Fair City’s Niamh off to be a nurse in BBC’s Doctors
Time was right for a leap into the unknown, says Clelia Murphy
FORMER Fair City actress Clelia Murphy says ‘fear’ was the driving factor in her decision to leave a secure job for pastures unknown as she confirmed she has landed a major role in the long-running BBC drama, Doctors.
Clelia joined the cast in Carrigstown back in 1998, playing the role of then schoolgirl Niamh Cassidy.
And 22 years later she finally decided the time was right to move to Britain after some tempting offers came her way.
She insists she was ready for a leap into the relative unknown after becoming a household name here.
Clelia tells the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Part of the reason for me leaving Fair City was I felt I wasn’t learning any more. I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again. It wasn’t fulfilling me any more.
‘It was scary and terrifying to leave but I had to make that decision: do I want to play the same character for the rest of my life? Or do I need to feel the fear and do it anyway?
‘I had been thinking about it since 2015 so it wasn’t something I did lightly. But I had to do it for me. For my own sense of self,’ she adds.
Reflecting on her two decades playing Niamh,
‘It was scary and terrifying to leave’
who in latter years was the long-suffering wife of perennial cheat Paul Brennan, Clelia admits that viewers regarded her on-screen character as something of a sourpuss.
And, as so often happens with TV stardom, the distinction between actor and character sometimes became blurred for some people.
Clelia recalls: ‘I used to get people and they would say, “Would you not smile more? You’ve a terrible scowl”. I would say: “But her husband’s having an affair. What has she got to smile about?”
‘Poor Niamh,’ she says. ‘She had a lot going on. She put up with a lot.’
But scowl or not, the actress says Niamh was ‘a cracker character’ to bring to life.
With Niamh now in the rearview mirror, Clelia is firmly focused on her new role playing a nurse in the British medical soap Doctors, which she began filming last month in Birmingham.
‘It was a direct offer,’ she says, ‘so that was nice and allayed some of my fears of leaving Fair City.’
The Dublin actress also bagged a role in Channel 5 series Madame Blanc, written by Sally Lindsay who also starred in the murder mystery drama.
‘That was just an amazing experience,’ she says.
As she is now embarking on a new chapter in her career, Clelia says a return to Carrigstown is unlikely.
‘You can never say never, but I don’t think so. I can’t imagine it, but you never know. If it’s for you it won’t pass you.’