The BAFTA-nominated actress Vicky McClure has spoken of the importance of living in the moment as she reflected on receiving some painful news that led to a major realisation
Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen(Image: vicky.mcclure/Instagram)
TV star Vicky McClure shared some “heartbreaking” news with husband Jonny Owen before she came to a major realisation. The actress, 43, is currently starring in Trigger Point while she makes a guest appearance on Saturday Kitchen this morning (September 26).
Lately though, she has been thinking about a TV show she made in 2018. In Our Dementia Choir, the acclaimed actress took audiences on a deeply personal journey where she set out to discover the true extent of music’s power in combatting dementia.
For the show, Vicky formed a choir of people all living with dementia in her hometown of Nottingham to see whether music can make a measurable difference in their lives.
And this year, while she was on holiday with her husband, Welsh-born director Jonny Owen, she learned that another member of the choir had passed away. She said: “That is a regular occurrence because that is the nature of dementia.
“It’s the UK’s biggest killer. Worldwide everybody’s facing it and it’s it’s heartbreaking, but it does make me feel like I should grab life.”
Vicky added: “I think we all have that sense – whenever somebody around you becomes ill or you know, you become ill yourself or you just realise just how fragile life is and just how grateful we should always try to be.”
Vicky says that she believes we should always try to live in the moment: “You don’t need to be a guru. You don’t need to sit and bathe in a forest or do all these things to feel that you can do that wherever you are right now, wherever you live in the world. We can all just try and remind ourselves, I suppose, when you come somewhere like this it’s like the the humongous sense of gratitude.”
Vicky got her big break in the groundbreaking Shane Meadows series This is England, a resolutely working-class story that had space for her to play a character that was close to her authentic self. She says that even in the 21st Century there still really aren’t enough opportunities for working-class actors.
Highlighting the 2024 research found that 35% of BAFTA-nominated actors had been privately educated – five times the percentage of public-school pupils in the general population – she told the Independent: “Working-class actors are struggling for work because there isn’t enough work.
“There’s not enough stories that are being told about working-class people where you can hire working-class people.”
Adding that having a disproportionately-high percentage of actors from wealthier backgrounds does a disservice to audiences, as well as performers, she explained: “What I want is equality. “It’s about fairness of opportunity… the audience is suffering because they’re missing out on the next Daniel Day-Lewis. The next Julie Walters.”
She and Jonny, who was himself an actor and appeared in the likes of Shameless, Murphy’s Law and My Family before becoming a director, spent some time in Norway this summer, enjoying the sights of Isbreen in northern Norway.
While they were there, enjoying the stillness and calm of a luxury igloo retreat where the Northern Lights can be seen on as many as 200 nights per year, she says she got a chance to reflect on what’s important in her own life.
Yes, it’s luxury, but it’s luxury in a completely different sense of the word,” she told podcaster Jonny Cooper. “You know, the fact that you can eat your dinner in your joggers and that’s exactly how you should be eating your dinner.
“You don’t dress up at night. …here, it’s all about comfort. It’s all about being yourself and feeling relaxed. And that to me is pure luxury.”
Catch Vicky and Jonny on Saturday Kitchen from 10am to 11.30am on BBC One.
