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Morven Christie learned demands of being in police force as she prepared for role in missing twins drama The Bay
BY BRIAN MCIVER come from inside the family. Almost everything that will ever help a police investigation comes from inside the family.
“And most of the time, if there is a perpetrator of a crime, it’s from inside the family circle.
“So I was fascinated to understand that strange balance of really being a support while constantly surveying behaviour and analysing details you are privy to because you are embedded within the family.
“I wanted to know if the officers felt devious, which they didn’t, because they were always straightforward with their families from the beginning.”
Another duality in the show sees her character Lisa working to keep families together while hers is stretched thin by the demands of her job.
Morven added: “When I first met them, they joked between them about the fact that there’s an in-joke in the police that ‘You’re not a real cop until you’ve got at least one divorce under your belt’.
“They talked about just how much gets sacrificed for the job because it is so full on and can take over your life.
“Lisa is a brilliant example of that. It’s a really honest portrayal of a female police detective juggling family life with a senior role that carries a lot of responsibility.
“We’re quite used to seeing male detectives in crime drama almost as superheroes.
“But with Lisa, we see her making a mess of her own life. She’s just a normal woman in her 30s that’s single and trying to live and work and keep her head above water. That’s a much more honest depiction of what working parents go through.
“Things do end up getting sacrificed when people like Lisa work as hard as they do to keep their family going.”
The new series is another step in the Scots actor’s fantastic run of performances in recent years.
She debuted 15 years ago with parts in Teachers and the Chris Brookmyre adaptation Quite Ugly One Morning.
She has been one of the most consistent actors of her generation – appearing in shows from period drama to Olympic satire Twenty Twelve, as well as hit detective vicar drama Grantchester with James Norton.
But it was her stand-out turn as a new mum architect in the 2017 Scottish drama The Replacement that really made her name.
And now she’s thrilled to be headlining the new prime-time police drama, with a very different kind of officer.
The series was set and filmed in Morecambe, raising comparisons with cop blockbuster by the sea Broadchurch – but this is a very different kind of story.
Morven said: “As a family liaison officer, she becomes embedded in the family home to be the main conduit between the family and the police.
“It means that we can go right into the heart of the family and into the emotions that everyone is experiencing in the first few days after the twins go missing.”
She continued: “A lot of the time with crime dramas, it’s all about the audience trying to figure out who did it and there is a place for that, of course.
“However, it’s quite a unique angle to take into the heart of this family’s feelings and actually see the investigator be directly affected by what that family are going through. I don’t think we’ve seen it before.”
Helensburgh-born Morven also loved that the programme wasn’t set in a big city.
She said” “Morecambe is a unique backdrop and I hope audiences get how much soul the town has.
“Morecambe reminds me a lot of the towns I grew up in.
“Like many other UK seaside resorts, they were booming towns for a while and then they weren’t.”
She added: “It’s really important to set stories, primetime drama stories, in these towns because that is the reality of the country we’re living in.
“There is a massive divide between people doing well and people who are not. But there’s so much love in this story. That’s what’s really important, is the strength of family.”
The Bay is on STV, Wednesday March 20, 9pm.