'We are always having to keep a lid on female rage'

ITV’s ‘Karen Pirie’ marks a refreshing departure from all the usual crime drama cliches. Katie Rosseinsky speaks to star Lauren Lyle about violence against women on screen.

- 

“I really enjoy that she gets to basically just tell a bunch of men that are much bigger and older than her to piss off,” Lauren Lyle says with a grin. The 32-year-old actor is telling me about the “delicious” catharsis that comes with playing Karen Pirie, the straight-talking, bumbag-wearing young detective who takes the title role in one of the most original British crime dramas in years. As a young woman, she notes, “I feel like I deal a lot with female rage. I’m interested in that, and in frustration. I feel like we’re always having to keep a lid on it. I don’t feel like we see that [emotion] very often, and it’s not allowed to breathe.”

With Karen, though, this fury isn’t just given space to breathe - it’s allowed to boil over completely. Towards the start of the second season of the ITV show, one of Karen’s police superiors describes her as “blinkered and extraordinarily rude” (would she just be called “blunt” if she were a bloke?).

She also likes to unwind by screaming into the void, heavy metal blasting through the speakers. “It was really important to me to be able to show that frustration, and actually show what people do in their bedrooms, or fucking screaming in the car,” the actor says. We're speaking over Zoom, during the first of what will turn out to be several July heatwaves. She’s perched on the wooden floor of her London flat - blonde hair pushed back with a grey headband, glass of iced water in hand, Dyson fan blasting out cool air ~because it’s just too warm to sit on the sofa behind her.