| SYLVIA SYMS PLAYS JOYCE THOMPSON
Sylvia Syms says she was drawn to her role in Collision by the way the drama reveals the emotional and physical after effects of a major road traffic incident. “I was attracted to the whole project because the subject is fascinating: the idea that the collision is not simply the collision of cars but the collision of people’s lives,” says Sylvia. “You don’t know whether the person going past you on a motorway is a crook or a banker. At the moment of a crash all the lives of all those people converge then the police have to come in and sort out whether there was one particular individual or one particular car responsible for this pile up. “I think that side of it is also very interesting. There was a dreadful pile up recently when a whole family were killed. The police get a lot of bad stick but they have to go into a lot of detail when they investigate these massive pile ups. Sometimes people have driven by when they could have given vital information about an accident because they didn’t want to be involved.” Sylvia plays truculent pensioner Joyce Thompson, who is driving her daughter and son in law, Christine and Brian Edwards to distraction with her constant demands Brian offers to take Joyce for a drive, and they are caught up in the horrific, multi -vehicle pile up. Joyce is badly injured in the accident. It appears she wasn’t wearing a seat belt. But the police officers investigating begin to have doubts about how she sustained her injuries. Sylvia is full of praise for the emergency services that have the grim task of dealing with road crashes, having been a victim herself. “I’ve witnessed two terrible accidents and was involved in one. I wasn’t badly injured, just bruised, but I stayed around to help,” Sylvia says. “The accidents I’ve seen have made me more careful when I am driving. I am no saint, but I certainly am more aware of how easily accidents happen. “I was enormously impressed by the care taken by the emergency services and the lack of panic at the scene of the accident I was involved in. Two of the medical staff were babies; so young but so competent. “Talking to people who are nearly unconscious is very important. If people lose consciousness completely you can’t always tell where the injuries are.” A film starlet in the 1950’s, Sylvia shot to fame as Dame Anna Neagle’s wayward daughter in the box office hit My Teenage Daughter. Sylvia’s recent screen credits include playing the Queen Mother in The Queen, and EastEnders. She stars in the new Lynda La Plante drama, Above Suspicion: The Red Dahlia. |