Next week, Vicky is back in Bolton and the contrast could not be more stark.
In Yen she plays Maggie an alcoholic, addicted mum who has effectively left her two teenage sons to bring themselves up with just the internet for company.
“It is a really challenging piece,” said Vicky. “I have to be honest about that. But it’s beautifully written, it’s heartbreaking but it’s also uncompromising.”
Written by Anna Jordan, Yen won the Bruntwood Prize in 2013 and was performed at Manchester’s Royal Exchange in 2015.
It is being brought to the Octagon by Divided Culture, the team of Connor Goodwin and Dan Lovatt who are committed to championing Northern talent. The pair were responsible for the play Toxic which was at the Octagon last year.
“This whole project is just so exciting for me,” said Vicky, who is best known for her work on Coronation Street and in Emmerdale.
“I know that Connor and Dan reached out to a few theatres about the possibility of putting this on and the fact that the Octagon came back straight away and said they wanted it for the Studio is just so good.
“It’s such a contemporary piece which reaches younger audiences, and is something that’s a real diversion from what perhaps they would normally programme.
“I do think it is important for theatre to make audiences think some times and this will definitely do that. It will be challenging for some and some of it may even be uncomfortable to watch in parts but it’s also really beautiful and tender.
“You cannot experience it and not develop some compassion for these two boys when your initial reaction may be just to write them off as being beyond hope.”
Hench and Bobby spend their days in their grotty flat playing violent video games and watching pornography without any supervision or guidance. Mum Maggie may stagger in to their world but usually merely to pass out.
Their world changes when Jenny knocks on their door and gives a glimpse of possibilities they never knew existed from their squalid existence.
“I think many people will have an initial harsh reaction to the two lads and it’s human nature to pass judgement on them very quickly,” said Vicky. “But this play is one of the first things I’ve seen which really gives a voice to that other side. It goes into what it’s like for them but it also offers hope and in spite your initial perceptions, you start to understand and empathise with them.”
Playing Maggie, Vicky admits is a real challenge.
“What’s really important is that the audience don’t just see Maggie as a bad person or a bad mother,” she said. “There are reasons behind her behaviour.
“I feel it’s really important to bring out when someone is struggling with addiction, how that can affect someone’s behaviour. They may not be like they are through nature or because they are simply a bad person; people can be taken over by their addiction and do things that they would never normally do.
“To me that feels a huge part ft if and Maggie needs compassion and understanding and I certainly can’t just play her as a ‘baddie’.”
Vicky first read the play in lockdown and although impressed by the writing, it never occurred to her that she would ever play Maggie.
“As an actor when you read through things you have a picture in your head of whether you fit a particular role,” she said. “I definitely didn’t do that with Maggie back then, I didn’t feel old enough.
“But reading it now five or six years on, it just feels right for me to play her now.”
Although written more than10 years ago Yen is perhaps even more relevant now than when it was first performed.
“There is a wonderful timeliness to it,” said Vicky. “It is so on the nose about what is happening now. On the news there are discussions about mobile phones being taken off kids at school. There’s the whole question of young people and their relationship to the internet. We’re now seeing the results of what that looks like in terms of the violence and the relationship to sex and pornography.
“There are discussions about how do we put the lid back on this Pandora’s Box now we’ve taken the lid off. I don’t think 10 years ago we were having these conversations as much.”
Yen clearly portrays a brutal environment but for all the bleakness, Vicky says the quality of the writing means that the spirit of humanity still shows through.
“It’s non judgemental,” she said. “The arrival of this character who offers nurture, love and connection shows that the two boys are just like everyone else; this is what they are looking for.
“I think that’s one of the magical things about the theatre; it gives you the opportunity to go and see what it’s like to live somebody else’s life.”
Yen is at the Studio at the Octagon Bolton from September 3 to 13. Details from www.octagonbolton.co.uk