Pip Broughton is an acclaimed producer and director behind the hugely successful Welsh series Keeping Faith. The series, which was written by Broughton and Matthew Hall, was shot on location in Wales with Eve Myles staring as the lawyer Faith Howell, whose world collapses when her husband goes missing. As she starts her own investigation into his disappearance, she discovers that he might not be completely who she thought he was. It is a story about a woman fighting for justice in a small-town idyllic world, where nothing is like it seems. We spoke to Broughton about the female-driven series from her home in Wales.

You are both a producer and director on the series Keeping Faith. What are the main challenges for you as a female in the business to create a show like this?

It took a long time to develop this show. We started with the idea of a woman. The genesis of a show is always interesting because that is what keeps you going for eight years. We wanted to tell the story of motherhood and the thing that defines Faith, and all her decisions are based on her being a mother. If she had been single and all of that had happened to her, the story would have been profoundly different. Our touchstone was that it is an ‘Erin Brockovich of Wales’ story and so it is someone who cares and fights for what she believes is right often at personal cost, but the thing that they always put first is their children.

Speak about the fact that the lead character played by Eve Myles is a very accomplished lawyer, wife and mother – how did the fact that she is a woman shape the show?

We started with the premise that we wanted a flawed woman. She sleeps in, she gets drunk, she makes mistakes, she forgets things, she drives too fast – all the things that make her Faith. The things that people fell in love with are her imperfections. We started with the woman and everybody got it – men and women, young and old – understood that premise of a flawed woman fighting for justice and protecting her children. In trying to get a female-driven show out there I celebrate that we have female executives and the most wonderful executive producer, Maggie Russell, who watched my back every inch of the way. She said that she wanted my voice and my vision undiluted on the screen and being given that support to be yourself cannot be measured. Because often the commissioning executives try to make it their vision of the show but the two people who were commissioning the show were women and were encouraging me to be audacious. 

Talk about Eve Myles’ portrayal of Faith. Why pick her for the role?

Nobody on this planet could have played the part apart from Eve Myles. Eve and I had worked together before and the show was originally commissioned in Welsh by S4C and then we went into co-production with the BBC. I can remember trying to persuade her to do the part and had to say that it is in Welsh. She said no, but when she read the script, there was no way she was going to say no because it is a once-in-a-lifetime part. Hats off to her. I pay tribute to Eve Myles because she learned the script in Welsh because we shot it back-to-back in Welsh and English. She was so committed to the part that she learned Welsh which took a few months.

How challenging was it to film the show back-to-back in Welsh and English?

You get used to it. It is like driving on the other side of the road. You just have to be very disciplined. The interesting thing is that when we speak a different language, we are different people. So Welsh is a different language and there are fewer words in the vocabulary, the sounds are also different, and I have observed that the actors’ gestures are different, and they use their voice differently, so there are two different shows. It was important to me to keep the identity intact. I celebrate the difference.

Why was it important to do the series in Welsh too?

It was commissioned as a Welsh show, and the Welsh language and culture is very vibrant. Some shows are made only in Welsh and they travel abroad.

You have also previously worked in theater. How does that affect your work with actors?

Yes, I have a particular way of working with actors because of my theater background. It has to do with the freshness, the rawness and the nuances of performances on screen. I tend to work very quickly with very few rehearsals because what I am interested in is the juice that we can find out in the moment. That informs the way it is photographed; it informs the colors and the score. I really wanted there to be a female voice in it. The singing. It is a very immersive show – you have got the colors, the performances, the music and the rhythm of it.

Why do you think people were so attracted to the character of Faith, who is the center of the show?

I think that is another reason why the series works because it places you in a slightly moral dilemma. What would you do to your children? What would you do to achieve justice? Is there a right and is there a wrong? And what happens to you when you stand for loyalty and justice and you find out that the one person you lived with has lied to you? You try to find out because you are a lawyer and you believe in justice, but at the same time, your first instinct is to protect your children from knowing about the darkness. What you find is that you yourself have to go into the darkness in order to understand it and investigate it, so you find yourself changing as a woman.

It is a domestic thriller – do you think the show appeals more to women than men?

I only experience the world as a woman so that is what I am good at telling. As an experience, I think it is a very female show, but it also has a very strong narrative motor. It is a psychological thriller. It is a domestic thriller. I think it is that mixing of genres, as we wanted to do something warm and affirmative and celebratory and generous in its gesture too.

What did Matthew Hall’s writers’ room look like? Were there many female writers?

There is no writer’s room. There is him and then there is me. We wanted to do this show about a woman and Matthew’s background is very much law and he brought the legal thematic and I added the female thematic if you will, and we mixed our worlds. He wrote the first season and I directed and produced. On the second and third seasons, he wrote four episodes for each and I wrote two for each. But we don’t write together, we write separately, and we can do that because we both know the characters.

You have created three seasons of Keeping Faith and the audience would love to see more. Will you give in and create a fourth season?

We are done. We are finished. What I love about the series and the fact that we have now finished our three seasons is that there is an overall story for each season: The first series is about who is Evan? The second series is about will the marriage survive the lie? and the third series is about who is Faith? I think that this story structure is interesting. We have been amazed that we had over 50 million hits on BBC iPlayer and that it has just snowballed and became so successful. And we are developing two new series and the absolute center is going to be female again.