The Secrets She Keeps
Downton’s Laura Carmichael plays a stalker hiding dark secrets…
6-7 July, 9pm BBC1 Drama All six episodes will be on BBC iplayer after the first episode has aired
Laura Carmichael, who played Lady Edith in Downton Abbey, stars as Agatha in this six-part psychological thriller, set in Sydney. It tells the story of two pregnant women, Agatha and Meghan (Jessica De Gouw), who both have explosive secrets that could destroy lives as their worlds collide…
Two heavily pregnant women, both hiding murky secrets, are at the centre of BBC1’S sinister new Australian-set thriller The Secrets She Keeps, starring Downton’s Laura Carmichael.
Laura plays soon-to-be-solo mum Agatha Fyfle, who works stacking shelves in a
Sydney suburb, while fascinated by the glamorous life of pregnant Instagram influencer Meghan Shaughnessy (Jessica De Gouw)
Meghan seems to have everything Agatha doesn’t – a successful blog, a highflying husband who works in TV, two gorgeous kids and a stunning home. In contrast, Agatha lives in a dingy flat, is estranged from her family and desperate for a baby after a heartbreaking stillbirth. She’s also wrestling with the fact that her on-off lover, Hayden, wants nothing to do with their unborn child. ‘To Agatha, Meghan has it all – the perfect life with the perfect family. She wants what Meghan has,’ says Laura, who played Lady Edith in Downton. ‘I loved Downton… the edgy script and Laura as Edith was instantly intrigued.
I was fascinated by somebody being so obsessed with another person.’
Agatha’s preoccupation with Meghan includes stalking her while she’s in the park with her children, poring over her blog and regularly spying on her. But it’s when Agatha engineers a ‘chance’ meeting and the pair bond over their pregnancies that the six-part story takes a more menacing turn. When it turns out Meghan is hiding secrets, too, both women’s lives are set to come crashing down…
Unpredictable
‘Agatha is tough, headstrong, burdened and impulsive, and it was intriguing to see how her desire to be a mother could lead her to do some dark things,’ says Laura. ‘The thriller element comes from the huge torment that being a mother without a child has caused, which has made Agatha dangerous and vulnerable – that’s the threat in her!’