Jack Argyll
Irreverent and bright-eyed with mischief. There is a simmering edge to him, a dangerous energy. Jack delights in causing trouble and running rings around the authority figures.
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Anthony Boyle on Jack
Describe the character of Jack Argyll and how he fits into the story?
In some ways Jack is like Lady Macbeth
Jack is one of the Argyll adopted siblings who have all been home schooled and brought up at Sunny Point together. Jack is probably more mixed up than the others in that he is a bit of a troublemaker. On the outside he laughs it off as ‘harmless’ fun, but on the inside we see it comes from a place of deep pain and a desperate need to be loved.
What is it about his relationship with his mother Rachel that brings out the worst in Jack?
Rachel likes to present the perfect façade of a perfect family to their perfect friends, but if you scratch the surface you see the cracks are very much there. And Jack sees it all and sees right through his mother.
Another important relationship to consider is his relationship with his father Leo?
Leo finds it easy to show affection and love to the other children but there has always been a distance there between them. Jack in turn plays a trump card by pushing his father’s buttons and playing up to Mrs Gould.
Were you familiar with Christie’s work prior to taking on this role?
Like many other people I had a preconception of Christie’s heroines being old ladies who find clues in flowerbeds and then discover it was the butler, so this script was a revelation to me. It was explosive, in your face, no nonsense drama that is as dark at its heart as any story can get. Sarah’s language and treatment of the story felt very modern and superbly structured.
In terms of Jack’s story, was it something you wanted to get your teeth into?
In some ways Jack is like Lady Macbeth, he’s not really in the story that much but when he is he makes it count. He makes every scene about him. He’s the provocateur that comes in and shakes it all up. Jack is always active and hardly ever passive in a scene so that kind of a character is very satisfying to play.
