An interview with Yrsa Daley-Ward

Who is Connie and what world does she inhabit?
Connie is an interesting, spirited and passionate piano player. She just wants to get out of Manchester and see the world with Lois, who is her best friend, whom she really loves and who is like her little sister. They want adventures and to experience something they haven’t experienced before.

At the start of the war no one knew what was to come. Do you think it feels like these women are being liberated to a degree by war?
Any time anything monumental happens in life to shake things up, even if the connotations might be negative, it can always be positive as well because you get to experience something that you wouldn’t have normally. Perhaps you get to go places you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to before. In a sense, Connie and Lois are liberated to leave Manchester; to go to another part of the world and to perform. It’s exciting for them as it would be exciting for any woman at that time in this position.

What was it about Peter Bowker’s script that made you want to play Connie?
What I loved about Peter’s script is that he didn’t shy away from the real grit. Whatever is happening, there’s so much humanity. There is love, there is romance, there is sex, music, family disputes. I love the scale of it, but also how it’s so visible and focuses on love and family. Connie is just so full of spirit. At that time, for a woman to want to travel, to want to perform, is so powerful. I love that the script shows people of all walks of life involved with all races. It is just such a fantastic thing to depict in a World War Two drama.

How did your working relationship develop with Julia?
It’s amazing to have such a connection with another actor, especially as we’re playing best friends. She was brilliant for the role. I feel very honoured to be working with her and it was lovely hanging out with her off-screen as well. We became great friends.

What is the importance of the music to the show?
Music is such a huge part of the drama and for my character, especially jazz and soul music. Being able to get up on stage, as part of this production, was an added fantastic bonus. When you see us enjoying ourselves on the stage, it's real and we're loving it - because how can that not move you in some way?

What has it been like working with Nick and Sam on your look?
Sam and Nic are just an incredible team. The dresses Nic designed are absolutely beautiful and the hairpieces Sam created are equally stunning. Connie didn’t have a lot of money so she has the one dress that she wears for her auditions and performances. I put them on and they remind me of something my grandma would wear - it's uncanny looking in the mirror because I look like her.

Can you tell us a bit about Connie’s relationship with Eddie, where it begins and where it’s going?
Connie and Eddie have this connection and there’s a moment in the story when she talks about knowing that he’s a survivor and that she doesn’t worry about him because she knows he’s okay wherever he is. However as the war starts and continues, and he is away in Paris, worry does start to creep in, and she misses him desperately and wants him back.

How do you think audiences will relate to Connie?
A modern audience will relate to the feeling of wanting to break away from your normal everyday life. The feeling of being trapped, of knowing that you’re bigger than this place and you just need the opportunity to grow.

What is the dynamic between Connie and Lois? How does that grow and develop throughout?
Relationships are timeless. I feel as though Lois looks to Connie for guidance. She needs this guidance as her mum passed away and she needs that role model in her life. She loves Lois and doesn’t want to see her go by the wayside or be steered wrong. It feels like as long as Connie’s involved with Lois, that’s not going to happen.

Is their friendship tested?
There are a lot of elements that would test their friendship. Although they’re very close, they didn’t grow up the same way. Connie has had a lot of setbacks in her early life. She has also suffered from racial prejudice. They have experienced things differently, but as with any friendship there are nicks and breaks. Lois goes on a huge journey and she learns a lot during the course of this series. She matures and I think Connie sees that.

Did you have any conversations with Peter that took place that helped you form the character of Connie?
One of the main things that helped me understand Connie’s nature was learning about the relationship between Peter’s grandmother and her best friend, who was essentially Connie. Knowing that existed in reality gave strength to it. I felt like I could tap into the dynamics of that relationship.

Did you do any other research?
I researched a lot, especially for the music aspect of the drama. I watched YouTube videos to see how people hold themselves, particularly performing, as there are different genres of performance. I watched a lot of 1930s and 1940s piano jazz players to see how static or non-static they were. It varies over countries. Sometimes they can be stiffer than how I performed. I did think about my character’s origin to mix into it, because culturally everybody moves a certain way. It’s a mishmash of the two together. We had to be a little bit restrained and a little bit crazy at the same time.

Character Descriptions

NANCY CAMPBELL

Played by Helen Hunt
American broadcaster and journalist NANCY CAMPBELL is addicted to war. She can’t stay away. It isn’t just the adrenalin, but the puzzle of war - the puzzle of human nature – she craves. NANCY, in Warsaw in 1939, crosses the border to Germany and spends the first eighteen months of the war in Berlin as part of the overseas press corps. Her ability to befriend her German neighbours as well as army officers sees NANCY report those stories at the very forefront of the Nazi regime; some they are happy to have broadcast to the world, while others, they are determined to keep hidden. No surprise then, that NANCY is driven by getting those forbidden stories out of Berlin - at huge personal risk.

ROBINA CHASE
Played by Lesley Manville
When her son HARRY, finds himself on the wrong side of the law protesting against Oswald Mosley, ROBINA CHASE despairs, only slightly comforted in the knowledge he is soon to travel to Warsaw for a job as a translator. After HARRY’S father died in the most tragic of circumstances, ROBINA was left to raise HARRY alone. She has done so with the sole aim of making him a man of great social standing, but so far, HARRY is proving only to disappoint. His love for two different women - both, in ROBINA's eyes, highly unsuitable - has far reaching consequences, and her frustration is exacerbated when HARRY returns prematurely from Poland, following the Nazi invasion, with a Polish refugee in tow. ROBINA - despite her will and better judgement - finds herself with a house guest she had never expected. Against the odds, the war is set to change this cold and austere woman, as much as it will HARRY.

