Grief, Hallucinations, and Poldark: an Interview with Jack Farthing

Life & Times Grief, hallucinations, and Poldark: an interview with Jack Farthing Jack Farthing plays George Warleggan in ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Poldark. Aficionados of Winston Graham’s Roger Jones rollicking adventure series, set in Cornwall BJGP, 30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB, UK. at the turn of the century — 18th that is — Email: [email protected] will need no explanation, but the uninitiated need to know that George is Captain Ross Poldark’s nemesis in love, business, and and subjected him to bleeding, blistering, politics, a banker and an all-round bad egg. cupping, sedation, restraint, and iced At the end of the last series, when it began baths. George ended up wandering the to look as though George might have it all, Cornish countryside in his nightshirt and his wife Elizabeth died, shockingly, from came close to suicide. He was saved puerperal sepsis. As you may have seen, in by the wise and gentle Dr Dwight Enys, the early episodes of the current, and final, who has already graced the pages of the series of Poldark, George descended into BJGP,2 and whose compassionate ‘talk and, eventually, emerged from the depths therapy’ — 19th-century CBT — enabled of grief. George to gradually recover his normal self. Enys’s therapeutic approach involved GRIEF taking Warleggan to his wife’s grave, and Initial denial was followed by episodes of into the bedroom where she died. His ‘no hallucinations accompanied by thoughts locked doors’ policy has echoes of radical of self-destruction. Warleggan initially liberal approaches to the care of psychotic suppressed his grief, ordering portraits of patients in the 1970s. His therapeutic Jack Farthing as George Warleggan. Credit: BBC. Elizabeth to be taken down and forbidding success with George Warleggan, along any mention of her. No doubt encouraged with his outspoken views about criminality by his even less likeable uncle Cary of complicated bereavement, and we and mental illness, gave this quiet country Warleggan, George threw himself back into discussed his approach to the work and the doctor a national reputation, and he was work, and it was only after an encounter information that he discovered and used later called on to advise on the madness of with his son Valentine that his buried to add authenticity and accuracy to the King George III. emotions burst to the surface and he began drama. He obtained advice and information One particular acting challenge was to to have increasingly intense and prolonged from two psychiatrists and a researcher present a sufficiently nuanced account hallucinations of his dead wife. He sees looking specifically at complicated grief. of these complex events, in the context He was surprised, as was I, at the reported her in the servant girl at the bank when and constraints of fast-paced modern-day frequency of delusions and hallucinations she comes to his desk, glimpses her in the moviemaking, where time is of the essence. of the deceased spouse, with up to 80% rooms of their country house, Trenwith, and I was impressed and moved by the care of bereaved older people reporting these eventually finds himself sitting with her in in which Jack had approached his work, events following bereavement.1 The conversation. recognising the potential that popular TV bereaved themselves feel that they may be has for both good and harm. We will be DELUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS losing their minds, and need reassurance seeing a lot more of him: Official Secrets that this can be a normal part of the grief I talked to Jack Farthing, whose previous premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in reaction. roles have included a young man with January and is released this October, and terminal pancreatic cancer in Burn Burn Poldark series 5 returned to our screens on Burn, and the Hon. Freddie Threepwood in TALK THERAPY the BBC in July. Blandings, in Café Caritas at the RCGP. He Jack was particularly interested in the two is charming, thoughtful, and self-effacing polar opposite 19th-century approaches RogerJones, — nothing like George Warleggan. In to treatment. The dreadful Dr Penrose, Editor, BJGP. approaching this challenging role he was engaged by uncle Cary, considered determined to do justice to the realities George to be possessed by animal spirits DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19X705317 REFERENCES “The dreadful Dr Penrose, engaged by uncle Cary, 1. Badcock JC, Dewon J, Larøi F. Hallucinations in healthy older adults: an overview of the considered George to be possessed by animal spirits literature and perspectives for future research. and subjected him to bleeding, blistering, cupping, Front Psychol 2017; 8: 1134. 2. Jones R. Medication, medication. Br J Gen sedation, restraint, and iced baths.” Pract 2018; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/ bjgp18X698909. 448 British Journal of General Practice, September 2019.

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