion Edwards) and Laila (Aasiya Shah), who reported sexual assaults by Worboys but felt they had not been believed by the police.
Phillipa plays Harriet Wistrich who joins forces with the women and with barrister Phillippa Kaufmann QC to sue the police over the handling of their complaints, claiming it led to them being subjected to degrading treatment and contributing to their distress. Not only did they win, they won twice after the Met appealed that judgment all the way to the Supreme Court.
Irish comedy star Philippa she had not previously worked with writer Jeff Pope, whose credits include Little Boy Blue, Philomena and See No Evil. “I just did a couple of auditions over Zoom – auditioning is still a big part of any actor’s life,” she explained. “And it was the most dialogue I’ve ever had to learn in my life so I was glad it was on Zoom because I had post-it notes everywhere.”
Once she’d landed the role, she continued to write down some of her more complicated lines. “Because of how jargon-heavy all the legal stuff is, I had a lot of it written on the paper in front of me,” she laughed. “So if you see me doing this at any stage, I am literally reading my script in front of the camera.”
Worboys, 68, was first convicted on 19 offences in 2009 and has since been found guilty of further sexual assaults. His next parole hearing is due to be held in public in June.
Speaking about writing the drama Pope – who will next tackle Sarah Everard’s story for the BBC – said he chooses his subjects carefully. “The first thing is – does something get you angry?” he explained. “Or really affect you? With this one I spent six months of my life being angry as I was pulling it together. Then there’s a long process of meeting the people involved, particularly the three main survivors – not to use the word victims. We spent a lot of time with them – as a man I had to understand a lot of personal, difficult, unpleasant stuff that they were telling me. And just listening and listening.”
He said that what had surprised him the most was hearing from the many women in his life about what they’d had to put up with from men over the years. “I realised early in the process that there’s a whole world, and one half of the population really don’t know much about it and the other half live with it. Stuff like what women put up with just on a night out. Talking to my wife, my daughters-in-law, my sister and understanding what women go through in a normal day, it was such an education for me. I hope one half of the audience are going to go ‘yes, that’s what happens’ and the other half are going to go ‘what?’”
The drama will also feature Miriam Petche playing Carrie Symonds, now the wife of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was targeted by Worboys in her youth but had a narrow escape. When he was first being considered for parole, she was working in the Conservative Party press team and put her career on the line to spearhead a campaign pushing for a judicial review of the Parole Board’s decision.
Philippa will also return as much-loved Anne in the second series of BBC1’s Amandaland from May 6. Speaking about the new run, the actress said: “Anne is still in SoHa, juggling her high-powered job while raising her kids, attending all of Darius’s soccer matches, volunteering for activities at school while also being at the beck and call of her best pal Amanda.”
Both she and Lucy Punch, who plays Amanda, have been nominated for Best Comedy Actress at the Bafta TV Awards alonside Jennifer Saunders, who appeared in the Christmas special. Amandaland – which this time has a guest role for Call the Midwife actress Pam Ferris – has also been nominated for the Best Scripted Comedy category.
