{"id":10158,"date":"2026-04-21T04:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culturalleft.org\/cl\/2026\/04\/21\/ive-had-white-knuckle-moments-michael-socha-on-this-is-england-his-patchy-beard-and-seedy-new-casino-thriller-the-cage-culture-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:34:15","slug":"ive-had-white-knuckle-moments-michael-socha-on-this-is-england-his-patchy-beard-and-seedy-new-casino-thriller-the-cage-culture-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturalleft.org\/cl\/2026\/04\/21\/ive-had-white-knuckle-moments-michael-socha-on-this-is-england-his-patchy-beard-and-seedy-new-casino-thriller-the-cage-culture-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019ve had white knuckle moments\u2019: Michael Socha on This Is England, his patchy beard \u2013 and seedy new casino thriller The Cage Culture | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As he stars alongside Sheridan Smith as a casino boss on the take, the actor talks about leaving school with no qualifications, playing vile dads \u2013 and why he\u2019s eager to circulate the This Is England reunion rumour<\/p>\n<p>Michael Socha is about to jump on a train to Wales. The impressively bushy beard he\u2019s got is for his role in The Witch House, a dramatic adaptation of an episode of the Danny Robins podcast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2026\/apr\/06\/uncanny-ghoulish-ghost-hunters-danny-robins-evelyn-hollow-ciaran-o-keeffe\">Uncanny<\/a>, about a supposed haunting in the Brecon Beacons. He plays Bill Rich, who moves his family to a spooky old farmhouse where it all goes \u201chorribly wrong\u201d, Socha says. \u201cIn the photos he has a beard, and I thought, \u2018I\u2019ll match that.\u2019\u201d The actor strokes his chin and turns his head from side to side. It looks pretty substantial to me. \u201cYou say that, but see this bit? I\u2019m struggling. It\u2019s a bit patchy there. I\u2019m happy with this bit, but then this needs work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Socha has just left a screening of his new BBC thriller The Cage, and he has the gentle bounce of a man who struggles to stay still. As with his beard, he finds it hard not to find flaws in what he\u2019s done. Normally, he admits, he tries to avoid watching himself on screen. \u201cI\u2019ll sort of nitpick away,\u201d he shrugs, but he had such a nice time making The Cage that he was looking forward to seeing it. \u201cBut the more you watch something, the more you find bits that you\u2019re not too happy with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2026\/apr\/21\/michael-socha-interview-the-cage-this-is-england-sheridan-smith\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2026\/apr\/21\/michael-socha-interview-the-cage-this-is-england-sheridan-smith\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"feedzy-rss-link-icon\">Read More<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/43f965083a0cf328a0d479520315a99f14e8b65a\/323_45_2944_2355\/master\/2944.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=0ccd6ee7c26f6c54e70cda302f6187e5\" title=\"\u2018I\u2019ve had white knuckle moments\u2019: Michael Socha on This Is England, his patchy beard \u2013 and seedy new casino thriller The Cage\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As he stars alongside Sheridan Smith as a casino boss on the take, the actor talks about leaving school with no qualifications, playing vile dads \u2013 and why he\u2019s eager to circulate the This Is England reunion rumour Michael Socha is about to jump on a train to Wales. The impressively bushy beard he\u2019s got&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018I\u2019ve had white knuckle moments\u2019: Michael Socha on This Is England, his patchy beard \u2013 and seedy new casino thriller The Cage Culture | The Guardian - Cultural Left<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/culturalleft.org\/cl\/2026\/04\/21\/ive-had-white-knuckle-moments-michael-socha-on-this-is-england-his-patchy-beard-and-seedy-new-casino-thriller-the-cage-culture-the-guardian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018I\u2019ve had white knuckle moments\u2019: Michael Socha on This Is England, his patchy beard \u2013 and seedy new casino thriller The Cage Culture | The Guardian - Cultural Left\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As he stars alongside Sheridan Smith as a casino boss on the take, the actor talks about leaving school with no qualifications, playing vile dads \u2013 and why he\u2019s eager to circulate the This Is England reunion rumour Michael Socha is about to jump on a train to Wales. 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