\u201cI\u2019m a super fan of yours, Julie,\u201d Victoria Clark exclaims before even saying a proper hello. \u201cYour performance in Broadchurch<\/em> blew my mind. It\u2019s so textured and complex and your emotional life is so well-investigated. I thought \u2018I want to meet this actress someday.\u2019 So, here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Julie Hesmondhalgh, a staple of British television, is clearly flattered, and clearly having a parallel moment of awe. \u201cIntimidated is not even the word,\u201d she counters with a laugh. \u201cI was like, \u201cOh, brilliant, you\u2019ve got a double Tony-winner playing Joan on Broadway. Fan<\/em>tastic. That\u2019s great<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a third person on our video chat: Joan Scourfield, whom Clark and Hesmondhalgh play, in productions on alternate sides of the Atlantic, of James Graham\u2019s new drama Punch<\/em>. Hesmondhaigh originated the role of Joan at the Nottingham Playhouse and Young Vic, and now portrays her in London\u2019s West End. Clark picked up the baton for its Broadway premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club\u2019s Samuel J. Friedman theatre.<\/p>\n Scourfield\u2019s story, as told in Punch<\/em>, is one of tragedy and grace. Her son, James Hodgkinson, was killed after a random act of violence, and she eventually found the inner strength to forgive his assailant, Jacob Dunne.<\/p>\n Both Clark and Hesmondhaigh are starry-eyed in each other\u2019s presence, but even more so in Joan\u2019s. And the admiration runs three ways.<\/p>\n This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n Joan, when you found out a play was being written about the incident that took your son\u2019s life and all that came after, what went through your mind?<\/strong> Julie and Vicki, tell me about reacting to the script from the first time. <\/strong> All those things feed into this, so there are no easy answers. It\u2019s not goodies and baddies; it\u2019s about how the criminal justice system really fails young men. That is why it\u2019s so wonderful that Jacob and Joan are going into prisons and schools to talk about the issues of the play. Did you know, Vicki, that the producers, after they\u2019ve recouped the investment, are putting all the money into educational work?<\/p>\n Victoria Clark<\/strong>: I didn\u2019t, but it makes sense with the activism that\u2019s been surrounding the show. We\u2019re doing talkbacks here after performances and I wanted to talk to you about the original talking circle that was built in the courtyard at the Nottingham Playhouse.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: It was a special installation that they put outside, but it only sat, I would say, probably 15-20 people.<\/p>\n Joan<\/strong>: Comfortably.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: That night, hundreds of people came out of the theater and stood<\/em>. We couldn\u2019t believe it. And that\u2019s been the case every time we\u2019ve done any sort of after-show discussion. Usually, they\u2019re like \u201cEverybody move down to the front row.\u201d<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: And everybody looks at their watch and they scram.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: People really felt the need to process what they had just seen, because the issue of forgiveness is a huge and thorny one. The thing I love about the Forgiveness Project, who are curating all our talkbacks, is that they\u2019ve always said that it\u2019s not a wafty thing, forgiveness. It takes something that is actually often lifesaving for the person who\u2019s doing the forgiving, as well as the forgiven. Joan, obviously you can talk more about that.<\/p>\n Joan<\/strong>: It helps relieve the bitterness, forgiving does. And yeah, I can forgive Jacob for\u2026he didn\u2019t mean to kill James. You learn to live with that and forgive him for that. He punched James and that was wrong and that\u2019s what he did his time for. But you learn to forgive to move on; if not, you\u2019re in the bitterness. There\u2019s a ripple effect on the families. The families have to learn to forgive, as well. It\u2019s very hard. It\u2019s not a little word. There\u2019s a lot of depth to it, a lot of strength to it, and only the Forgiveness Project can really help you understand all of that.<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: In rehearsals, we talked a lot about how forgiveness is often seen as something soft, or something that makes one feel warm and fuzzy, and only weak people do that kind of thing. You come to find out that forgiveness is gritty. Forgiveness is awkward. It\u2019s tough. You have to be strong. A lot of work goes into forgiveness and into awkward conversations.<\/p>\n We had the blessing of having Joan and David and [the real facilitator] Nicola all come and we had a big talkback. When I came out to sit, I was like \u201cDid anybody leave?\u201d Six, seven hundred people probably stayed for this talk, which is really unusual.<\/p>\n Joan, what is your reaction to watching these two very different actresses portray you? I imagine its very strange for you to watch other people relive your lived experiences.<\/strong> Victoria<\/strong>: That brings tears to my eyes.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: It don\u2019t get better than that, Joan. Bloody hell.