THE CASUAL VACANCY comes to Blu-ray™ and DVD from 15^th June 2015

Interview with Rufus Jones (plays Miles Mollison)

Can you introduce us to Miles and his context within the show?

Miles is the son of Howard and Shirley Mollison who run the local Deli in Pagford, and within Pagford, his parents are the self-elected King and Queen. He is the melancholy son. Miles is in a very difficult, slightly dead marriage, with his wife Samantha. They have two children and the thrill has gone. All the light and love in their marriage has just been trampled on by Miles’ parents to an extent. Miles is having a little bit of a mid-life crisis.

At one point Samantha, says “you’re disappearing.” That’s true. He’s hiding his light under a bushel and he’s staring into the distance and letting life pass him by, and letting his parents dominate him. He’s quite infantilized by his parents. Howard and Shirley talk to him as if he’s a child.

When Barry Fairbrother dies, there is a ‘casual vacancy’ on the council and Miles’ parents say he’s the man for the job. He’s not the man for the job, but he’s forced to stand for election effectively.  Miles finds himself on the campaign trail and he doesn’t want to be.

Does Miles represent this inertia of Middle England married men? 

Miles is sort of the silent majority to an extent. He is the guy for whom life is a struggle and just gets on with it. Through the story he realises that actually you have to take a stand in life and if you don’t, not only is it a life unlived but you can cause harm to other people by remaining silent. You need to stand up for what you believe in. That particularly is something that chimes with Miles and is possibly something that chimes in terms of life in general. Not just in the countryside but in towns as well.

It’s quite a dark story, in many respects yet there is a lot of humour that permeates the script.  How important do you think that is?

It’s really important.  When I read the novel and read Sarah’s scripts, a lot of the time, tonally, you don’t know what you’re reading. As an actor you’re wondering whether it’s supposed to be funny or is it supposed to be dramatic. The answer of course is it’s all of those things at the same time. You just play the truth and that’s what Jonny Campbell, the director, was going for; to be real and play it and the absurdity of a lot of these situations speaks for itself. It’s actually a lot more dramatic than I originally thought.

Sarah Phelps said that it takes a village to raise a child and that child is Krystal, and in this case Pagford has failed her.  Do you think that seems to be the message here?

Yes, that’s totally it. I think that J.K. Rowling has been vocal in the past about what the welfare state did for her when she was going through a difficult time. I think there are elements of that.

More broadly it’s about looking after your neighbour. Whether that neighbour is related to you or someone you’ve never talked to. Do you feel a social responsibility to someone who is five streets away, on a council estate with a mother who’s addicted to heroin? Do you feel a social responsibility? If you don’t, then your community is going to start falling apart. That’s a tough message for people to hear and I think it’s not one that everyone agrees with. It’s one I agree with and it’s not a political one, ultimately. It’s a human one. It’s what drives a village and it’s not power; it’s loving your neighbour.