Sex Education's Tanya Reynolds interview: 'This play beautifully illustrates what so many women are questioning'

A nation came together this weekend (no pun intended): the second series of Sex Education arrived on Netflix, inspiring the universal cancellation of all social plans. If you didn’t binge-watch in its entirety a show so popular the streaming service released viewing figures for the first time (40 million!), we wish you the best of luck in deciphering why everyone is talking about vagina workshops again.

The Moordale High gang, collectively let down by PSHE lessons, are back - with some new additions - and among those returning is clarinet-playing, cosplay loving Lily Inglehart, played by Tanya Reynolds. She had many of the best, gif-worthy lines in the first series - “I know how to hold hands. I’m here to fornicate” - and her latest storyline is likely to be a big talking point.

But right now, Reynolds, 28, is preparing for a role away from the small screen, starring in Miriam Battye’s play Scenes With Girls at the Royal Court. As we meet in one of the dressing rooms before the cast’s tech rehearsal, she’s hard to match with wide-eyed, bun-sporting Lily; wearing a jumper knitted by her mum, she hugs her knees but comes alive when talking about the play. Describing reading the script for the first time while on the train she declares, “I was so furiously in love with it that I couldn’t cope.”

It centres around two adoring best friends in a messy flatshare, Tosh (Reynolds) and Lou (played by Rebekah Murrell), who have a slightly codependent relationship. “They love each other and want to be everything that they need,” Reynolds explains. “They want their friendship to be what sustains them, to disassociate themselves from the narrative that you have to find a romantic partner and settle down.” Is that possible or sustainable, and what does it mean for women who still want those things? How do women begin to pick apart what we actually want from what we’ve been told we want? These are the many tangled issues Battye is addressing.

A rather poetic description of self-conscious, watchful Tosh added to the allure for Reynolds. “Oh my god, the description of her on the first page, it says she’s odd and a bit awry, she’s possibly magical, possibly a creature from the deep. Which I just…” She does a chef’s kiss. “Mwah! I love that!”

It’s in addressing feminist anger towards men that the play crosses into particularly intriguing contemporary territory. Tosh and Lou feel like they don’t need them - and are deeply cynical towards their friend Fran (Letty Thomas), who has the audacity to be engaged to one. “I got to a point a couple of years ago,” Reynolds explains, “where it was just a succession of events, so many of my friends - who are really intelligent, confident, gorgeous, funny, bright women - all the good words - were just getting f***ing abused, emotionally and physically, by boys. These boys who just weren’t good enough for them. And it’s infuriating.

“Tosh sees the way boys treat Lou and she’s like, you’re so remarkable, why can’t you see it? If you saw how remarkable you were, would you even want the s*** love they’re giving you?”

Directed by Lucy Morrison, it’s an all-female creative team, who, drive Reynolds towards adjectives again. “To have this group of brilliant, talented, thoughtful, insightful, curious, imaginative, supportive women sitting around a table… because the play illustrates beautifully the things that women, particularly right now, are thinking and questioning, about what we’ve been fed and how we’ve been conditioned.”

Performing at the Royal Court was one of Reynolds’ goals after leaving drama school, but landing a gig in theatre took a while. She tells me she has struggled to break through into theatre, despite an impressive pre-Sex Education telly CV (she was in Delicious and Rellik to name a few). “It just wasn’t happening for me for ages. And then last year, I had so many auditions for plays and didn’t get any. The dream was always to be here and when I actually f***ing got it, I was so glad that I’d been rejected from all the others.”

Raised in Hemel Hempstead, Reynolds’ dad is a builder and her mum used to work as a sign writer. She won a scholarship to train at Oxford School of Drama, vital support that was crucial to her breaking into the industry. “I don’t think drama school is necessary for everyone, but for me personally it was because I just had no other ins.” She says, slightly incredulously: “It’s so much money.”

She decided to act at the eager age of four after her mum gave her a particularly glowing review from a school nativity, but describes herself as a natural introvert - something that may be more common among actors than it seems. “There’s been so many actors that I’ve been kind of intimidated by because they’re such big energies, and when we’re one-on-one they’re saying exactly the same things that I’m saying, which is, ‘Oh my God, this all terrifies me and I want to go home and read a book.’”

The return of Sex Education on the same week that the play opens at the Royal Court won’t allow much time for that (and Reynolds also stars as Mrs Elton in a big-screen adaptation of Emma next month, with Anya Taylor-Joy playing Jane Austen’s gossipy heroine).

Part of the appeal of the Netflix phenomenon is that everyone can relate to it, she thinks - “Grandmas as well as 14-year-olds” (although I wouldn’t fancy watching it with mine). Her initial instinct was to play Lily clownishly, but director Ben Taylor encouraged her to rethink. “He said, there’s so much stuff that’s going to come up for her and we need to believe that she’s real.” In the last season, she prowled the school corridors in search of a boy to take her virginity; this time around, that’s very much not on the agenda. Reynolds says little about what’s coming up in the show - spoiler fear is real for the cast - but does see “more queer content for women” as a welcome addition.

As for the future, I’m not surprised to hear that she’s working on ideas of her own - including a short film about social anxiety. There’s something distinctively writerly about her. “I need to get some stuff out of my head, to make some stuff. There’s a weird itch inside me that I can’t quite scratch.”

Scenes With Girls is at the Royal Court until February 22; royalcourttheatre.com