Susan Vidler will be most familiar to audiences as the heroin-addicted mother in Trainspotting. This month and next she is appearing in Dundee and St Andrews in Knives in Hens.
Susan featured as Alison in Trainspotting, a junkie so consumed by her habit that she neglects her infant child, causing its death.
The scene is one of the most harrowing of the film, and Susan is not sure she could perform it again.
“Even though I knew the baby and knew nothing had really happened to it, I don’t think I could go through it again not now that I’ve had children of my own.”
Susan’s currently starring in Knives in Hens, a reworking of the critically-acclaimed 1995 play by David Horrower.
Born in Scotland, Susan moved to South Africa when she was five.
“My parents emigrated there,” she says. “We spent a year in Johannesburg then went to Cape Town. Five years old is when your memories start developing, so some of my first memories are moving from cold and rainy Scotland to this wonderful, warm country.
“It was still in the grip of apartheid but I didn’t know anything about that at five years old. All I remember is barbecues and swimming pools and being able to go out on my bike and climb up hills whenever I wanted.”
When she was 10, Susan’s parents returned to Scotland and she spent the remainder of her childhood in Cockenzie, near Edinburgh, going to Prestonpans High School. It was at this age she became interested in performing.
“At first I wanted to become a ballet dancer,” she says. “I was really devoted to it and I’d train three or four times a week, getting the bus there and back afterwards and walking home through the dark streets.
“But no matter how hard I tried I just wasn’t the right shape to be really good at ballet.”
The punishing training also took its toll.
“It’s hard on your feet. By the end of each practice our toes would be bleeding and our teacher told us to go home and soak our feet in surgical spirits to toughen them.”
Instead, Susan decided to try her hand at acting.
Continued…
“Brunton Theatre were holding a production of No More Sitting on the Old School Bench and I decided to go for it. I auditioned alongside Ewen Bremner. He was about 11 and I was 12 or 13. We’ve been friends ever since he’s one of my oldest and best friends.”
Bremner, of course, played the funny but loyal buffoon Spud in Trainspotting, and has gone on to star in a number of big-budget blockbusters, as well as small screen drama series.
Landing the role in the Bruntsfield Theatre production gave Susan a thirst for more.
“Eventually someone said to me I should go to drama school. Growing up in a pretty rough school going to drama school is not something you’re usually encouraged to do, so I gave it a bit of thought and just went with it.”
She studied drama at Telford College in Edinburgh before going to the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
“I do think you should have a tiny bit of life experience before you study acting, and I was barely 18. I was still only 20 when I graduated.”
She moved to London, where she worked for writer and director Mike Leigh something she describes as “a brilliant experience.”
Susan had a role in his 1993 film Naked, where she again worked alongside Bremner.
She went on to star in the stage production of Trainspotting.
“I was in the original play, when the book was making waves. It caused a huge stir and was a bit of a phenomenon. More than any other play of its time, it drew people in who had never been to the theatre before. The flipside of that was they didn’t know how to behave at the theatre they would shout out to their mates but it was still wonderful.
“The producer and director of the film, Andy Macdonald and Danny Boyle, came along one night. I wouldn’t say the play created the film at that point they were already keen to make it but they certainly gave it a great reception.”
The film put her in front of a worldwide audience, but Susan says it didn’t open many doors for her.
“It maybe got me a few auditions and made a talking point, but I don’t think it gave my career a huge boost.”
Since then, Susan has gone on to enjoy a career of mingled film, TV and theatre. She starred in the cult Danish-English film Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, and has played roles in Doctor Who, Rebus and Hustle, as well as frequent work with the National Theatre of Scotland.
She’s married to Monarch of the Glen actor Alastair Mackenzie and the couple have a daughter, Martha, who was born in 2000.
She’s currently starring in Knives in Hens, which comes to Dundee and St Andrews this month and next. A strange, critically acclaimed and surreal piece, it’s ostensibly about a young woman driven to kill her adulterous ploughman husband with the help of the hated village miller, but is deliberately vague and difficult to pin down.
Over the last 15 years it’s been staged in more than 25 countries, but this is the first time in 10 years it’s returned to where it first started Scotland.
“It’s quite a wonderful piece,” Susan says. “But I’d urge people just to come along and not try too hard to understand it. The best thing to do is just let it wash over you, enter the world of movement and sound we’ve created and let it take you away for an hour and a half.
“It’s a very sad piece of theatre but also very funny.”Knives in Hens is at the Dundee Rep Theatre from June 28-30 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £15-£19 are are available from 01382 223530 or www.dundeerep.co.uk. The production also comes to the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on July 14 and 15. Tickets cost £14 and are available from 01334 475000 or www.byretheatre.com“Brunton Theatre were holding a production of No More Sitting on the Old School Bench and I decided to go for it. I auditioned alongside Ewen Bremner. He was about 11 and I was 12 or 13. We’ve been friends ever since he’s one of my oldest and best friends.”
Bremner, of course, played the funny but loyal buffoon Spud in Trainspotting, and has gone on to star in a number of big-budget blockbusters, as well as small screen drama series.
Landing the role in the Bruntsfield Theatre production gave Susan a thirst for more.
“Eventually someone said to me I should go to drama school. Growing up in a pretty rough school going to drama school is not something you’re usually encouraged to do, so I gave it a bit of thought and just went with it.”
She studied drama at Telford College in Edinburgh before going to the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
“I do think you should have a tiny bit of life experience before you study acting, and I was barely 18. I was still only 20 when I graduated.”
She moved to London, where she worked for writer and director Mike Leigh something she describes as “a brilliant experience.”
Susan had a role in his 1993 film Naked, where she again worked alongside Bremner.
She went on to star in the stage production of Trainspotting.
“I was in the original play, when the book was making waves. It caused a huge stir and was a bit of a phenomenon. More than any other play of its time, it drew people in who had never been to the theatre before. The flipside of that was they didn’t know how to behave at the theatre they would shout out to their mates but it was still wonderful.
“The producer and director of the film, Andy Macdonald and Danny Boyle, came along one night. I wouldn’t say the play created the film at that point they were already keen to make it but they certainly gave it a great reception.”
The film put her in front of a worldwide audience, but Susan says it didn’t open many doors for her.
“It maybe got me a few auditions and made a talking point, but I don’t think it gave my career a huge boost.”
Since then, Susan has gone on to enjoy a career of mingled film, TV and theatre. She starred in the cult Danish-English film Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, and has played roles in Doctor Who, Rebus and Hustle, as well as frequent work with the National Theatre of Scotland.
She’s married to Monarch of the Glen actor Alastair Mackenzie and the couple have a daughter, Martha, who was born in 2000.
She’s currently starring in Knives in Hens, which comes to Dundee and St Andrews this month and next. A strange, critically acclaimed and surreal piece, it’s ostensibly about a young woman driven to kill her adulterous ploughman husband with the help of the hated village miller, but is deliberately vague and difficult to pin down.
Over the last 15 years it’s been staged in more than 25 countries, but this is the first time in 10 years it’s returned to where it first started Scotland.
“It’s quite a wonderful piece,” Susan says. “But I’d urge people just to come along and not try too hard to understand it. The best thing to do is just let it wash over you, enter the world of movement and sound we’ve created and let it take you away for an hour and a half.
“It’s a very sad piece of theatre but also very funny.”Knives in Hens is at the Dundee Rep Theatre from June 28-30 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £15-£19 are are available from 01382 223530 or www.dundeerep.co.uk. The production also comes to the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on July 14 and 15. Tickets cost £14 and are available from 01334 475000 or www.byretheatre.com