Significant Other

Katherine Parkinson & Youssef Kerkour interview

Katherine Parkinson and Youssef Kerkour introduce us to their new comedy drama.

What is Significant Other?

Katherine: Significant Other is a comedy drama. It's based on an Israeli show and it's essentially about two very lonely people who have had quite fractured and difficult love lives. They live in separate flats in the same block, and they are thrown together by unusual circumstances. It's essentially a 'will they, won't they?' But it's quite bleakly funny and it feels to me like a very original show, it feels very truthful.

Youssef: A very unlikely pair, who come together at a point in their lives where they are each in a sort of extreme place. All the obstacles in their life blind them to the fact that maybe the right person for them is living right next door. It is a love story, but between the thorns of the rose and not the flower of the rose. Which is a bit of a twee way of saying it's two people that have issues and whose lives have taken a turn for the worse who then come together in extreme circumstances.

Katherine: In the read-through, the laughs we got felt they were laughs of recognising truths and being surprised at how truthful it was. The original setup at the beginning is that Sam [Youssef's character] is in a bad place, takes lots of paracetamol and lies down to die. Then there's a knock at the door and it's his neighbour and she's having a heart attack and has been told by the ambulance services that she can't be on her own. It's not exactly Richard Curtis, but I find it very thrilling because it just feels as romantic and moving as those traditional romantic comedies with much more attractive and nubile people in it. But it feels like it's telling the truth of mid-life and when you've been bashed around a bit but find something in another person that makes you feel like a better person yourself.

Who do you play?

Katherine: Anna lives in a flat that she's made quite beautiful. She's got eclectic tastes and likes art deco lamps, much like me. Her job is writing the subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, she works at home and lives quite a solitary life. She's been involved with a married man for about five years. Then three years ago she ended it and walked away. She lost both parents quite young, so she's somebody who has found herself a bit adrift and more alone than perhaps she expected to be in life. But she's got a lot going for her - she likes her job, and she likes her own company.

Youssef: We see my character, Sam, wanting to kill himself in the beginning. There's a knock at the door and his neighbour's having a heart attack and bang! That's the introduction that they both have to each other. From that, blossoms a friendship, a romance... will they, won't they? The ambiguity is what's very exciting about it. It's a lovely place to live and be in, but it's very gritty. The urban setting is important. The city is a third character in many ways. And the loneliness that one feels when living in a big city is very much a part of the story, where you can live next door to somebody for a long time who may actually be compatible with you in some way, and you wouldn't actually know. You'd probably never meet them despite them being your neighbour.

What made you want to be a part of the series?

Youssef: It's a very interesting take on relationships and who we are. Are we an individual or are we the other people? Do we need other people to feel like ourselves? Sam is somebody who on the surface would appear to be having a midlife crisis, but it's a bit more complex than that. He's somebody who wants to reclaim his lost youth, but who doesn't have the strength of character or generosity to stop at the age that he's aiming for. So, he continues to regress to an age that is a lot more juvenile and needy than he thinks. He wants to go and recapture his twenties, but he carries on going and becomes a 13-year-old. He's left his wife and children because he wants to shake things up and he wants to feel that feeling that he remembers. But he's walking away from something very great, and he regrets it and wants it back. Now he can't have it back, and that's where we meet him in the story.

Katherine: It feels very modern. It's set in Manchester, but we were encouraged to use our own accents, which I think is great because often, in cities like Manchester, London and Liverpool, there are loads of people from all different sorts of places. Often, if you've gone to university there - which I think in Anna's case is what's happened - you stay. Also, Manchester looks beautiful in some of the shots that I've seen and very modern with its cool graffiti. We filmed around the Northern Quarter. I also wanted to be a part of the show because of the casting. They have cast people from different backgrounds without having a conversation about it and making it part of the story - which I think is great.

Tell us about the director/creative team and what they bring to the show...

