Mr Bates vs The Post Office legend on why the theme of forgiveness is so important in her work – especially "actor dependent" new play

Monica Dolan's ability to translate a true story on screen is a whole other art form in itself. Whether it's as subpostmistress Jo Hamilton in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, or Rose West in Appropriate Adult, she makes a point of tackling even the most complex of morally complex roles with the same vigour.

The secret, she says, is not judging them at all, no matter how tempting it may be. Speaking exclusively to Radio Times she said: "What's quite lucky as an actor is that one of the things that's least useful for your job is any sort of judgement or opinion. Because you just have to be open to someone who's not you, you can't really judge them."

Lately, the actress says she's become very keen on how the theme of forgiveness plays into that work, which makes her latest play, Mass, a fitting choice.

Based on the 2021 film starring the likes of Ann Dowd and Jason Isaacs, Mass sees two couples meet in a church basement to discuss a shared tragedy between their two children. While we won't be spoiling said tragedy here, what you need to know is most people would find such an event very hard to forgive, so for Dolan, it was an exciting prospect to sink her teeth into.

She said: "I guess I feel like that's something that really, really divides people.

"And, you know, for human beings is a very difficult thing to do and requires generosity, sometimes on a very enormous scale.

"I suppose forgiveness is something that people can attain if they're lucky and if they really try, but also need to be lucky to be able to access it and to maybe feel something outside yourself in order to access it."

On stage, Dolan is part of a very limited cast with Slow Horses actor Paul Hilton as her husband Richard, and opposing parents Jay and Gail played by Harlan Coben star Adeel Akhtar and Lyndsey Marshal. Actors Susie Trayling, Rochelle Rose and Amari Bacchus complete the cast, however, most scenes are just the two couples.

"It's very actor dependent," she said: "Strangely, the only thing that I can even slightly liken it to technically that I've done before is W1A, because it's such a team and relies on people coming in at the right time, except with enormous emotion of course.

"What's so exciting and engaging is that for much of it we're just doing this one uninterrupted scene and it's highly technical.

"I think the audience might come in feeling like they're sort of hitting the ground running, but, they hopefully will stay with us till the end, because it's quite a relentless, intense experience."

As for why people should see it, she said: "I think theatre is all about being in the same room and I think they will feel like they're in the room with these people and that this situation that these characters are in is absolutely unique.

Just trying to just watching these people find common ground, communicating, and there's something sort of animal about it as well, you'll see..."

Mass is playing at London's Donmar Warehouse until 6 June.

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