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The postal operators prosecuted in Horizon Post Scandal. have “extreme dignity” after living 20 years in a “Hitchcockian nightmare”, according to actor Toby Jones.
Jones played Alan Batesa former post office operator and leading campaigner for justice for staff wrongly accused of accounting lapses caused by faulty software in the ITV drama which brought the scandal back into the spotlight.
The actor said at the Hay Festival: “I get to play someone who I think of as a hero, someone who doesn’t seem to be subject to the same forces that we all are. He can’t be bought: he’s been asked to open Glastonbury, no thank you, he doesn’t want to do any of that – he says I’ve got work to do to get these things done. He wants no honors until the job is done.
This reflects his current “unfashionable” debt values, which “stand in stark contrast to what we live with in government,” Jones noted.
He recalled how at the premiere of Mr. Bates v. Post Offices, the postal operators present were sobbing within 10 minutes. After the screening, one said: “It was a testament to what it was.”
A postal operator who shared a panel with Jones on the scandal was living in his car, estranged from his family, separated after a breakdown, and his parents were also charged with theft after taking over the branch.
“They have this extraordinary dignity, considering 20 years of living in a Hitchcockian nightmare, they have this incredible, humble, modest humility,” he said.
Jones also shared how he tried to get to know Alan Bates as part of his research for the role and came across an “extraordinary human being” who was “not impressed by the things that other people are”.
Calling Bates, he was told: “I don’t know what you want to know, I’m not a hero… I don’t have emotions, I don’t have any concerns in that area.”
Yet Jones “felt very responsible” to do justice to Bates and instead watched footage of him on YouTube and spoke to James Arbuthnot, the former Conservative minister who championed the plight of his constituents.
Jones wept as he recalled Arbuthnot’s description of Bates: “Alan is stubborn, determined, impossible to outbid… every minute I spend with Alan Bates is an improvement in my life.”
He recalls deciding how to play a scene in which Bates learns his wife has cancer. The director suggested that he show physical affection, but Jones remembered how Bates had “put her emotional life on the shelf” through her campaign work and decided not to touch her. “It’s more interesting that they don’t cry and kiss each other. You start thinking, “Wow, they have to move on, they have no choice.”
When the show came out, he was working in the US and learned from his colleague Monica Dolan that “everything is a bit mental here”. On his return he found Bates “in euphoria.”
“The response was so overwhelming it was like a tidal wave. I think at the end of the day, he’s trying to surf that wave as long as possible,” Jones said. “Everybody involved in the show is trying to keep it going because there are people down the line who need to be compensated, who need to be paid, be compensated.”
Asked why he thought the drama had such an impact, he said: “Computer software glitches are not an obvious thing to make a drama about.
“I think drama is fundamentally political, there is a reason revolutionary governments fund theater projects. I think we get our news now as stories rather than facts, and if a story isn’t compelling enough, it falls off the news.
“In the old days we got facts; the facts are somehow not enough. We see it all the time in the news: “How did you feel?” It’s a drama about how people feel about an injustice.
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