<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: There\u2019s so much passion behind this project. There are so few times in our lives where our craft gets to meet our personal beliefs. Sometimes we\u2019re playing crazy people that have nothing to do with us personally, and those are fun, but to have the opportunity to tell a story that meets up with my own convictions is such a gift.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: It\u2019s a massively overused word, and I\u2019m sick of myself saying it, to be honest, but it is a privilege. And it is an honor, and it is a responsibility. Joan came into this process a little bit later for us. Jacob was involved from the very beginning. When James met Joan and David, but particularly Joan, more and more of Joan has appeared in the play.<\/p>\n She\u2019s really funny, and she\u2019s very naughty, and she comes with this gaggle of sisters who are absolutely terrifying. There\u2019s more to Joan than what has happened to her, and we couldn\u2019t get a sense of that until we all met you. Those elements of Joan have been put in subsequently because of James seeing you, Joan. That has given it so much more. The stuff about James in the meeting scene came from your coming to a rehearsal. That was added very late on, actually.<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: Are you saying that James went back and threaded the Joan and David story in?<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: Oh, that\u2019s great.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: More and more scenes got put in. A very recent addition has been the post-sentence scene. Very late on in the process, everyone felt that we didn\u2019t get enough chance to see Joan in the midst of all the bitterness and anger about the sentence and how unfair it felt. There is a world where it is just based on Jacob\u2019s memoir and the audience don\u2019t meet David and Joan until Jacob meets them.<\/p>\n Victoria<\/strong>: What\u2019s so theatrical about what James has done is that it\u2019s like two trains. You know they\u2019re gonna collide at a certain point and the suspense builds to the meeting scene.<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>: You can hear the silence every single time. It\u2019s not a particular audience. People can barely breathe at the beginning of that scene.<\/p>\n Joan<\/strong>: People are definitely moved by it. You can hear a pin drop. People aren\u2019t flicking their phones on to check the time or anything like that.<\/p>\n Joan, do you have any questions for your portrayers? \u201cI\u2019m a super fan of yours, Julie,\u201d Victoria Clark exclaims before even saying a proper hello. \u201cYour performance in Broadchurch blew my mind. It\u2019s so textured and complex and your emotional life is so well-investigated. I thought \u2018I want to meet this actress someday.\u2019 So, here I am.\u201d Julie Hesmondhalgh, a staple of British television,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[685,687,148,689,686,683,684,688,690],"class_list":{"0":"post-4522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews","8":"tag-clark","9":"tag-hesmondhalgh","10":"tag-interview","11":"tag-joan","12":"tag-julie","13":"tag-mothers","14":"tag-punchvictoria","15":"tag-real","16":"tag-scourfield"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
(\u00a9 Matthew Murphy\/Marc Brenner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Joan Scourfield<\/strong>: Well, I didn\u2019t think it would go like it\u2019s gone at all. Obviously, once Julie was on board, it made a big difference. Before that, I thought \u201cWhy would people come see it?\u201d [Laughs<\/em>] It didn\u2019t freak me out, but I have to come because James isn\u2019t here to look out for himself, so I have to see that James is portrayed fairly in all that\u2019s done. Also, it\u2019s just Wow. How has it gotten like this?<\/em><\/p>\n
Julie Hesmondhalgh<\/strong>: What I loved about it, apart from the beautiful human story at the center\u2014which people still<\/em> don\u2019t really realize is a true story\u2014is that this is Jacob\u2019s story, based on his memoir, and I think that James does a wonderful job in explaining the structures and issues that make young men behave in the ways they do, from alcohol-related violence to gang culture to social architecture.<\/p>\n![\"Jeanine](\"https:\/\/www.theatermania.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/09\/Jeanine-Tesori-and-Lisa-Kron-and-Fun-Home.png?w=640\" "\\"Jeanine")
(\u00a9 Marc Brenner\/Matthew Murphy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Joan<\/strong>: It is very surreal seeing yourself played on stage and hearing words you\u2019ve actually said, and [watch] the time in your life that you\u2019ve actually lived. I don\u2019t know how they come on upset and then go back and come on not upset. I don\u2019t know how they do it. Obviously, I lived it, so it\u2019s very different seeing it, but I think they both act it very well. I take my hats off to both of them for the actual sense they put into it. It\u2019s like they really are me.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Joan<\/strong>: No, no. My big, huge thanks are to both of them for putting so much effort in. When you see it, you get the feel that they\u2019re really into the story line, and I\u2019m just so grateful to them both.<\/p>\n![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.theatermania.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/09\/James-Hodgkinson-Image.jpg?w=478\" "\\"James")
(image provided by the production)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"