HIT DRAMA WRITER ON BAFTA WIN
THE success of Keeping Faith has bowled over its cast, crew and earned an army of yellow mac-wearing fans, but for writer and creator, Matthew Hall, working on the project has been a whirlwind of emotions.
Matthew scooped the Bafta Cymru Award for Best Writer, thanks to his crafted tale of solicitor Faith Howells, who is plunged into the unknown when her seemingly loving husband goes missing.
The 51-year-old, who lives near Monmouth with his journalist wife, Patricia Carswell, was first nominated for a Bafta for his series Wing And A Prayer 20 years ago.
When Matthew – a dad to grown-up sons Tom, 23, and Will, 20 – collected his award for Keeping Faith at St David’s Hall in Cardiff on Sunday, it marked a fiveyear journey for the drama.
But as it was finally winning plaudits from viewers earlier this year, it almost passed him by as Patricia was undergoing cancer treatment, which she alluded to as she tweeted her pride after his presentation.
She said: “So, so proud of @ MatthewH_books for his Bafta Cymru award for Keeping Faith. Faith came from a very dark place in our lives and I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
Matthew later told the Western Mail: “This project took about five years from idea to screen, that’s what’s nice about it [the Bafta win],” he said. “[Director] Pip Broughton, who is a good friend of mine, started her own production company and asked me if I’d write a few ideas and Keeping Faith was one outline that I worked out in a bit of a rush.
“One of my sons was very ill at the time, for a long time – he’s absolutely fine now – and everything suffered. You can’t work the same, there’s not enough money coming in... we had a real confluence of things happening. I was doing things like thinking ‘Oh god, writing for a living is so damn hard, maybe I should go and get a proper job.’”
Matthew continued: “Keeping Faith was rejected everywhere until S4C said they’d give us a chance. They said they’d commission all eight episodes but there was no guarantee of production. Which is unusual, writing all those drafts could take a couple of years.
“It felt like I was writing into the void at that point, at time. It did feel like I was wasting my time.”
Once the show was aired, first as Un Bore Mercher on S4C last November and then on BBC Wales in February, the reaction to Eve Myles’ titular character and story went stratospheric, but for Matthew and Patricia, it was the last thing on their minds.
“It was interesting when it went out, it was so well received, that was fantastic, and then in February of this year, Patricia got her breast cancer diagnosis,” he said.
“She had, like many women diagnosed, six rounds of chemo, it knocked the stuffing out of her, and she was really brave about it. You meet all sorts of people when you’re sitting in a chair on such a terrible day, and it really puts everything in perspective.”
On winning the Bafta Cymru Award, Matthew reveals that he asked Keeping Faith star Alex Harries, who played homeless Arthur Davies, for help in saying some of his ‘thank yous’ in Welsh.
“I wanted to thank S4C for commissioning the show and I was so grateful to them, but while my grandparents spoke Welsh, I cannot speak. And Pip, too, this project has been like the producing and directing equivalent of climbing Everest. She worked insanely hard to get this off the ground.”
And what was the feeling of seeing these characters, with him on paper for five years, finally come to life?
Matthew said: “It was a joy to see the characters come to life.
“Eve Myles really clicked with the Faith I had written and added layers to her, made her even feistier and here and there added extra swear words, which the audience really liked! All the actors really inhabited the characters. I think because I was writing about a small Welsh community (of the kind I have lived in for so much of my life!) all of them understood that world so well they were able to convey it.”