‘it’s vital to have women’s voices’

Freema Agyeman

Freema Agyeman is in Dreamland. Literally and figuratively. The actor, who first found fame as Martha Jones in Doctor Who and has more recently starred in cult hit US series Sense8 and medical drama New Amsterdam, is back working in the UK. And her latest series, a sparky comedy set in Margate, reminds her of her youth.

Sure, she didn’t grow up in Margate. But she did grow up in a similar situation to the family at the heart of Dreamland – in which Agyeman stars alongside Lily Allen, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Gabby Best as sisters struggling to be heard. The depiction of working-class women and their relationships was fully familiar.

Agyeman plays Trish – intense, driven and desperate that her third child with Spence (Ghosts star Kiell Smith-Bynoe) will be a girl. Her sister Clare is a local journalist, Leila (Edwards) is working the bins, while prodigal sister Mel (Allen, in her debut acting role) returns from Paris to rupture the chaotic happiness in Margate, with the sisters, Nan (Sheila Reid) and their mum (Frances Barber) and her girlfriend (Martina Laird).

“When I watched it, I immediately wanted to watch it again,” says Agyeman. “Which is always a good sign. I wanted to hang out with these people – they live, they breathe, their relationships and their lives feel real. I think the writing is sublime.”

Dreamland is written by showrunner Emma Jane Unsworth, Gabby Best, Sharma Walfall and Sarah Kendall, directed by Ellie Heydon and produced by Sharon Horgan’s Merman team.

“Hats off to team Merman, who are so consistent in delivering authentic stories,” says Agyeman. “If you’re going to tell stories that are about women and female relationships, then it’s vital to have women’s voices. That’s not to say all of our experiences are the same, but there will be commonality – and that is going to lead to authenticity. There was also an incredibly collaborative culture on set.”

After years in the States, Agyeman could not have chosen a better show to come home to. The show is set in a traditional English seaside resort and steeped in working-class culture.

“I was missing all things English,” she says. “When you take yourself out of context, you think: oh, I’m actually quite English in my cultural ways. I miss a good pub and I miss a good queue, I miss a good apology, a cup of tea, a roast. I want to do my things. So to come home and to be able to be closer to my people and my family and then get a job that is so English – it’s nice, I’m