The Scottish-Chinese actor Marli Siu appears out of nowhere, calls my name, and hugs me. We’re in Camden, north London, near to where Siu lives. We’d agreed to meet at a Kurdish café she loves but it’s closed for the holidays – “good for them!” we agree – so she takes me to a pub nearby instead. On the way to our meeting, Siu’s Uber driver had been angry, clearly not having a good day, and the experience had taken it out of Siu. “I was just going to have a tea,” she tells me. “But now I’m like, I need a beer!”
We’re meeting to discuss the BBC adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s bestselling memoir Everything I Know About Love, in which Siu stars. The series follows 24-year-old Maggie and the three friends with whom she shares a house – also in Camden – where debauchery, female friendship and a lot of growing up take place. Siu plays Nell, one of Maggie’s friends, a teacher in a stable-seeming relationship who takes on the role of advice giver, until things become clear that all is not what it seems.
