A Career Without End

Charlotte Riley didn’t have enough going for her already, she is also about to become one of the most talked-about actresses of the year. While the star from Teeside has already graced our screens in everything from Holby City to ITV drama The Town, her starring role in medieval mini-series World Without End – C4’s biggest show of the new year – will really put her on the map. She finds herself at the centre of a medieval storm as teenager Caris, the feisty daughter of an alderman who, thwarted in her ambitions to become a doctor, fights for her own independence and that of the oppressed people of her community. Even though she starts out as a wide-eyed innocent, Caris quickly discovers the 14th century can be a brutal place for a woman of independent spirit. "I play a strong-minded young woman who wants more from life than marriage," reveals Riley. "The drama begins in 1327 in the English village of Kingsbridge and it’s a big ensemble piece about King, Queen and Country." Her co-stars include Cynthia Nixon, who plays villainous Petranilla, Miranda Richardson, Ben Chaplin and, as her love interest, up-and-coming English actor Tom Weston-Jones.

While Caris isn’t interested in settling down, she does have an admirer in childhood friend Merthin (Weston-Jones). And there is one particular love scene they filmed which still makes Charlotte cringe. "I wasn’t very well when we did it so I was like: 'Get me out of here because I’m going to puke on poor, naked Tom,'" laughs Charlotte, with her head in her hands. "Those scenes are never romantic anyway, but feeling sick isn’t ideal." Riley spent six months in Hungary, Austria and Slovakia filming the eight-part series, which is a sequel to 2010 TV series The Pillars Of The Earth; both based on epic Ken Follett novels. Beginning 150 years after the first book, World Without End is set after the King is killed at the orders of his wife and their son installed on the throne; the Hundred Years War, the black death and political turmoil playing out in the background. "The main thing I had to get in my head was that the horizons were so much smaller then," Riley says. "It’s difficult to imagine the restrictions on women but the production was amazing – they built a whole town in Hungary – so we had this weird 14th-century bubble."


We first meet Caris when she realises she has only two choices in life – to conform to her parents’ expectations by becoming a wife and mother, or to break away from tradition and follow her mentor Mattie, the herbalist and midwife of the town. "I can’t give away too much of the plot but the scenes I had with Indira Varma, who plays Mattie, were hilarious. There was one scene where she is teaching me anatomy and we had to split open a dead body and take out all the various organs. It was meant to be a serious shot without sound, but Indira kept coming up with outrageously funny and rude comments about all these body parts. While she somehow managed to keep a straight face I kept ruining shot after shot by laughing!"

Riley is 31 but looks years younger, so it’s no stretch to see her as a teenager ill-used by manipulative men. One of them is the monk Godwyn (Rupert Evans, sporting a heroically odd haircut) who takes a decidedly unspiritual interest in the Riley bosom, copping a feel while she’s asleep. How did she keep a straight face while the pervy monk had a fumble? She lets out a cheery giggle. "No, no, that isn’t me!" Riley says in her lovely, lilting County Durham accent. "I had a boob double. I felt sorry for the woman who had to do it, being poked and prodded about until they got the right angle. It was fascinating, though – there were bits that Rupert had to do when there wasn’t an actual breast there. Now that’s proper acting."

Riley says her dad was most impressed when he found out who was going to be in World Without End. "He said: 'You’re going to be in a scene with Queenie!'" To non-Blackadder fans, that’s Miranda Richardson. So will the rest of her family be giving her feedback on World Without End? "There are some strong scenes to stomach, rape and amputation among them but oh yes, I think so," she says. "Though all my auntie is hoping for is to seesomething I don’t die in."

World Without End starts on C4 on Saturday at 9pm.