Best TV Tonight: Patience
Patience: Paper Mountain Girl: Part 1 is on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm.
Patience is Channel 4’s brand-new six-part police crime drama set in York, starring Laura Fraser and Ella Maisy Purvis.
Patience Evans (Purvis) is a talented young autistic woman who works in the Criminal Records Office of the City of York Police. Her quiet, ordered world changes dramatically when she comes to the attention of Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf (Fraser) - an intuitive police officer with an impressive track record but a chaotic private life. Bea recognises Patience's unique powers of deduction and wants her on her team. Patience, who's always been fascinated by crime and mystery, is soon drawn into a new and unpredictable world. In the opening episode, a man dies after setting himself on fire in a York car park. It could be suicide, but the police are called in to investigate. Patience becomes involved when she spots a link to other cases. Bea is intrigued by Patience and asks her to join the investigation. Yearning to feel useful, Patience jumps at the chance to help the police, but it will come at a personal cost - and she's hiding a big secret from Bea.
Actor Mark Benton says: “When I read the script I immediately loved the way Matt Baker and his writing team had treated the subject. I liked the fact that the series focuses on the central pairing of Patience and Bea and as an audience and as actors we get to watch and experience the slow build of their relationship. Calvin as a character for me was refreshing too. Playing the boss was a new challenge”.
“On paper there wasn't a great deal about him so it was especially nice to be involved in helping to shape him and to bring the character to life. When you are doing serious stuff sometimes the temptation is to mess around a little and I did bring a little bit of comedy to the set and to the character. Calvin is married and is very much the boss at work but not at home. He plays golf and that's about all we know about his life away from Police HQ. As an actor I liked the challenge of playing the straight guy this time and being a part of his developing relationships with all the other characters”.
Stream Patience on Channel 4.
