Aisling Loftus (Mr Selfridge)

January 2014

 SHE doesn’t get recognised a lot. It’s not like it’s becoming a problem, although Aisling Loftus, who plays Agnes Towler in Mr Selfridge, which returns to ITV1 tomorrow for a second series, would prefer not to look so rough when it does happen.
“Usually the people who say hello are really nice,” says the 23-year-old.
“The only thing is, it always happens when I look awful. You can see it in their faces... ‘wow, they heap the make-up on you, don’t they?!’”
If Aisling (pronounced Ashling), who grew up in Lady Bay, is going to be recognised anywhere it is in the actual Selfridges store in Oxford Street.
“My mum had come to London and we popped in,” she says.
“And my mum went, ‘Ooh, Ashy!’ because she saw all the Mr Selfridge DVDs and books with a little picture of me on the front. I said, ‘Mum, we cannot be seen loitering near these, we need to move on!’ At which point a woman who had one of the DVDs in her hands turned to me and said, ‘Would you mind signing it?’
“I thought, ‘I don’t know if I’m allowed to! I don’t think I can just scrawl on one of their DVDs’.”
She laughs: “That was a very cringe-worthy moment. But it was really lovely for my mum.
“And I did sign it in the end but it was really embarrassing. As if I’d gone into the store especially to autograph a DVD.”
Mum Eileen and dad Patrick still live in Lady Bay, where Aisling and her older sister, Aoife grew up.
“I come back every six weeks or so,” says the actress, who lives in North London with her musician boyfriend.
Mr Selfridge, which is set before the First World War, is loosely based on the story of the flamboyant American Harry Selfridge, who heads to London to set up its first department store.
The first series became a TV fixture every Sunday evening at the beginning of last year, attracting up to eight million viewers each week.
“People really got behind it,” says Aisling, whose character Agnes – or “Aggie” – experienced an abusive father and a broken relationship during the ten-week run.
“She’s a bit of an underdog and a trier, facing her fair share of hardships,” says Aisling, who shares screen time with American star Jeremy Piven as Mr Selfridge, Katherine Kelly, the former Coronation Street actress and Downton Abbey actor Cal Macaninch.
“I was also quite excited to see that Sara Cox and Zoe Ball both watched it and liked Agnes – because I like them an awful lot,” she adds.
“But more than anything I was really happy that my friends and family enjoyed it.”
The second series moves on five years and Agnes is back from Paris where Selfridge sent her to continue her artistic and retail education at the Galeries Lafayette department store.
“She returns with a real sense of confidence.
“She has been living as a single, independent woman and knows exactly who she is.”
In reality, she and boyfriend Jason Anderson, who is also an actor best known for starring as Omen in the film Adulthood, visited the French capital just before filming started for the second series.
“I thought I really should go to Galeries Lafayette but we both wanted to go to Disneyland Paris,” she laughs.
“I did a fair bit of online research on the store instead.”
Selfridges has moved on in those five years and is a more glamorous place to work, particularly for Agnes, who is promoted to head of display.
But this creates a conflict with the new head of fashion, Mr Thackeray (Cal MacAninch).
“He is her self-doubt personified,” says Aisling, whose TV credits include Public Enemies with Anna Friel and The Borrowers alongside Christopher Eccleston.
“Mr Thackeray is undermining and quite acerbic, always ready to stick the knife in at a time when Agnes is really trying to show what she has learned.”
There’s added pressure with the First World War looming, as younger brother George (Calum Callaghan) is encouraged to sign up.
“The prospect of him going to war is deeply upsetting and unsettling for Agnes,” she says.
There were plenty of male suitors in the first series and romance is on the cards again.
“There is lots of turbulence in her love life, you could say.”
She adds: “The first series was all about establishing the store and the characters.

“Now there’s more focus on how life would be playing out at this moment in history and I think the series itself is deeper and richer.”
Aisling started acting at the age of nine, while at St Edmund Campion, the Catholic school in West Bridgford, then The Becket School during which time she joined Nottingham’s renowned Television Workshop.
There were roles in Peak Practice, The Bill, Doctors, Casualty and Bernard’s Watch up until the age of 19 when she left for London.
Aisling was back in Nottingham in November for the Workshop’s weekender at Broadway to mark its 30th anniversary of training young actors.
“I love seeing anyone else doing well from Workshop,” she says.
“I love watching anything with Joe Dempsie, Jack O’Connell and Vicky McClure in, not just because they are Workshoppers but because they are among the best actors in the country.
“Vicky was one of the actresses at the Workshop that I looked up to. Joe is good mates with my boyfriend so I saw him quite often.”
Next up for Aisling is theatre and a Tennessee Williams play called Green Eyes.
“I’m absolutely terrified because there’s no second chance but I think that’s a good reason to do anything.
“It’s about a young couple on honeymoon in new Orleans. He’s just come back for Vietnam and is in quite a bad way, mentally.
“It’s a wicked play. There are just two of us on stage and the audience is in the round, within touching distance.
“I want to do things that I get excited by, although I do have a mortgage to pay.”

