'I don't think my mom would want to see me kiss Conleth Hill': Sian Gibson in Soho Hotel credit: Rij Schroer
«In the pre-digital age, romance was a lot easier to hide, wasn't it?» shrugs Sian Gibson. “When I watch things on TV that take place today, I get very annoyed by stories in which people do not know about the betrayal of their partner. This doesn't seem plausible. But back in the 80s and early 90s, there was no Google. No trace of mobile phone. No trackers. People like Martin Parker get away with murder…”
Martin Parker, played by Game of Thrones' Conleth Hill, is the titular character in Parker's Force, a delightfully quirky six-part comedy-drama Gibson co-wrote with Paul Coleman for the BBC. Set in Stockport in 1990, it takes us back to a time when Gibson reminds me that in towns across the country, local businessmen “were almost like local celebrities, weren't they? A man like Parker, with his name on the door of an electrical store, was the king of the High Street.»
So, Parker has lush, blow-dried hair and one of the first car phones. He works at the local Rotary Club and gives his mates discounts on sodas. Together with his wife, Diane (Rosie Cavaliero), he hosts drinking parties and sends his teenage children to a private school. But he owes thousands to local loan sharks who also sell drugs from their dirty convenience food. So when we meet him at the beginning of the series, he is forced to sell the apartment where he has kept his fiercely devoted mistress (Gibson) for the past 20 years.
«It's like shit, a suburban British rock attraction, isn't it!» Gibson chuckles, speaking via video link from North Wales, where she lives with her gasman husband Ian and their 11-year-old daughter Gracie. Or the lo-fi Mancunian series Breaking Bad? I suggest. «Oh God, if only I'd said that instead now!» she says. «That's better, isn't it!» A self-deprecating roll of the eyes and a warm smile. “Sorry if I'm getting a little emotional, this is Gracie's last day of elementary school. I didn’t think I would cry, but then one of the teachers hugged me on the playground and … — she clasps her hands. “The hug was a little awkward because I didn’t have a bra under my sweatshirt…”
It turns out the 46-year-old actor bears an uncanny resemblance to the sweet and laid-back character Kaylee, whom she played in Peter Kay’s Car Share. The show put Gibson on the line and was truly lifted by her exquisitely heartfelt performance and sublime comic moment. The then-unknown Gibson was a revelation, and in fact, he almost gave up acting and worked in a call center before Kay offered her the part.
Rosie Cavaliero, Martin Parker and Sian Gibson in the BBC comedy Parker's Power. Credit & Copyright: Jack Barnes/BBC
Born in Mold, Flintshire, Wales in 1976, Gibson is the daughter of a construction worker. The youngest of four children, her stage ambitions were nurtured in a loving family, and as a teenager («with cherry red goth hair and Doc Martens, pretending to be cool but still listening to The Kids from Fame on her hi-fi») the same drama course at Salford University as Peter Kay, who learned comic rhythm by rolling his eyes with laughter during serious student performances.
“After graduating, I was fine,” Gibson tells me. “I was small and looked young, so for a while I got a full-time job playing teenagers. I've been to Hollyoaks and all that. But this work dried up when I was about 20 years old. The temporary contracts I had between jobs got longer and longer. Then one day I called my agent and found that they had charged me without even notifying me. I was too embarrassed to say anything. I just thought, «Well, that's it.» I left Manchester and returned to North Wales. There was no work on television or in the theater. I wasn't sad, I just accepted it.»
While the tension of Car Share was that everyone will-they-won't, in The Power of Parker, Kat Gibson is a woman who will do it at almost any opportunity. In early scenes, we see her dressed in cheap nylon as a sexy milkmaid. Later, she and Hill do a hilarious dance to Imagination's 1981 hit Body Talk, pacing and posing in his carpet-tiled, faux-wood-veneer office as the hi-fi graphic EQ peaks its LEDs.
“We rehearsed a lot,” she tells me. We thought it would be so ugly that we had to laugh. But when we got to filming, it was still awkward.”
While she doesn't strike me as a show business that needs solidity, Gibson says that being married to a gasman makes sure she doesn't lose her perspective. “There were times when I sat in the trailer for four hours and called him to moan. He will check if everything is in order with me, what I ate and drank, and then he says: «Well, it's 30 degrees here, I'm in the attic with a hornet's nest.» Shut up!» I'm like, «Fair enough.»
Gibson has a knack for telling poignant anecdotes. “The first time I took my husband to meet my mom and dad, they were watching Big Brother. Fine. It was the day Kinga sat on the wine bottle. We were all too embarrassed to turn the TV over. We all acted like it didn't happen, but everything in Mom's living room is facing the TV, so it was impossible to avoid it. Oh God!»
Sian Gibson as Cat in Parker's Power, which she co-created. Photo: Vishal Sharma
Despite her pep, Gibson also tells me she had a «fucking couple of years» after she lost her mother and best friend to cancer. She was in Watford filming the new Murder They Hope special with Johnny Vegas when her friend Ed, who was only 52 years old, died. “I was filming that scene in a bouncy castle and I was like, ‘Well, that’s just awful. She shakes her head. But she also credits the bereavement with helping her enjoy life more deeply.
More surprisingly, she admits that she «became obsessed with clairvoyants, obsessed with getting a message from my mom.» She admits that of the 10 films she has seen over the past year, only one was good. “I see him on Zoom and it's like a therapy session. I think I'm addicted. Is that bad?» But she's actually more animated about «terrible scams.»
«When they're bad, I can laugh,» she says. «A man asked me if my mom smoked. I said he had been gone for 30 years. He said: “I see her, she has a cigarette in her mouth, she is in the greenhouse.” I thought: “No! I don’t want to think that my mother is looking at me from heaven with a cigarette! » Then he said, «How do you want to pay?» Heartless!»
Gibson told me that Hill was unimpressed. “He is not a believer. He doesn't agree with me. He'll say, «Give that £30 to me, not to some crook!» But the couple is still very close. «Conlet is such a sweet man and a terrific actor.» She says she was lucky that she “only acted with supportive guys who made me feel equal. I worked in bars and offices where some men were disgusting. All my MeToo stuff happened in that lifetime, and you just didn't name anything back then, did you? You would just think, «Yuk, gaddoff,» and smile.» She shakes her head. “We didn't use words like 'narcissism' or 'gaslighting' to describe the actions of people like Martin Parker. Although we put them on the show because they are the right words…”
And despite all of Parker's bad behavior, audiences won't hate him. They'll also likely end up feeling nostalgic for the era's strange innocence — the show certainly rekindled Gibson's affinity for the High Street. “I remember around 1990 I decided to skip the roller disco with all my friends,” she says, “because I wanted to go with my mom to the new Currys restaurant and opted for the microwave. Nowadays you would just order it online. But then it was an event!”
Gibson hopes that «Parker's Force» will receive an order for a second series. In the meantime, she could start work on a sitcom about mediums. “The worst thing I saw was a woman who had this gleam in her eyes when she looked at the cards that were coming out. Then she said: “There will be a romance. Lots of amazing sex!”
“I asked: “Who has this affair? Me or my husband? She said, «I hope you are!» «I hope so!» she nods. Then panics at the thought of her mom looking down on her sex scenes with Hill. “I don't think she would want to see me kissing Conlet. I think she would look away!”
The Power of Parker is out today on BBC One and available as a box set on iPlayer
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