Jessica Ransom's career started in Sheffield, but she made a huge impact in Cornwall where she played Doc Martin's surgery receptionist
When the hit ITV comedy-drama Doc Martin ended in December, Jessica Ransom was ‘hugely emotional’.
Perhaps understandable as Jessica, now 41, who grew up in Sheffield, had played surgery receptionist Morwenna for 11 years, in six of the ten series.
But, now starring in the play Home, I’m Darling which comes to Sheffield this month as part of a UK tour, Jessica is left with many happy memories of working with Martin Clunes (as the Doc) and co on the Cornwall-based show.
‘One day when we were doing a scene where he had to give me a urine sample as a patient, Martin and Kip, the props guy, put warm water and yellow dye in the bottle. So, when he handed it to me it was like a real bottle of wee and I really screamed. Everyone was laughing at me. That’s the kind of thing you can expect from Clunes!’ she laughs.
Jessica was also amused by the funny names given to the patients.
‘We had Dan Gleballs, Iona Castle, Noah Cant, Scott Chegg, a sweet little old lady called Alice Cooper…. Sometimes they weren’t in the script and me and Martin would sometimes try and sneak them in. It was good fun.’
Prominent among the big-name guest stars on Doc Martin was Sigourney Weaver, the American actress of Alien and Avatar fame. ‘She’s so beautiful and wonderful’ Jessica recalls, ‘but she wasn’t starry, she didn’t demand a bigger trailer than anyone else, or anything like that. She got stuck in, and then did all the touristy Cornwall stuff.’
Like the millions of viewers, Jessica was smitten by the seaside town where Doc Martin was filmed. ‘Doc Martin found me my favourite place. It was hard saying goodbye to Port Isaac and the friends we made who live there all the time. In fact, I’ve already booked to go back there for a holiday when this theatre tour ends [in May].’
What’s more, Jessica has souvenirs from the show.
‘I’ve got the painting that was next to Morwenna’s desk. It’s of a dog. There were two. I’ve got one and Martin’s got the other. Mine is in my downstairs loo!
‘I also kept a few bits of Morwenna’s clothing, but I don’t put them together in the crazy combinations she did. Just one splash of colour, not head to toe!
‘Doc Martin fans are very ardent and devout. I’ve been given Lego models of Morwenna and drawings of her. Somebody gave me a wooden butter paddle they’d carved and brought all the way from the States. All manner of nice things. Nothing weird so far, though maybe my agent is keeping that from me!’
Cast members Jessica remains in contact with are John Marquez (who played PC Penhale), Joe Absolom (Al Large) and Robyn Addison (Janice Bone) with whom she’s now writing a sitcom about a running club.
Jessica is both a writer and performer for the kids’ TV series Horrible Histories, for which she won a 2015 Children’s BAFTA Award…which she also has in her downstairs loo.
Of her own childhood, Jessica remembers: ‘I went through a Phillip Schofield phase. I remember crying when he left The Broom Cupboard. I’ve not yet met him. I’ve never been on This Morning. I loved Jason Donovan too. I’m an 80s kid so I was swooning over and Kylie and Jason and thinking ‘That’s what love is!’ And I used to get Bugsy Malone out on video every weekend. I was obsessed with that.’
Considering her success as an actress - she can next be seen on screen in the Netflix feature film The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - it's surprising there is no showbusiness in Sheffield lass Jessica's background. ‘100pc not!’ she says. ‘My parents, Sue and David, trained as teachers. My mum carried on in education and finished her career as principal of an FE College in Rotherham. My Dad, who was a basketball coach, later ran a charity for South Yorkshire police. They still live in Sheffield, so they're coming to see the play at the Lyceum Theatre and bringing most of Sheffield! It'll be nice to do it at home. My old drama teacher is coming too.
‘Laura Wade, who wrote Home, I’m Darling, is also from Sheffield and she wrote her first play for Crucible Youth Theatre, and I did the sound on it when I was about 14. Also, I did my school plays on the stage at The Crucible Theatre. I’m definitely an actor because of getting to do our school plays on the Crucible main stage as part of the Sheffield Children's Festival.’
It was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that Jessica made an impressive impact. ‘The thought now of the bravery that that took…it’s extraordinary to me that I managed to muster up the courage to be like ‘I’m just going to write an hour of comedy and perform it for you all.’ Now that terrifies me!’
It led to her appearing as various characters in BBC's The Armstrong & Miller Show in 2009/10...though she's yet to be invited on Pointless with Alexander Armstrong.
Fortunately, Jessica never had any MeToo-type moments in her early career. ‘I’ve never had anything like that happen to me, and I feel very fortunate that that’s the case. I so feel for people who have had that, but I've only encountered nice people who want to make good work.’
However, in 2013, she worked with American movie legend Bruce Willis on an advert for Sky Broadband which got banned for being misleading. Jessica enjoyed her role as an office worker who becomes besotted by Willis when he walks in with his faulty laptop, and ends up walking off with her. ‘It was just so surreal because you don’t get Bruce Willis on set for a long time, so we did a lot of rehearsing with a man who looked slightly like him but only spoke Hungarian because we shot it in Budapest. And then Bruce Willis turns up, does his thing, then disappears, and everybody calms down a bit. When you’re working with someone that famous, everybody goes a bit mad and gets really nervous and stops behaving like a normal person.’
Jessica's real life love is producer/director Ben Wilson (originally from Scarborough) who she met at Birmingham University in 2001 and married in Sheffield town hall in 2011.
‘When I started filming Doc Martin, I wasn’t married and I didn’t have children. Now I am married and I’ve got two!’ she smiles, referring to their sons Frank, aged six, and Arthur, four.
‘We live in leafy Crystal Palace. I’ve chosen a bit of London that most looks like Sheffield because it’s very hilly and green.’
Whether at home or on tour Jessica, who's taken part in the London Marathon four times and always has her trainers with her, loves to run.
She'd also love to be on a certain TV dancing show. ‘I’d do Strictly in a heartbeat’ she laughs. ‘I’ve twice sat in the Strictly audience - once I was in the front row next to Richard Hammond!
‘I was not a dancer growing up. For the music videos in Horrible Histories we get bits of choreography, but it's very much a loose parody of whatever we're trying to do, and once you've got a weird wig and a corset on the dancing kind of goes out the window. But I get to do a little Jive in Home, I'm Darling, which is a real joy to dance.’
In the play, modern day couple Judy (played by Jessica) and Johnny (Neil McDermott) are such fans of everything about the 1950s that they decide to live as if in that era. Judy's quest is to be the perfect 1950s housewife.
‘I don’t think I would be playing the lead in a national tour of a great play if it wasn’t for Doc Martin’, acknowledges Jessica.
‘Every day I’m on a set or stage or in a rehearsal, I feel grateful to be there. I know how many people are trying so hard to do it and I really love my job. What a joy.
‘I just like to work. I feel really fortunate that I’ve got work, a family and a home.’
At 41, is Jessica getting worried about the oft-made claim that decent parts for women over 50 are few and far between? ‘Well, I wasn’t til you asked me that! I can’t think about it yet. One thing at a time. If there isn’t anything, I’ll write something myself.
‘I just want to keep working and keep enjoying it, stay positive and try and make sure it doesn’t ever become a chore.’
And what if Doc Martin were to make a return in the future? "It’s not for me to decide or say. When I started on Doc Martin, I was told that would be the last series, yet I did five more after that. If they asked me, of course I’d leap at the chance.’
Home, I'm Darling is at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre from Tue 18th – Sat 22nd April 2023 For tickets: sheffieldtheatres.co.uk 0114 249 6000
