Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Asthehitcrime thriller reaches its explosive conclusion, Jodie Comer andsandraoh on the shocks in store – but has ruthless Russian assassin Villanelle really found God?
WHEN MORNING LIVE RETURNS THIS WEEK, KYM MARSH WILL BE JOINED BY SAMQUEKANDKIMBERLEYWALSH–ANDWITHSEVENCHILDRENBETWEEN THEM (SOON TO BE EIGHT), NO WONDER THEY’VE ALREADY BONDED...
Killing Eve’s psychopathic Russian assassin Villanelle has killed dozens of people since the show began, including her own mother, with some of the most inventive murders ever seen on TV. But when we meet her at the start of the fourth and final series of the smash hit dark comedy, she’s trying to do something entirely different – be virtuous.
Fans may consider her beyond redemption, but over three series we’ve seen her take a deep journey into her own psyche – while bumping off her targets – as she tried to work out whether she could ever feel the way normal humans do. At the same time she was being driven by her obsessive love for her nemesis, intelligence agent Eve Polastri. In the series three finale she decided to take up the MI6 job offer she got long ago but said she didn’t want to kill any more, and the closing seconds saw Villanelle and Eve having a tender conversation on a bridge before going their separate ways.
And so to the sensational beginning of series four... and scenes so shocking you would barely have believed them possible. Villanelle has joined a church and is living with the vicar and his daughter. She’s preparing to be baptised and has learned parts of the Bible by heart. She’s even nice to the cat when it hisses at her. But she’s desperate for a sign – either from Eve or, failing that, from God. It soon comes to her in the most surprising of ways.
‘She wants to be good in some way, whatever that means,’ says Jodie Comer, 28, who’s won both a BAFTA and an Emmy for her portrayal of this fascinating anti-heroine. ‘Whether she’s capable of it is one question, and who she’s doing it for is another. But I don’t think Villanelle really wants to be a good person. She’s obsessed by the thought of it, and she’s had so many people tell her she can’t be it, so she’s determined to prove them wrong. If she sets her mind on something, she’s going to do it. Hopefully the viewers can have fun with her trying to achieve that.’
Killing Eve has defied convention since it first aired in 2018. It was a niche show with a lead actress most people had never heard of, written by rising talent Phoebe
Waller-bridge (the four series have each been written by a different woman, this last one is by Laura Neal, who’s behind Netflix hit Sex Education). But by the end of its first series, it had become one of the biggest TV hits in the world. Amid a whirl of glamorous locations and designer outfits, and with its tongue firmly in its cheek, it followed Villanelle, a ruthless killer working for global crime syndicate The Twelve, and Eve Polastri, the agent assigned to track her. Though Eve’s mission has been to stop Villanelle, the two women find themselves strangely drawn to each other.
It showed that murder dramas didn’t have to be conventional, with hard-bitten cops chasing men who prey on mostly female victims. This is a show about women by women
‘People love Villanelle because it feels naughty’ JODIE COMER
and it’s given us one of the most memorable female characters in TV history. Quirky, funny and sexy, with an appreciation for beauty and fashion, Villanelle turns her hits into works of art.
‘People love her because they know they shouldn’t,’ says Jodie. ‘There’s a sense of danger in knowing you shouldn’t like this person but do. That’s attractive, it feels naughty. She acts on impulse and does what she wants, which is fun to watch. You can live vicariously through her. I think Killing Eve has also contributed to a celebration of kookiness, spontaneity and the absurd. What I loved when I first read the script was that I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.’
Eve, played by Sandra Oh, has had just as thrilling a journey. The pair have circled each other throughout, each wanting to kill the other but simultaneously attracted, too. In this final series, having seen her husband turn against her and some of her best friends killed, Eve has stopped caring about much apart from revenge on The Twelve. While Villanelle is trying to change her ways, Eve has embraced her inner villain – and is really enjoying it. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever played a character who’s changed so much in such a short period of time,’ says Sandra, 50. ‘In the first episode of the new series we see that she’s come to a place of decisiveness. What she’s been searching for hasn’t changed much, but her attitude towards it has. She’s not scared any more; she’s moving towards it.
She has The Twelve bearing down on her, she has to find a way through to her objective, even though they’re trying to kill her.’ Killing Eve may be focused on the hunter and the hunted, but many scenes have been stolen by Fiona Shaw as deadevepan spy boss Carolyn Martens, who has a lover in every town, including Villanelle’s duplicitous former handler Konstantin. During the last series, we saw Carolyn’s icy facade shatter when her son Kenny was killed. Like Eve, she’s determined to get her revenge on The Twelve, despite the world-weary side of her believing she can never win. ‘She’s been kicked out of MI6, but she’s pursuing The
Twelve because she wants to know who killed her son,’ says Fiona, 63. ‘She becomes much more passionate. She was so cold and protected, and in these episodes she’s without her power, her glamour, her team. She’s just alone.’
