Suranne Jones on Gentleman Jack, witch trials and politics: “I think as a country, we've lost faith”

Of all the weird, wonderful, and slightly surreal events that could possibly unfold in 2024, BAFTA-winning actor Suranne Jones declaring her fascination with the occult and fronting a new, two part Channel 4 documentary about witch trials feels like one of the more far-fetched options.

At first glance, Jones – who is best known for playing eccentric, strong characters such Gentleman Jack’s Ann Lister, Doctor Foster’s Gemma Foster, and Vigil’s Detective Chief Inspector Amy Silva – feels like a slightly left-field choice, but it turns out the actor, aged 45, has been gripped by the subject since childhood.

Plus, speaking from her home in north London, where she lives with her screenwriter husband Laurence Aker and their one child, she demonstrates that she has the perfect cackle for the job. “I've got a good witch's nose,” Jones adds.

Still, her obsession with the subject doesn’t often come up in conversation. “It’s not something I just drop into interviews,” she laughs. “When someone’s asking me whether I enjoy being in a torpedo tube in Vigil, I’m not going to be like: ‘Well, I really like crystals and I do moon ceremonies’.”

Speaking to Jones about the project, though, it quickly starts to make much more sense. She grew up in Oldham, 25 miles away from Pendle, which was home to some of the most infamous and notorious witch trials in England.

Throughout the mediaeval era, tens of thousands of people – for the most part, women – were prosecuted and frequently executed for taking part in suspected witchcraft. Though victims are historically remembered as healers or midwives, bringing them closer to “the iconography of a witch and her potions,” many of the women tried and killed were ultimately unremarkable people singled out for things such as a love of animals, or their mental health struggles. ‘I would definitely be one of them,” Jones says.

First rising to prominence in the early Noughties as Coronation Street’s Karen McDonald, Jones is perhaps best known for her numerous collaborations with Happy Valley writer Sally Wainwright; shows like Dead Clever, Unforgiven, Scott & Bailey, and Gentleman Jack transformed her from a soap star, to one of the UK’s most recognisable TV actors.

Two years ago, she and Acker founded their own production company, TeamAkers. “Creating my own production company, to talk about the things I want to talk about, to make the programs I want to make, has been a journey of... ‘Hang on, I know my own worth, I want to be at the table too. I’m part of the product, so let me have my say’”

Raised as a Catholic, Jones stopped practising the religion in her early teens, and spirituality entered her life instead once she started acting seriously. “Spirituality, shamans, all different kinds of therapy, whether it be herbs or talking therapies or or reflexology healing hands, regression. You name it, I was interested.”

In the documentary, Jones traces the history of witch trials – visiting Pendle, Bamberg in southern Germany, and the infamous Salem in Massachusetts along the way.

Though she does a fair amount of spooky cackling and some howling into the abyss with indie musician Bat For Lashes, it is also a thoughtful, insightful watch. The film introduces viewers to the surprising and depressing links between bizarre historical texts and the present-day battle to protect abortion rights, and discusses the power that early iterations of the media such as pamphlets played in fuelling mass paranoia against women.

Another highlight comes from Jones meeting the activist and feminist writer Laura Bates to discuss witch trials’ parallels with the present political climate. “We talk about political upheaval, climate, societal hardship, and the rise of technology then, particularly in England; that’s all happening now, too,” Jones says.

While she says it could easily feel like a niche documentary, the idea of scapegoating the vulnerable and marginalised amid a time of economic turmoil is depressingly relevant today. “Feminism and trans rights both feel connected to these issues, too” she says.

The film does not really explore the latter issue; something Jones says she wishes, in retrospect, she had pushed more. While the idea of being subject to a ‘witch hunt’ has been seized upon by gender critical activists, Jones doesn’t necessarily agree with that characterisation.

“We always think that the witch trials and the legacy of the witch trials is about women,” she says, “because that's what we've been taught. Actually it's about marginalised communities. It's about anyone who feels like they are fighting the patriarchy. It's about pushing out anyone that doesn't fit a societal norm.”

Jones has played a number of misunderstood, outsider women over the years, including the diarist Anne Lister – dubbed the first modern lesbian after her 1834 marriage to Ann Walker. “Her gender nonconformity obviously led me to have a great relationship with the queer community.”

She was brilliant as Lister in the beloved Gentleman Jack, but the show ended prematurely after being unceremoniously cancelled after two seasons, despite a huge fan following.

The actor genuinely doesn’t know if it will ever return despite those fans mounting campaigns to bring it back. “I think it's a Sally [Wainwright] question, and a money question, because TV is in a bit of a state of flux at the moment,” she says. “Budget wise, I think everyone's choosing carefully.”

“But yeah, I feel for the fans, because I know that they really want another one” she adds. “Whenever I post anything, underneath, they’re always asking, ‘Is there another Gentleman Jack coming?’”

“The whole point would be to finish her life, and we weren't far off, because she died when she was so young. I do think, could you wrap the story up in a film or something?” She hopes that someone might yet pick the idea up.

Another of her favourite roles is the thorny, spurned anti-hero Gemma Foster, from the 2015 drama Doctor Foster. Jones sees her as another outcast, similar to the witches, and feared and distrusted because of her rage.

“Something happened to her, and her reaction meant that people looked at her in a certain way, rather than looking at the cause of the explosion. Society viewed her as the mad woman: the husband had an affair, but let's blame Gemma Foster.”

In that show’s most iconic scene of all, Foster relishes causing mayhem at the world’s most tense dinner party, dramatically revealing that Jodie Comer’s character, Kate, has been having an affair with her husband.

“I remember there was an original line, actually, when Jodie hit me on the back of the head she called me “an ancient c**t” and we had to take it out because… well I don’t think you could say that,” she laughs. “Obviously it all went tits up for Gemma, but the lesson to be had there is to speak truth to power. It’s a massive thing, and it’s within us all.”

And beyond educating viewers about the secret depths of witching, Jones is also gearing up to play the newly-elected British prime minister in forthcoming Netflix drama The Choice. The show is directed by Vigil’s Isabelle Sieb, and written by Matt Charman; Julie Delpy stars opposite Jones as the French president.

The team have just wrapped, with the show airing in 2025. With an election right around the corner, it all feels rather timely.

“I think as a country, we've lost faith,” Jones says. “We need to be asking: how do we get people more engaged? How do we help? How do we re-engage my generation, and the youth who have lost faith in the political landscape of the UK? Let's hope that something shifts.”

Finally, I ask Jones if she has any other unexpected interests: can we expect a film on her love of bog snorkelling in the near future? A three-parter on her talent for hand-rearing barn owls? But Jones is giving nothing away. “I'll save it for the documentaries,” she laughs.

Suranne Jones Investigating Witch Trials airs on Sunday 23 June on Channel 4, at 9pm