THE SISTERS

In gripping new drama Hollington Drive, chaotic Theresa and her sensible sibling are too close for comfort – until a child disappears

One balmy evening, sisters Helen and Theresa are enjoying a barbecue with their families in Theresa’s perfectly manicured garden. But this is the calm before the storm, as the darkly interwoven relationship between the two women is about to implode.

‘Theresa and Helen live on the same quiet but strange cul de sac, and their lives are so intertwined that things start to go wrong,’ says Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Theresa opposite Rachael Stirling’s Helen in new four-part ITV thriller Hollington Drive. ‘It’s a bit Stepford Wives. They’re obsessed with one another, then their relationship schisms.’

During the evening, when Theresa’s ten-year-old son Ben (Fraser Holmes) asks to play in the park with his cousin Eva (Amelie Bea Smith), the parents – including Helen’s husband David (Peter Mcdonald) and Theresa’s husband Fraser (Rashan Stone) – disagree about whether it’s a good idea. Theresa later finds them arguing on the edge of a woodland area and senses something awful has happened, before their distraught neighbour Jean (Jodie Mcnee) reveals her tenyear-old son Alex is missing.

‘We’ve had a lot of missing children stories but this is about the implosion in those families, not about the child,’ explains Anna from the Cardiff housing estate where the drama was filmed. ‘It’s about how that event breaks apart what’s going on for these people, suddenly having to face your own trauma or your own foibles.’

‘Helen’s a primary head teacher, so she deals with trauma by knowing exactly what to do,’ says Rachael. ‘She’s the most pragmatic woman, you’d want her around on a sinking ship. But Theresa gets emotional about everything and Helen marshals her chaos.’

Anna says Theresa’s as flaky as her self-obsessed character Julia in hit sitcom Motherland. ‘She’s struggling and doesn’t have the roadmap for when you think your kid’s a wrong ’un. But she’s a really good anti-hero.’

In real-life Anna and Rachael are like fabulously irre

pressible siblings themselves. They’d worked together as codebreaking, crime-solving friends in The Bletchley Circle so they were delighted when they got the chance to work together again here.

‘It was awful because Rachael is really difficult to work with,’ jokes Anna. ‘But seriously, Rachael and I are very close, and maybe that helped. If you’re in something with one of your dearest friends it means you’re going to have a nice time.’

Rachael, who was born in the same month as Anna (they’re 44) agrees. ‘When I got the email saying, “Would you play Anna’s sister?” I thought it was a hoax. I really trust her double Bafta-winning instincts!’