Mr Selfridge begins on ITV1 on Sunday, January 19 at 9pm.

On poo patrol

April 2009


REMEMBER when dog muck was as much a feature of our streets as litter? The Seventies, right? Even into the Eighties it was acceptable for your pooch to park his/her breakfast wherever he/she felt the urge.

Since local councils slapped a fine on dog owners for such a revolting lack of courtesy, it’s been pretty much confined to those red bins that sit atop a pole at the entrance to parks.

And a hallelujah for that.

Aside from the obvious health risks to children (etc, etc), finding out that you’ve traipsed Fido fudge across your seagrass is nothing less than infuriating.

I’ve nothing against dogs. But dog owners should know damned well to grab a couple of Asda carrier bags with the dog lead when it’s walkies.

Well, of late, walking around the Wilson ’hood that is Lady Bay has been akin to a game of It’s A Knockout in a chocolate muffin factory manned by clumsy operatives. A few weeks ago, a rare sunny weekend afternoon, myself and the current Mrs Wilson decided to walk the two miles into the city. And counted 13 doggy deposits before we’d even hit our stride.

Now, like any bloke, I joined in the general chuntering: “Oh disgusting..”, “Aren’t people ignorant?”... “Shove it through their letter box...” etc. But, really, by the time Trent Bridge was in sight I’d forgotten all about it.

Not so ’Er Indoors. Although vertically challenged, Mrs Dubyah’s personality can be towering. Particularly when she reckons she’s been wronged. There have been casualties along the way. Woe betide the man who would dare to suggest she stops talking because I’m trying to watch this film, love...

Won’t be doing that again.

So, the realisation that one of our neighbours was responsible for the littering of dog
poo
– or “dog dirt” if you’re my mother – along our tree-lined avenues, was left simmering over the next few hours.

The eureka! moment came during the walk home.

“I know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to sit in the garden and make some flags.”

Eh?

“Then stick them in the
poo
.”

She was quite excited at the prospect. I, on the other hand, made a mental note to check her medication.

The masterplan of direct action was thus: Make paper flags, write shaming notes to whoever was responsible for the excremental strafing across Lady Bay and then stick the flags in the offending bobs.

It would alert the offender that we’re not going to stand for this ANY LONGER! – and wise up the fellow residents of West Bridgford’s little sister wise to the brown slalom ahead.

And there was no ducking out of this. The next-door neighbours were called to arms, handed flags over the garden wall and instructed to come up with suitable phrases.

Such as: “This is Lady Bay, NOT Poo Bay!”; “Ay up me duck, it’s dog muck!”; “Oh excellent, it’s excrement.” And each was finished off with a testy flourish: “Clean it up, you dirty article!”

So there we were, four grown-ups, on a sunny Sunday, armed with our homemade flags, on
poo
patrol.

The first problem was the size of these droppings. The garden sticks, more commonly used to prop up limp plant stems, were too big. It was like trying to prop up a broom handle in a beefburger.

Determined that the plan be followed through (geddit?) to the very end, ’Er Indoors quickly realised that snapping them in half (the sticks, not the...) was a simple solution Within a half-hour all 13 had been spiked, like an Easter egg hunt for simpletons.

It was to my great relief that the streets of Lady Bay were quiet so no one saw this ludicrous Day Of Action. I was glad to get in the local pub before someone shopped us to Rushcliffe Borough Council.

But fair play to the madness of the woman posing as my missus – it worked. The flags stood proud for almost a week and the dirt bombs have stopped.

Or had.

Coming home the other day, I found a present waiting for me in front of our gate. Was this a message of resistance?

Whatever the reason, I bagged it into the wheelie bin before ’Er Indoors clocked it. She’d consider it a declaration of war and Lord only knows where that would lead.

So, say nowt.

"Unprofessional, rude, offensive"

Hi.

Good news and bad!

We managed to open the cafe/deli on time on Friday, and have been very busy since.

I must however issue an official complaint against the photographer, Simon Wilson. I am disappointed to inform you it has been brought to my attention that he has been broadcasting negative comments about my business and also using offensive names about me via Facebook. I find this extremely upsetting, and embarrassing.

This is not only highly unprofessional, but I found his manner when he came to Pierreponts on Saturday to be very rude, and he seemed extremely rushed. Fortunately Rav is my future son-in-law, but I must say I would have felt very uncomfortable posing "cheek to cheek" or "gazing into each others eyes" as Simon had demanded, if I did not know the person invited to open my shop. He was here less than 5 minutes and snapped one location sat down with no background of the counter, customers, or shop front captured. Since then I have received a hastily typed one line email simply saying "one picture attached, have 3 more looking the same". No information about when I should expect to see this published has been offered.

I am disgusted by his lack of professionalism and am prepared to take this matter further as I would expect more from an employee of the Nottingham Evening Post.

I would be grateful to get your take on this, and for your information I have the messages saved should he dispute this. Whilst everyone is entitled to their own personal opinion it would be appropriate for someone in his line of work to keep it just that and not disclose this on a social networking and very public site.

Kind regards

Pamela Alcorn