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AAfter three decades of demonstrating almost unmatched versatility, switching easily from comedy to drama to singing, Jane Horrocks now hosts the Queen Bees podcast with her friend Esther Coles. Although she doesn’t own a beehive herself, there is still a strong case for calling Britain’s most prominent beekeeper podcaster Horrocks, or at least one of them.
Bees weren’t supposed to feature in this interview. We were supposed to be discussing Bloods, Sky’s new medical sitcom created by Samson Kayo and co-star, in which the duo play a few incompatible paramedics. And yet, as you will soon find, the conversation crept inexorably upward.
Bloods is a big, wide comedy with a grip of slapstick and a terrific cast that includes Julian Barratt and Lucy Punch, but the thing you’ll stick for is the easy, sparkling chemistry between Horrocks and Kayo. There’s an almost 30-year age difference between them, with Horrocks in their late 50s and Kayo not yet 30, and they’ve all come to the show from vastly different backgrounds, but they appear so well that you often feel like you’re looking at a veteran. double act.
As they chat with me about Zoom from their London homes, I ask them how easily their chemistry came to life. “I can’t take it,” Kayo sighs. “All she does is talk about bees.” “And he’s on the phone all the time,” Horrocks replies, “ignoring me.”
It seems to be the dynamic. Kayo, as the lead creative voice on Bloods, will often answer questions first, with Horrocks acting as his gently mocking sidekick. When the tables are turned and the questions are directed directly to Horrocks, she stiffens slightly, suddenly much more aware of his answers. Kayo notices and teases her. It’s lovely to see. Either they love each other extremely, or they are fake world champions. I would put money on the first one.
Bloods began life as a Sky comedy short in 2018, with Kayo playing an overzealous paramedic-cum-YouTuber with Horrocks as a new partner. To hear Kayo describe it, you’d think the idea was never meant to extend beyond those first 10 minutes. “I created the short film and I was like, ‘Yeah, there you go – boom! There is a short film. “He smiles. People liked him, he says, and then he bumped into his producer, Ash Atalla, at an awards ceremony. “He was like, ‘Hey yeah, we should be good for a show.’ I said, “Of what?” He said “Bloods”. I was like ‘Is this?’ “
“Really?” Horrocks repeats, teasing him with a millennial, wide-eyed London sled.
Kayo is currently in the midst of the kind of career explosion that Horrocks enjoyed in the 1990s. It gave them a sense of shared experience. Before Bloods, he had just come out of a hot streak that saw him star on the BBC sketch show Three Famalam, sitcoms Timewasters and Sliced, Nick Frost’s Amazon show Truth Seekers, as well as a movie. by Robert Downey Jr. As I stir his filmography, Kayo interrupts me. “Don’t start Jane,” he said with a grimace, clearly having been reprimanded about his busy schedule before. “Just today,” Horrocks says, “he left and made a lunchtime short.”
However, all of that momentum didn’t give Kayo time to write Bloods himself. The Writers’ Room spent five weeks generating ideas, and then the scripts were knocked out by two writers: Paul Doolan, co-creator of the latest Horrocks sitcom, Trollied; and Nathan Bryon, who co-wrote the short and also wrote the award-winning book Puffin Look Up !, about a science-crazed young black girl trying to distract her brother from his phone.
Nonetheless, Bloods is still unmistakably Kayo’s show. In fact, he had just started his paramedic training before his acting career took off. “I went to Jobcentre and applied to become an ambulance driver,” he says. “We started to do the training, just the basics. You need to do first aid, and then study how to drive the ambulance. “
Filmed between lockouts in London last summer, Bloods has a sort of deliberate mirth. It’s so sunny and good-natured that – and I admit that probably says more about me than the show – I started to suspect an ulterior motive. The character of Horrocks, a recent divorcee named Wendy, seems almost too happy. Sometimes, I say, his behavior borders on pathological. “You said that with a level of hate in your voice,” Horrocks bristles. I try to explain myself, but eventually blurted out that I wouldn’t be surprised if his character turned out to be a serial killer. “Alright,” she said, her eyes narrowed. “OKAY.”
Kayo comes to the rescue with a nod to Horrocks’ roots in Lancashire. “You know what? I think northerners are a lot nicer than Londoners. I feel like they have a lot more inviting energy – and you see it with Wendy. Then, to be clear, he adds, “She’s not a serial killer.”
Bloods is heralded as the Horrocks’ big comeback on TV, which is only partially true, since she appeared in the ITV drama The Singapore Grip last year. But Trollied was his last regular TV job, and it ended five years ago. Still, it would be a mistake to call it inactivity. She took her musical show If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me to the Latitude Festival in 2016. She recently reprized her role as Babs in the upcoming Chicken Run 2. She starred in a production of Beckett’s Endgame with Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Cumming. And she’s the voice of the phone when the Teletubbies reboot.
“I like to do a lot of different things,” she says, “trying out different art forms. I do a play for the Brighton festival afterwards, actually – an installation that I did with an artist. My daughter makes the music for it. I like a variety.
I had read that Horrocks now prefers to focus on comedy because, after a career of often intense dramatic roles – Mark Rylance once ordered him to get wet on stage every night during a Macbeth run – that made him. just take away less. “Yeah, that’s right,” she nods. “I appreciate it more. I had a great time on Bloods, maybe because I was so happy to do it.
The role she remains best known for is Bubble, her stage thief character from Absolutely Fabulous. It seems that, despite a career spent resolutely avoiding lockers, this role remains in the public consciousness. Still, the movie Ab Fab was released five years ago and seemed like a definitive ending. Does she feel like she’s finally left Bubble behind?
“Yes,” she says, but hesitates. “I mean, yeah. I… it’s… yeah. I do not know. I…”
“Look at her!” Kayo hoots. “Quick – let’s talk about the bees!”
So we do. My father’s birthday is approaching and he always wanted a beehive. So I ask Horrocks what sort I should get him. And it instantly relaxes and becomes much more expansive. “OK,” she smiles. “Well, he needs to know how much fodder there is in his area, because a lot of people like to have beehives, but there isn’t enough fodder for the bees. This is something you really need to take seriously. If you want to do it right, you have to think about many different aspects. She pauses, then says, “Have you fallen asleep yet, Samson?”
“I fell asleep,” he says. “But I woke up again.”
“This subject makes Samson fall asleep,” Horrocks explains. But why? Doesn’t he care about bees?
“Some of that stuff,” he said, “I’m just like,“ Ugh! But when she told me about the lonely bee, I thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool. If I had to be a bee, I would probably be a lone bee.
“You like to party too much,” Horrocks said with a frown. “You wouldn’t last long like a lonely bee.” I would definitely be a worker bee. A busy little bee.
They’re warming up there now, having fun. I can’t bear to stop them. “I love bees, man,” Kayo says. “They are cool.”
“Could you determine the difference,” said Horrocks, “between a wasp and a bee?”
“Yeah, 100%. Bees are bigger than wasps.
“Wasps are bigger than bees,” corrects Horrocks.
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m sure wasps are bigger than bees. Honey bees anyway, which are the most common bees.”
“OK. Are wasps longer?
“They are longer, yes. But no longer than the queen bee, because she has to store all her eggs there.
“Do you see what I’m saying?” Kayo smiles. “That’s what she does. And then I start to doze off.
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