‘I knew from day one it was very special. It has that Welsh warmth and humour and love’
DESPITE critical acclaim and oodles of talent, Eve Myles was on the verge of giving up acting to retrain as a midwife when she was sent the script of what would become Keeping Faith. The actress – who’d starred in TV’s Torchwood and Broadchurch – was so frustrated with playing the same kind of roles and so desperate for a challenge that she was ready to quit the industry.
Then she was offered the part changed her life.
Not only was Keeping Faith’s tense plot – in which Faith Howells, a lawyer on maternity leave, wakes to find her husband has vanished – utterly ingenious, but it also involved the challenge of filming two versions in different languages.
The drama was being made by Welshlanguage broadcaster S4C which wanted it made inWelsh and then in English.
That meant filming the same scenes in both languages concurrently.
It was particularly difficult for Eve, 40, who, despite being born in Wales didn’t speak Welsh and had just four months to learn it.
“That was really blood, sweat and tears. But what a reward,” she says.
“I started with the scripts and having to learn the Welsh alphabet. I didn’t even know there was a different alphabet!
“So I would drop the kids off at nursery at 9am, pick them up at three, and in between I would sit at the table and just do it. Word for word, sound for sound.
“I had to be more disciplined ever been in my life.”
But it was all worth it. The resulting show became last year’s breakthrough thriller, keeping millions of fans baffled. It also led to a surge in sales of the yellow Joules raincoat worn by Eve’s character.
The series saw mum-of-three Faith trying to track down lawyer husband Evan – played by Eve’s real-life husband Bradley Freegard – and slowly discovering his dark secrets.
Having given the wife and kids a kiss goodbye on his way to work, he disappeared. Over the next few hours and days – the entire series spanned the space of a single week – she discovered her apparently perfect life was based on a pack of lies.
Faith was certainly given a rough ride, nearly losing custody of her children, having her daughter Alys abducted and being forced to deal with gangsters, drug dealers and loan sharks’ enforcers.
She found solace in unusual places; the people she could rely on were drunk former client Arthur Davies (played by Alex Harries) and another client, Steve Baldini, played by Mark Lewis Jones.
Faith saw every piece of her life fall apart to the point where she was broken, exhausted and filthy dirty.
In the shock final scene, Faith was about to kiss Steve, who had helped save her life, when Evan suddenly appeared, grinning, with their children – leaving viewers with more questions than answers about where he had been or what had happened to him.
The series was never a guaranteed hit, having been turned down by several major
than that I’ve broadcasters before being commissioned by S4C. But Keeping Faith picked up fans from day one and went on to mainstream success.
The show did so well on S4C, under its Welsh name Un Bore Mercher, that the English language version was bought by BBC Wales and attracted the highest ratings for anyWelsh drama in 25 years.
It was then put on BBC iPlayer where, thanks largely to word of mouth, it became one of the most downloaded shows in history. Finally, there were calls to put it on BBC One, where it was also a huge hit.
“It all happened in such a strange way,” recalls Eve.
“I knew from day one it was a very special script but I couldn’t pinpoint how or why. It was about coming in and doing something very new and unique and authentic, representing our beautiful nation in a positive and modern manner.
“It has that Welsh warmth and humour and love.”
Eve’s earthy sensuality is obvious when she comes bounding into the room during a break from filming series two. She has a glint in her eye which screams naughtiness and joy in equal measure.
“I was having a complete wobble,” she admits, talking about nearly quitting acting.
“Everything was a bit same-y and I’m the kind of character who likes to be challenged.
“I’ve been doing this job for more than 20 years and I was thinking about doing something completely different.”
NTara Smith
OT only did the success of Keeping Faith help win Eve a role in Cold Feet but the yellow Joules mac, which Eve sports, has become a calling card for fans of the drama.
“The popularity of the yellow mac is one of the remarkable things that have come out of the way people have taken the show to their hearts,” she says.
“It has now become one of the characters on the show. When my husband comes into my dressing room, he looks at it with reverence. It’s funny how it has taken off.
“It is the crisis coat – when Faith has it on, she’s on a mission. I love that men and women are going out and buying these coats and putting it on like a suit of armour.
“When we were filming the second series at a hospital we had to keep cutting because people – once they’d heard we were filming there – kept coming in and out of the building and looking at us and they were all wearing yellow macs.
“It was like going into a strange science fiction world.
“Laugharne, Carmarthen, where the exteriors for Eve’s house are filmed, has become a magnet for the show’s
EDGE OF THE SEAT: Eve in thriller that gripped Britain