The show’s locations have been as memorable as the grisly deaths, but filming this series proved tricky as the pandemic meant many places were impossible to fly to. So they created Cuba in Margate. ‘It was a huge task for our art department to recreate these tropical places when we were filming just a few hours from London,’ says Jodie. ‘The detail they went into was incredible.’
For all the cast, filming the final series of a show in which they have
‘Eve’s not scared any more, she’s changed’ SANDRA OH
become a sort of dysfunctional family was bittersweet, but they know they’re going out on a high. ‘Villanelle means the world to me,’ says Jodie. ‘I got to explore so much through her; she gave me a fearlessness and a resilience. I found my voice on this show, because the producers always encouraged me to speak up. ‘I asked for a clapperboard at the end. It’s sad to think we’re not coming back, and I hope people will feel we’ve given them a satisfying ending. I’m a big believer in leaving something while it’s good.’ Nicole Lampert Killing Eve will be available weekly from 28 February on BBC iplayer and will air on BBC1 from 5 March.
Oh to be a member of the Whatsapp group set up by the presenters on Morning Live, the BBC show that’s already overtaken ITV rival Lorraine in the daytime viewing stakes. ‘The whole team are on it, and there’s lots of banter,’ reveals former Coronation Street actress Kym Marsh, one of the show’s original presenters.
‘It’s literally pinging all day long,’ adds Kimberley Walsh, well known as one fifth of Girls Aloud but recently announced as a new permanent presenter on Morning Live. ‘It’s very funny as well as being the most useful Whatsapp group you could ever wish for because it’s full of every expert from the show who can answer every question you’ve got – a chef, all the doctors, DIY, gardening…’
Of course, that’s one of Morning Live’s selling points, and since its launch in October 2020 it has certainly proved a hit with viewers, consistently pulling in around 1.2 million viewers a day across the week. Kym and Gethin Jones were the two original presenters, but when she took an extended break last year, she was replaced by a rotating team of standins including Kimberley and former England hockey player Sam Quek.
When the show returns this week from one of its regular scheduled breaks, Kimberley and Sam will become part of an expanded line-up of permanent presenters along with Sara Cox. Gethin will host every day while the ladies will pair with him alternately, and the whole shebang will be broadcast from a shiny new base in Manchester.
In fact, with Bradford-born Kimberley, Liverpudlian Sam and Boltonian Sara completing the female line-up with Kym, who’s also from Liverpool, it feels like quite the northern powerhouse – one that leaves Cardiff-born Gethin as rather the odd one out, although no doubt he can fight his corner.
‘When I first started on the show last year, he was amazing at showing me the ropes, but as we became good friends I soon realised how cheeky and naughty he is,’ says Sam. ‘Often it just takes a look from one of us and the other is falling about laughing. But we all take the mickey out of him the most, especially how seriously he takes the Strictly Fitness segment at the end of the show.’
Kym agrees, saying, ‘Gethin’s really great at the job, huge fun, but he’s a real wind-up merchant too. I used to tell him he was like an annoying little brother.’
Of course, as one of the launch presenters, Kym, 45, is a veritable old hand now, although she says she doesn’t always feel like it. ‘Obviously I wasn’t really used to doing live presenting before, so when I started I was terrified,’ she says of her debut. ‘I’m still frightened now, although I feel like if I hadn’t had Gethin by my side I may not have learnt as much as I have. But the big thing for me was that I always felt really supported, and I still do.’
Morning Live burst onto our screens during the dark days of Covid, amid varying lockdowns and ‘tier’ rules across the country. Kym and Gethin initially had to sit a socially distanced two metres apart during filming and for months were unable to socialise before or after the show.
It was ‘a weird time’, Kym says now, but one that she thinks helped forge a bond between the presenters and viewers. ‘I felt like we were all holding each other’s hands, like we were all in each other’s living rooms having a cup of tea together,’ she recalls. ‘It was warm and friendly. I think it’s what people needed at that time.’
Kym’s hosting role certainly seems to have cemented her as a viewers’ favourite, as well as adding a new skill to a busy CV that already includes pop star (she was part of Hear’say, the group created on TV talent show Popstars) and actress (her 13-year stint as Coronation Street’s Michelle Connor ended in 2019 and she’s about to join the cast of Waterloo Road). ‘My mum laughs and calls me a jack of all trades, which is quite funny as I always have to remind her that the saying is jack of all trades, master of none, so it’s less of a compliment than she thinks,’ she says with a smile.
