“I was raised in the Church of England so I’ve always known God and the Bible,” says Ruth Madeley. “But I still get a lot of messages from people saying I’m disabled because I’m not praying hard enough.” The 38-year-old actor rolls her eyes. “Clearly I am a terrible Christian.”
“Fiercely ambitious” and “pushing back against pity” from childhood, Madeley has taken on a series of spiky, challenging roles since her early twenties. A Bafta nomination for her star turn as a disabled mum in BBC Three’s factual drama Don’t Take My Baby led her to audition for the part of an able-bodied character in Russell T Davies’ 2019 dystopian sci-fi series Years & Years. She impressed him so much he reshaped the role around her experience of living with spina bifida. Four years later, a ramp was installed in The Doctor’s Tardis so she could cock a sarcastic eyebrow at David Tennant: “You’ve got weapons in your wheelchair?!” he asked. “We all have,” came the sardonic reply.
The deadpan Bolton accent that brought Tennant back to Earth with a jolt brings a no-nonsense warmth to Madeley’s head-girl vibe. On video call from the home she shares with her husband Joe, her beloved English bull terrier snoozing on the landing behind her, Madeley circles subjects of faith, judgement and some folks’ weird, warped belief that disability is “a kind of punishment for something you’ve done”. Because these are not just themes in her own life – they hang like storm clouds over her new, five-part BBC thriller, The Rapture.
