Ony Uhiara is a woman of many faces. Best known for playing Adele in the BBC sitcom The Crouches, Uhiara has a glowing theatre career and was identified as a “gifted young theatre performer” by the Guardian theatre critic and blogger Lyn Gardner as early as 2006.
Positively reviewed by Words of Colour Productions in her many theatre performances, from leading roles in Eurydice and In the Red and Brown Water at the Young Vic to Noughts & Crosses with the RSC to Walk Hard, Talk Loud at the Tricycle Theatre, this young actress doesn’t shy away from challenging parts. Her latest play Idomeneus is based on the epic Greek poem The Iliad and is penned by one of Germany’s leading writers Roland Schimmelpfennig.
Joy Francis lures the Guildhall School of Music and Drama graduate out of rehearsals just before opening night, and finds her unbelievably understated and modest about her eclectic career and what draws her to the theatre.
We have reviewed your strong and memorable performances many times over the past six years. Now you are a theatre regular from the Tricycle and Young Vic to your latest play Idomeneus at the Gate Theatre. What have been some of the major highlights for you so far?
All of it, I suppose. I’m definitely enjoying the growth and being able to experience so many different projects and working with so many different people. It’s more an accumulation of experience with me learning different things and just enjoying what you wish for, which is a long career.
You seem to be spending more time in the theatre than on TV. Any particular reason?
I love theatre. I have a love for TV as well, but it’s just the way it has happened in my career. Certain opportunities have come or there are people you want to work with. For me, there is so much to enjoy about theatre. There is the playfulness and the immediacy of sharing an experience with loads of people in that moment. It’s exciting. You can dare yourself to do things, and each night a different audience will experience different things at each performance.
You seem incredibly adept at doing different accents. Don’t you find this daunting?
It’s the same with everything. There are people for whom things come naturally, and things that you have to work hard at. Sometimes I find one accent easier than another, or an element of an accent. Having amazing accent and dialect coaches on projects helps to build your confidence. Regardless of the accents you are still saying words. The text is always there whether you have an accent or not, so to me once you have got all that groundwork done, you can forget about it [the accent].
You played Adele in The Crouches from 2003 to 2004. What attracted you to a sitcom?
It was an amazing opportunity for me to be part of something different. It also felt like continuous training as I was surrounding by loads of good actors who had been doing what I had been aspiring to do for such a long time and had a wealth of experience and knowledge. It was quite a strong and positive experience.
Tell me about your role in Idomeneus?
It is very much a team contribution and collaboration. It’s not specifically characters or elements or sketches. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s a different way of telling a story but with familiar elements that come to mind when we think of a Greek tragedy.
What’s next on the horizon for you?
Just to keep having lots of collaborative experiences. I’m quite interested in doing work that combines dance and music, be that in TV or theatre.
Any advice for aspiring actors?
Keep reminding yourself of why you feel this is the only option for you.
Idomeneus is at the Gate Theatre until 19 July 2014.