Lilies by Heidi Thomas - a new drama series for 91Èȱ¬ One: Liverpool, 1920. Three girls on the edge of womanhood, a world on the brink of change
Leanne Rowe plays May
May (20) was a very pretty child and this has had a lasting impact on her nature. Vivacious, impulsive and wonderfully stubborn, she commands attention wherever she goes. But her craving for luxury leads her to a life of servitude in the home of a wealthy couple, the Brazendales. The tensions between her birthright as a Moss and the dreams she aspires to lead her into desperate danger.
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Actress Leanne Rowe had to literally stay whiter than white while filming her role as May Moss, one of three sisters, in 91Èȱ¬ One's heart-warming new drama series, Lilies, writes Doreen Brooks.
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Heidi Thomas's story is set in the tough docklands area of Liverpool in 1920 – an era in which families struggling to survive after the deprivations of the First World War were unlikely to leave their terrace houses on sunbathing expeditions.
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"It was a five-month shoot in Liverpool through the whole summer and we weren't allowed to get a drop of sun on our faces," explains Essex-born Leanne. "We had to be whiter than white.
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"You have the problem of continuity and we started filming in May so the weather was getting hotter. If I'd gone home at the weekends and had a little sunbathe, all of a sudden, mid-episode, May would have had a nice healthy glow," laughs the 24-year-old actress.
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Leanne, who was planning to jet off to Thailand for a well-earned break after filming, adds: "I'm sure the Mosses in 1920 didn't see much of the sun – they didn't nip off to Spain for a quick holiday. As much sun as they got was in the Liverpool docks."
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Her character in Lilies, 20-year-old May, is a parlour maid with the well-heeled Brazendale family – and their world is a seductive one for this middle of the three sisters.
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Leanne, who felt drawn to the role of May from the beginning, reveals: "She's hankering for a better life. Their mother died when May was 17 and we all had to go out to work and really pull together as a family. The money is all pooled and everything's shared out – it's a real unit.
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"They're a very close family and very loyal to each other," she explains. "Every character has a strong personality. They're all very individual, but quite alike. They can be arguing and be at each other's throats, then, a second later, they're fiercely defending each other and being really close.
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"I think the appeal of being the parlour maid may be that she wouldn't necessarily be living at her own house all the time. She has a room at the Brazendales so she gets her little bit of independence, whereas at home all the sisters share a bed.
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"It's definitely the perks that she likes, but she also gets to see how the other half live and she does fall in love with the whole idea."
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In the first episode, Mr Brazendale sees May in a new light when she dons a corset for a sensuous rendition of Cherry Ripe at a gentlemen's club – but in the strait-laced climate of the Twenties, will the pretty parlour maid and her married employer become romantically involved?
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"There could be a hint of something later on," is Leanne's tantalising reply.
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The actress admits that she didn't know a great deal about the post-First World War period.
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"It was a case of going through books and looking on the internet, but Heidi has written the scripts so well that they were packed with information," she says. "Even though you weren't there, you could totally imagine what it was like. Heidi was very accurate with her research and she'd done so much, so it was all there ready for us."
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Leanne, whose first professional film role was at the age of 12 in Jane Eyre, was the only native Southerner in the Liverpudlian Moss family, but had no problems with the distinctive accent.
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"For some reason, it's an accent I seem to have just been able to do – I think it's from my young years watching Brookside," she muses. "Whether a Scouser watching it will detect me as a fraud, I don't know – hopefully not!" she laughs.
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Leanne has two older sisters and a brother – "so I'm quite used to the dynamics of sister relationships," she declares. "I'm used to the closeness of sisters and arguing with each other one minute, and two of you against one, and then someone decides to stick up for someone else and it all changes."
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After leaving school at 16, Leanne trained as a dancer. She graduated at 19, but the siren call of acting was strong.
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"I had to choose either dancing or acting and I had to think, 'where does my heart lie and what would excite me more?' – and it was acting," she says decisively.
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Roles then followed in The Famous Five, Boudica and as Nancy in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist, although she does miss her dancing from time to time.
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"But in the end, nothing beats going to work and putting on a costume and living a different life for 14 hours," she declares – even though some parts do demand she stays a whiter shade of pale!
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