Domestically she’s contented too: the mum-of-three got married for the third time recently, to Scott Ratcliff, a major in the Parachute Regiment. She beams as she talks about her honeymoon in Grenada. ‘We’ve only been married four months and it’s been wonderful,’ says Kym. ‘I’m very lucky to be Mrs Ratcliff, and I’m having the time of my life.’
Her two new co-presenters are navigating fresh life stages too. Already mum to 11-month-old Mol
‘We all take the mickey out of Gethin the most’ SAM QUEK
ly with property entrepreneur husband
Tom Mairs, Sam announced in October that she’s expecting the couple’s second child, while Kimberley became a mother for the third time last May with baby Nate.
She and her ex-boyband singer husband Justin
Scott also have two other boys – Bobby, seven, and Cole, five.
‘It’s actually been easier than I thought it would be,’ says Kimberley of becoming officially ‘outnumbered’. ‘I think the jump from one to two was harder, but now the two older boys are so helpful, they’re like proper little nannies. In fact, the nicest thing for me third time round is seeing that whole baby stage
through their eyes because they get so excited about anything he does and all those little milestones.’
Talking of milestones, Kimberley passed one herself recently, turning 40 last November, which she celebrated with a party in her garden with close family and friends. ‘Basically, I put a club in my garden,’ she laughs. ‘I knew that the baby was a bit too young to leave and to be honest I wouldn’t have been able to relax. I’m quite soft like that.’ It seems amazing that one of our original girl band members has entered her fifth decade, although Kimberley says she was largely unfazed. ‘Actually, it hit me a bit
more afterwards, not in the way of, “Oh, I’m so old,” but just in the sense that it felt like a milestone that should be appreciated, that I’m here, we’re all happy and healthy, and everything is good,’ she says. ‘And that came out of nowhere.’ No doubt the tragic death of her former Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding at just 39 last September played its part, and while she doesn’t want to talk about that today, it’s clear that Kimberley has been in reflective mood. ‘I worked out the other day that I joined the band when
I was 20, I did my first leading lady role in the West End when I was 30, and now I’ve got this new presenting role at 40, so each decade seems to bring me a new challenge,’ she says. ‘I do feel incredibly lucky.’
Given that Nate is still a baby, Kimberley, who along with Sara Cox is based in the south, plans to do a once-a-week commute to Manchester to fulfil her presenting obligations, complete with an overnight stay. ‘It’ll be nice to have a little jaunt up north every week,’ she smiles. ‘It does sometimes feel like going to work is the only social life we have.’
It’s a sentiment shared by Sam, 33, who says she and Kimberley have bonded over babies – and while she will happily say her ‘main job’ is being a mum, she never wanted that to be her only one. ‘I never wanted to give up work completely and I do think women nowadays can have it all – it’s just about finding the right balance,’ she says. ‘My husband is very supportive and is very much a “modern dad”. He likes to take care of the children as much as me.’ Which is just as well, given Sam is so much in demand: last year she became the first woman team captain on the BBC’S revamped Question Of Sport, and she was a key part of the presenting line-up for last summer’s BBC Olympic coverage alongside Dan Walker. ‘We were presenting live for almost four hours a day and had to keep track of over 11,000 athletes across 30-plus sports,’ she says. ‘It was the toughest job I’ve ever had, but I loved it and it was a real learning experience.’
It’s certainly good preparation for the pitfalls of live daytime television, although Sam says that as she’s naturally resourceful, she’s not too worried… except for one thing. ‘Some of the things we cover can be very serious. Now, especially as a mother, I relate to those stories a lot and I worry I could get choked up or a bit emotional,’ she confides.
She needn’t worry if she does, according to Kym. ‘It really is one big team,’ she says. ‘Someone’s always got your back. That’s exactly how I feel working on the show.’
‘My two older boys are so helpful – they’re like nannies’ KIMBERLEY WALSH
Morning Live broadcasts from Manchester for the first time on Monday. Watch it weekdays at 9.15am on BBC1.
Chloe star Erin Doherty says she’s dreading bumping into Princess Anne after playing her in The Crown (pictured). ‘I think she’d pull me up on everything I did as her, especially the horse riding,’ says Erin. ‘I told the producers I could ride – I just couldn’t.’
Despite the rumours – and ending with a cliffhanger – Stay Close star Jo Joyner doesn’t think there’ll be more episodes of the Netflix thriller.
‘The actors were told it was a oneoff project when we filmed, although there is clearly scope for more,’ says Jo (pictured), who played detective Erin Cartwright.
4
What genus of climbing plant in the buttercup family has a name derived from the Greek word ‘klema’, which means vine branch? Celebrity Mastermind, tonight, 6.25pm, BBC1
Classic Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Monfri, 10pm, Challenge