Honeysuckle Weeks gives Anthony Horowitz plenty to write about for Foyle’s War

It’s a twist on the 1940s posters but when you’re fighting Foyle’s War, authors have ears.

Honeysuckle Weeks has been playing Samantha Stewart in ITV’s Sunday night drama for 12 years and says that things that happen in her own life have a remarkable habit of cropping up in the programme.

“I can’t tell Anthony Horowitz anything,” laughs the actress at the Foyle’s War writer’s use of true events for his scripts.

“But I think that’s a rule for anyone who has a writer as a friend.

“Anthony has always used a lot of what is going on in his own life for the series. I think he based Sam on a nanny he had as a child, a lady called Fritz.

“She’s obviously a character who is quite close to his heart because his parents were away a lot when Anthony was young so he would have spent a lot of time with her. She would have been a big influence on his life.”

Writer Horowitz also manages to keep the period drama current by cleverly using the narrative to remind us of lessons from the past. That’s no more apparent than in this week’s episode, which focuses on political tensions in the Middle East.

When a young man is assaulted in the grounds of a university, Foyle (Michael Kitchen) wonders if the attack is racially motivated as the victim is the wealthy son of a high profile Jewish businessman.

“It’s fascinating how Anthony manages to write about things that are still pertinent today,” agrees the 35-year-old.

“I’ve really enjoyed making this series because it’s a period of history I’m fascinated by, mainly because of the huge social changes that went on at the time. The first half of the 20th Century was a really interesting time, especially for women.”

While Foyle investigates the university assault, Sam is determined to help a young boy she meets in hospital suffering from whooping cough.

The NHS is still to come on-line and she sees that her Labour MP husband’s constituents are in need of greater state care after the deprivation of war.

“Before the First World War there was a belief that only the officer class could be heroes,” explains Honeysuckle.

“But war is a great leveller and over the course of two world wars all those machine guns levelled society. There was a realisation that the upper classes were just as vulnerable to being shot and dying from the infection of a gun.

“And then, after the Second World War, there was a demand to create a more equal society still and out of that came the welfare state and the NHS.”

Married for seven years to hypnotherapist Lorne Stormonth-Darling, Honeysuckle gave Horowitz more ink for his pen when she gave birth to a son, Wade, in 2011. The next time he sat to write another batch of the two-hour dramas, which are now currently being aired, Samantha was pregnant with her and Adam’s first child.

“Motherhood just makes me look more tired all the time,” smiles Honeysuckle on how becoming a parent has changed her. “I’m exhausted, but what mother isn’t.

“Actually, acting is a great profession to be a parent because you’re not working all the time, it’s not a nine-to-five job. And it takes away some of the pressures because when you go up for an audition you realise it’s not such a big deal if you don’t get the job. You’ve already got a job to do at home.

“The flip side of that is still it kills ambition, which is never a good thing in any career because it’s what drives you to do the job at the exclusion of everything else.”

It’s interesting to note that when Honeysuckle first started playing Sam in series one she was at pains to tell people she was nothing like her somewhat chaotic character. A dozen years on and she sees her as someone to aspire to be.

“I’m certainly not as self-sacrificing as she is. I’m not as good a person,” she tells me. “But, overall, maybe I’m not so different to Sam as I like to think I am.

I used to say I was completely different but these days I see more and more similarities.”

That will be the Horowitz effect.

Foyle’s War, ITV, 8pm, Sunday.