Keeping Faith review: nothing is lost in translation in this alluring Welsh thriller

Jasper Rees
Updated
Perfect role: Eve Myles as Faith Howells in the Welsh drama ‘Keeping Faith’ - Alistair Heap
Perfect role: Eve Myles as Faith Howells in the Welsh drama ‘Keeping Faith’ - Alistair Heap

The Red Sea continues to part for Keeping Faith (BBC One). The drama began its odyssey on S4C last November. As the Welsh-language channel enterprisingly did with Hinterland / Y Gwyll, a version in English was shot simultaneously and shown on BBC Wales in February. Thanks to viral word-of-mouth enthusiasm, it had its stint on BBC iPlayer extended. And it has now landed on the big mainstream channel where those who missed out are heartily encouraged to give it a whirl.

Why? The premise of the thriller is simple enough. The happy Howells family is disturbed when husband and father Evan (Bradley Freegard) goes off to work one morning and simply vanishes. His wife Faith (Eve Myles), on maternity leave with their third child from the firm of solicitors where they both work, is puzzled, then angry, then suspicious and finally spooked as she discovers Evan has a secret identity.

The show’s virtues are many. The setting is a close-knit Carmarthenshire community called Abercorran, delectably played by Dylan Thomas’s Laugharne. The script by Matthew Hall is a teasing blend of wit and anxiety. The director Pip Broughton subtly picks out telling details from angles – low down, or overhead – that are eye-catching without feeling ostentatious. And the action is punctuated by a catchy score of woozy ambient crooning (composer: Laurence Love Greed).

Eve Myles as Faith Howells in the Welsh drama ‘Keeping Faith’ - Credit: BBC
Eve Myles as Faith Howells Credit: BBC

But what makes Keeping Faith quite so gripping is Eve Myles. She is so very central to the drama’s moreish allure that the Welsh version missed a trick giving the show quite a dull title (Un Bore Mercher means “one Wednesday morning”). Myles has been around for years without quite catching the big breaks – she starred as a titular district nurse in Frankie on BBC One in 2013 but it was not recommissioned.

To land this role she learnt Welsh, which is no small undertaking. But what she also brings can’t be learned: gloopy pools for eyes, a sexy gap-toothed smile and a strong sense that the role of Faith fits her like a glove, right down to the fact that all of Faith’s smart clothes are slightly too small for her. Perhaps extra intensity derives from the fact that Freegard is Myles’s husband in real life too.

Llongyfarchion i bawb (as in congrats to all).