Watch it! Waking the Dead, Sundays, BBC One
Spooky detective series Waking the Dead has returned for its ninth and final series with a new cast member – Eva Birthistle. Alan Corr talks to the Wicklow native who began her TV career on Glenroe
You could say Eva Birthistle has come a long way from the sleepy pastures of Glenroe. Since leaving the genteel rural soap, the Bray-born actress has worked with Ken Loach and Peter Greenaway, starred alongside George Clooney, and carved out an impressive career in British TV drama.
Right now, Birthistle is in Cape Town where she is filming Sky/HBO action drama Strike Back. “It’s an army-based action thing”, she says. “It’s a big old production so there’s a lot of running around and blowing things up, shooting guns and lots of stuff I haven’t done before.”
She is about to win more admirers for her role in Waking the Dead, the atmospheric Sunday night police drama which has proved compulsive viewing for people who like a bit of murder before the working week begins. The day before we talk, the series had just begun its ninth and last season, fetching an incredible audience of six million viewers.
All, of course, because of the addition of Birthistle to the cast. “All because of me? Hahaha!” she laughs. “I doubt it. I think it’s got a fairly loyal fan base already. It’s great to be part of it. It’s the final series so it’s a big deal for them. It was a very interesting character that came along so I was very excited to be on board.”
She plays Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish, the newest addition to the cold case squad who investigate dormant, long forgotten murders which usually feature corpses turning up in spooky locations and which then need to be examined by the team of crack pathologists and psychologists headed by ‘maverick’ Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, played by Trevor Eve.
Cavendish is a high flyer in her early 30s but her career has taken a wobble after a counter-terrorism operation she was leading went wrong. She was scapegoated and assigned to the Cold Case Unit, where she is expected to lie low. It’s another authority role for Birthistle, following parts as a junior minister in BBC drama The Last Enemy, a lawyer in Trust, and another lawyer in The State Within.
Has she any idea why she’s landing all these parts as women in control? “Hahaha! Well naturally it’s because I’m a very authoritative person”, she says. “I don’t know! Those roles are generally appealing because they’re strong. The writing is strong and challenging and from an actor’s point of view that’s appealing because that’s the meaty stuff you can sink your teeth into. I’m attracted to them on that level but why I’m cast in them, I don’t know. I’m a very laidback person so maybe work gives me a chance to vent all that pent-up bossiness!”
37-year-old Birthistle made her TV debut playing Regina Crosbie in Glenroe. She stayed in the role for three years from 1995 to 1998, but even then she knew her sights were on something a lot bigger. “I still have fond memories of Glenroe. That was my first TV gig and it was where I first learned how to be in front of a TV camera and be on set. I have fond memories but it seems like such a long time ago!”
She stepped out with another rising star who first found fame on a rural-based drama – Colin Farrell of Ballykissangel. Does she ever see him anymore? “Yeah I see him occasionally”, she says, a guarded note in her voice. “We’re still in touch. He’s got a great career and he still seems to be really enjoying it. It’s going really well for him and he was in good form the last time I spoke to him.”
The youngest of three, Birthistle was born in Wicklow but she started acting when her family moved to Derry, where she enrolled on a performing arts course at the local tech. After six years in Derry, she moved to Dublin where she trained at the Gaiety School of Acting. Glenroe proved to be a good springboard and she went on to work with figures as Ken Loach and Peter Greenaway, and her credits also include The American, alongside George Clooney, Borstal Boy, Breakfast on Pluto and Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss, for which she received numerous Best Actress nominations.
Her TV record is equally impressive, with appearances in Silent Witness, Ashes to Ashes and Five Daughters, all signs that TV work is no longer seen as a step backwards for cinema actors. “I think that’s true and America is producing incredible TV now because of the quality of the scripts”, Birthistle says. “They’re attracting A-listers now which is great for telly but can be frustrating sometimes because if you’re not an A-lister it gets harder and harder to get a job.
“There is more competition now and a lot of the time the parts just aren’t there now. I’ve been fortunate in that I’m tipping away and getting these parts and I don’t have to worry a huge amount about not getting work, but finding good roles is hard. A lot of the time there is stuff out there but you just don’t really want to do it because it’s just not very good.”
Up next for Birthistle is a new movie called Day of The Flowers which she filmed in Cuba last year. It’s a road movie about two sisters who go on a quest to find out where their parents died. “It was a lovely movie to shoot”, she says. “Well, being in Cuba you can’t really not enjoy it.”
So does she ever have her mates round, crack open a bottle of wine and watch re-runs of Glenroe? “No! Hahaha! They’re not on anywhere. I must try and track it down but I doubt if it’s on DVD.”
Sounds like a job for the cold case team.
