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" BBC Two&amp;#039;s stylish drama The Hour return this week. As series two begins, it&amp;#039;s 1957 and the threat of a nuclear attack looms large over Britain. But charismatic newscaster Hector (Dominic West) finds himself in trouble of a different sort when his time spent gallivanting with showgirls at a seedy gentleman&amp;#039;s club leads to trouble... Digital Spy visited the set while The Hour 2 was still shooting and spoke to new cast addition Hannah Tointon (The Inbetweeners, Switch) about her role as glamorous dancer Kiki, described by the 24-year-old actress as &amp;quot;the Primark version of Marilyn Monroe&amp;quot;! Was it daunting at all joining a show like The Hour in its second series? &amp;quot;Absolutely. It&amp;#039;s such an amazing cast, I think I was very daunted - I was quite scared actually, but they&amp;#039;re all so welcoming!&amp;quot; What can you tell us about your character Kiki? &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s the showgirl. She&amp;#039;s been brought up in this world - she doesn&amp;#039;t really have any family and I think she&amp;#039;s just in this horrible world. She&amp;#039;s basically a prostitute but it&amp;#039;s so undercover and weird - she sort of has this lifestyle that she&amp;#039;s almost... kept.&amp;quot; By the owner of the club? &amp;quot;Yes, she&amp;#039;s one of his favourite girls and I think she likes that. I think she does want to get out of it as the series goes on, but at first she&amp;#039;s loving the whole spotlight. She thinks she&amp;#039;s the bee&amp;#039;s knees, basically. But then it all starts to fall apart a little bit.&amp;quot;  Does she dream of being a star in the beginning? &amp;quot;Yes, I think so, absolutely. I think she looks up to Marilyn Monroe - she&amp;#039;s basically just the Primark version of Marilyn Monroe! She&amp;#039;s got the confidence - she just thinks she&amp;#039;s amazing. So that&amp;#039;s really fun because I haven&amp;#039;t really played a part like that before. &amp;quot;She loves the glamour but doesn&amp;#039;t want the horrible bits behind it. At first, she probably loved the performing and loved the showbiz side - that all these famous men come to the club and she&amp;#039;s got the attention. I think that bit she loves, but I don&amp;#039;t think she likes sleeping with all these men.&amp;quot; When do things start to change for Kiki? &amp;quot;She gets beaten up and at first you don&amp;#039;t know who did it. But she&amp;#039;s one of those girls where, whatever happens, she&amp;#039;ll pick herself up and she will get out there. She just finds any good thing in a bad thing.&amp;quot; People might recognise you from your role on The Inbetweeners - do you prefer comedy or drama? &amp;quot;To be honest, I am somebody that as long as I have a character, it doesn&amp;#039;t really matter if it&amp;#039;s comedy or drama - I think timing is important in either. But for me, it&amp;#039;s all about having a character to work on. I guess I find it all quite similar really.&amp;quot;  The Hour obviously has a period setting - did you do any research into the time? &amp;quot;Well, I&amp;#039;ve watched a lot of &amp;#039;50s films and My Week With Marilyn came out the week I was starting this. I&amp;#039;ve got weird pants that sort of give me hips and apparently Michelle Williams used them in that film as well. &amp;quot;So yeah, I watched that and I sort of took inspiration - I&amp;#039;ve always loved those sort of films anyway. I just love Marilyn Monroe and that era.&amp;quot; We think of that period as being very glamorous, but this storyline shows the dark side... &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what I really love about it, because the first two episodes are very glamorous and you think it&amp;#039;s all very lovely but then you see the seediness and that it&amp;#039;s really quite gritty.&amp;quot; Did researching the period help you to identify with Kiki? &amp;quot;As soon as I read the character, I just knew what sort of character she was. You can get that not even from research - I&amp;#039;m quite a people watcher and you take on elements of people you&amp;#039;ve met before. You&amp;#039;re in situations all the time where you meet people and they have a certain element where you think, &amp;#039;Oh - that&amp;#039;s her&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; Are there any elements of you in Kiki? &amp;quot;God, I hope not. She uses her sexuality to get what she wants and I hope I&amp;#039;m not like that as a person. I really hope not!&amp;quot; The Hour series two begins this Wednesday (November 14) at 9pm on BBC Two. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-hour/interviews/a436166/hannah-tointon-the-hour-qa-i-play-the-primark-marilyn-monroe/>