Youssef: It's been produced by Nicola Shindler, who I did Stay Close [the 2021 Netflix mystery drama] with and who I was just desperate to work with again. It's just a wonderful team. And of course, our director, David Sant, who directed me in both series of Home, who I've had a long working relationship with, I know very well. We have a real shorthand and a sort of telepathy going on while we work, which is just the most amazing feeling. It has been the most enjoyable experience, and I think audiences will definitely pick up on it. It was a very happy set, and it does come from the top. Happy crew, happy cast, and enjoyable working experience.

Tell us about your co-star...

Katherine: I love working with Youssef. You don't always know whether you are going to have the required chemistry - you get cast and you just hope for the best. But I knew as soon as I met him that this was going to work. We didn't get tested together. I think it was just the producers and David Sant's great instinct. I had seen Youssef in Home, which I loved. And then we met for lunch, and I thought, "this is, going to be easy." Youssef and I share a love of coffee, food, and he's interesting on all subjects. Sometimes there's a bit of sitting around when you're filming, but he is so interesting that time goes by quickly when you're talking to him. He's very generous - I can tell he is looking out for other people, checking that they've got what they need. I'm not like that at all, but I admire it in others!

Youssef: Katherine is somebody I've always wanted to work with. I think she is the most well-rounded performer I've ever met. She can do everything; comedy, drama, everything - she has a beautiful way of blending it all together. She's also one of the nicest people you'll ever work with. It's made for an amazing set and an incredible work experience. Shelley, Sam's ex-wife, is played by Kelle Bryan and she's the woman he's trying to get back with, who is fantastic and a barrel of laughs.

Can you tell us a little about Sam and Shelley's relationship?

Youssef: Sam and Shelley on the surface are opposites. The compatibility in what makes for a partner is much more complex than what you think it is and it's very easy when you're in a compatible relationship to start to focus on the wrong things, which is what Sam has done. You start to focus on the surface level things where you know very well that you could be married to somebody for 50 years, but you like different movies. You like different foods - they like coffee, you like tea. Shelley is very much like that. She is from a different sort of class than Sam is, but they were compatible. They had a life, they had a wonderful routine, a family, two beautiful children. Sam had everything and he reaches this point in his life where he stops focusing and understanding the fundamentals. He starts to look at the surface and wants more and wants difference. He then sees the difference between himself and Shelley. As a result, he creates his own wedge between him and something really great. He goes out, tries to live the single life, and of course he's a bit of a loser and he's self-centred, selfish and needs too much. Therefore, he does not have the exciting life that he's set out for, so he tries to backtrack.

Talk to us about how ethnicity is handled in the show and how it avoids the tired stereotypes that we often see...

Youssef: I trusted Nicola Shindler so much to be able to inject that into the production. I think ITV are one of the networks that have been really trying to push things in the right direction. As an Arab Muslim, the day I'm cast as a Brit drinking beer and eating bacon sandwiches and no one even mentions my ethnicity, is the day I will start to see some progress. That's very much what I was keen to do here. I'm playing a guy who has his cultural origins, but you don't need to mention it. We are a mixed-race family, and it doesn't have to be the cultural family, it can just be a regular middle class family that doesn't have to exist in some extreme place. It's been very wonderful to get to live in that for a bit. It feels like freedom, whereas in the past I have felt a bit more boxed in. I think what's wonderful about my relationship with Kelle's character Shelley, is that we are a mixed-race family, but the diversity which is important in this is not even mentioned.

What can audiences look forward to from Significant Other?

Katherine: This feels like an original love story. Everybody loves a love story, but this feels like one that hasn't been told. It's also very good to see older love. Obviously, I'm not that old... but people who are in their mid-forties, often come with damage. But there's a different type of love that can happen at that age and one that's very interesting and more interesting than the young stuff.

Youssef: I think the reason why people would want to see the show and what they would get out of it is what I've always said: that the richest experience when you are viewing art of any kind is to be able to laugh at the comedy and cry at the truth. I think that's what this script has managed to capture so beautifully. It's got some very funny moments - and it's always good to laugh - and it's got some very deep truthful moments, and it's always good to feel that too. I think people will enjoy it.