Jack Lowden on T'he Fifth Step'

the idea is stuff like that if you don't tell someone your sponsor or whoever you'll start drinking again the fifth step refers to one of the steps in the program the 12 Steps of AA what David the writer has done is taken the moment where somebody who's relatively new to AA who I play Luca meets an older man who's been in AA for years and he becomes his sponsor the fourth step you'd make what's called a moral inventory a list of all the bad things you've done in your life big and small uh resentments fears harms done to others if you've stolen money from your mother say you write it down on paper and step five you share it with some someone your sponsor it's really a look at the relationship between a sponsor and somebody who's in AA and how those relationships you know develop how they can be slightly abused and um how things can go wrong it just Bec this really sort of raw and but revealing space where people talk about the deepest darkest fears and passions and things that they have it's about divesting yourself of Shame anything that will make you pick up a drink again it's about getting clean we do like things a bit gritty and dark and the fifth step certainly that isn't it it's a complicated subject obviously alchoholism interestingly the writer um did some research and and and has said that you know the actual subject of the drinking is not doesn't happen a great deal between sponsor and um Mentor so the subject matter it skirts around the actual drinking it's more about the character's addictive natur's you know um far Sun relationships damage that is caused which often leads to people being addicted my sponsor used to say the recovery and the program of recovery offers you a life beyond your wildest dreams I thought he meant riches material success but really what AA gave me was an ability to be an attentive father loving husband that was beyond my wildest dreams it's not for the fainthearted display but it's um it's very very very funny oh is it yeah you're not coming to see something where you're like God this is when will this end this is really dark it's bizarrely not very dark it's very very upbeat and light and ridiculous is what the play is like it's got at all really it does yeah I think it's quite reflective of of eight of the humor in AA and you've got to there's got to even though we're watching human beings that are at the very lowest e is that often one of the ways out of that is humor like you've just got to laugh at it to Scottish thing is it's very Scottish yeah yeah yeah is yeah so what happened at the gym right so I was on the treadmill yeah guess who walked in who you'll never guess uh Willam the four who well I'm the four must be a lot of lines to learn but it's just a t yeah that was the toughest thing by a long way we also only had two weeks rehearsal it's been hugely challenging and especially for a 60-year-old brain because who's got two teenage children you know there are links that aren't as sharp as Jack learns them like that and I think he looks at me and thinks why don't you know your lines because you'll be 60 one day nothing like a Scottish audience as well I think Scottish audiences are very very sharp and very you know I'm looking forward to hearing the reactions because the play throws some challenging and amusing and thought-provoking ideas at them and some quite colorful language may I say we like that how do you begin researching a role like this I've come across alcoholism in the family which was at the Forefront of my mid mid childhood sort of stuff so I've known quite a bit about it I've played drinkers before I've read it I know a couple of recovering alcoholics I've read a couple of books and read the big book which is the book which Alcoholics Anonymous encourage everybody to drink and to read and I think Jack's done the same and then Jack of course and suha did a film that they they produced and C in which is about an aloh there's an AA group in the film and they tell real stories of of their experiences and they're hilarious the stories and the way they tell them are hilarious and they're all brilliant Auditors did you find people were quite up for speaking to you oh okay because a lot of them are people that have defeated it there's a brilliant line in the outrun where s's character asks somebody who's who's been in AA for years and he says it doesn't it doesn't get easier it just gets less hard and that seems to be people's experience with it um but I have unbelievable admiration for people that do it because it's I mean it's all consuming and the and people can defeat it it's brilliant yeah pretty busy time for you though horses season 4 about to come out wow I mean I just love it I think people are so excited for it to come back it's been really brilliant because it's been a slow burn and people are still discovering it four comes out in a couple of weeks we've just finished five oh wow so there's a lot in the can which is good yeah the Americans that's going to the emmies that's quite exciting yeah that was daed um but brilliant you know it's it's like I've been saying is it's something that you commit yourself to for quite a long time it is a nice thing to get a nod from across the room of like that's we like this so it's a because a lot of people work daed hours and incredibly hard to make it so yeah we're all dead chuffed