'Ma cares deeply about her family'

Julie Graham discusses her Hardacres alter ego ahead of a second series and laments the lack of TV roles for older women

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Playing matriarch Ma in the period drama The Hardacres has meant that acclaimed actress Julie Graham has learned a few new life skills.

Returning for a second series, the show traces the rags to riches story of a family who begin as dockworkers and then make a fortune big enough that they can buy a grand manor and associate with the local gentry.

"I've learned how to drive a horse and cart, which is harder than you think," says Julie. "You think you just sit behind this horse and it will be obedient, but there's a lot of skill to it. I've also learned how to wear a corset for 12 hours a day, and in this series I also had to play bridge.

"It is the most complicated game. We had this woman who came in, she was absolutely brilliant and she explained it so well. But it's like when people try to explain the offside rule - you get it, and then two minutes later you've completely forgotten what it is. We had to look like we knew what we were doing - like most acting, it's about bluff and bluster and winging it. But I was completely bamboozled."

Julie describes Ma as someone who "marches to the beat of her own drum," and she's aware that, like Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, her character gets some of the best lines in the script. "I think she's a cross between a Yorkshire version of Lady Violet Crawley, and a little like Tony Soprano's mother," she says.