DOUGLAS BENNETT
Played by Sean Bean
DOUGLAS BENNETT is a pacifist who was mustard-gassed in the First World War. He watches as his son and daughter go off to war, despite the fact that he is a pacifist. With both children away, he finds solace in unlikely friendships; with HARRY CHASE’s mother, ROBINA, and the young Polish refugee she has reluctantly taken into her home. DOUGLAS’s worst fear looks set to become reality when his son TOM finds himself aboard HMS Exeter, a ship that eventually faces German ship the Graf Spee in one of the first major battles of the war. Desperate for news of TOM, the uncertainty of his son’s wellbeing and the haunting horrors of his own experience of battle look set to overwhelm him, until unexpected news from his daughter LOIS gives him renewed hope for the future.

HARRY CHASE
Played by Jonah Hauer-King
HARRY CHASE is a young Englishman with a flair for languages, deceit and heartbreak. A talented translator, HARRY is in Warsaw Woking for the British embassy. Caught in an explosive love triangle between his Mancunian girlfriend LOIS BENNETT, and local Warsaw girl KASIA TOMASZESKI, when war breaks out, HARRY has choices to make, fast. With KASIA's life in danger, he knows that there is one place she would be safe: Manchester. But how will he explain this to LOIS, and, what's more, to his mother? Funny, handsome and clever, life has been easy for HARRY so far – but war changes this forever. An idealist, a rebel, perhaps HARRY always just needed a cause – and the cause is the war. The series will take him all the way from Warsaw to Dunkirk, as he learns to lead, to fight, and to find out what he truly believes in.

LOIS BENNETT
Played by Julia Brown
LOIS BENNETT is a Mancunian factory worker. At home she is the lone girl in a family of men with the responsibility of looking after her fragile father and a wayward brother. Despite opposition from his snobbish mother, LOIS is in love with HARRY. HARRY betrays her with KASIA whom he meets in Warsaw. His betrayal seems to simultaneously break her heart and open her mind. Later, she will reflect that it was as though love blocked out the rest of the world; once he had gone, she could finally see what she was missing. A talented singer, LOIS and her musical partner, CONNIE KNIGHT are determined to make their own contribution to the war effort. LOIS finds her place – and adventure – in the form of ENSA, the War’s Entertainment Corps, and heads off to perform for the troops in Northern France.

TOM BENNETT
Played by Ewan Mitchell
On the pull or on the make, TOM BENNETT brings nothing but trouble to sister LOIS and his father, DOUGLAS. With the police having caught up with him after his latest swindle, TOM avoids prison only by vowing to join the forces, when all the while he intends to dodge action altogether, as a conscientious objector. By the end of episode two, however, TOM has joined the Navy, and is about to face a personal and a military battle of equal, epic proportion.

KASIA TOMASZESKI
Played by Zofia Wichłacz
KASIA starts the war as a waitress in one of Warsaw’s many bars and cafés, already in a passionate love affair with the young English translator, HARRY CHASE, unaware that he already has a girl at home. Her father STEFAN and brother GRZEGORZ depart for Danzig to defend against the imminent German invasion, leaving KASIA with mother, MARIA and younger brother, JAN, at home in the city. Within days of the war beginning, KASIA’s family has each faced the cruel reality of this brutal conflict, and KASIA is faced with terrible choices between protecting her family and her own safety and freedom. KASIA joins the Polish resistance and her war becomes one of subterfuge, excruciating danger and constant fear of betrayal.

GRZEGORZ TOMASZESKI
Played by Mateusz Więcławek
GRZEGORZ TOMASZESKI is not built for battle. A naïve and loving teenager, he wants only to prove himself to his father. Entirely unprepared for the horror that awaits, GRZEGORZ heads to Danzig with STEFAN to defend the city at the outbreak of war, only to face tragedy before the day is out. Like his sister KASIA, life is set only to get tougher for GRZEGORZ, and the devastating battle at Danzig is just the beginning of his wartime anguish. He makes firm friends with KONRAD, a brave man more suited to the challenges conflict brings, and together they eventually flee Poland and make their way through Europe, in the hope their lives can be spared, as so many of their fellow countrymen brutally lose theirs.

WEBSTER O’CONNOR
Played by Brian J. Smith
When we discover WEBSTER in September 1939, he is working in the increasingly busy corridors of the American hospital of Paris. When France is threatened and occupied, despite the efforts of his aunt NANCY, WEBSTER stays in Paris and he fights. At first as a surgeon in a neutral hospital, and then a surgeon in a neutral hospital under Nazi occupation, WEBSTER finds himself fighting on all fronts; for his own identity and freedom, for his lover ALBERT’s freedom, and for those patients who, as of May 1940, are prisoners of war. With the help of friend HENRIETTE, a local French nurse, they begin a system of smuggling patients out of the hospital and beyond, all beneath Nazi noses.

ALBERT FALLOU
Played by Parker Sawyers
Jazz musician ALBERT FALLOU is deeply in love with American doctor WEBSTER O’CONNOR. When the Germans invade, ALBERT grows worried for his and WEBSTER’s safety, and for his own freedom as a Parisian of west-African heritage. When WEBSTER and his colleague HENRIETTE trial their plan to smuggle patients out of the hospital, ALBERT is keen to leave too, and turns to WEBSTER for help. WEBSTER is keen for them to stay put. Before long, however, ALBERT’s fears become their reality, and he is interned in a camp just outside Paris, where he defies their racial profiling by forming a classical orchestra of inmates.

STAN RADDINGS
Played by Blake Harrison
HARRY’s sergeant, STAN RADDINGS, is a working-class southerner with an enormous heart, sometimes concealed behind an unwittingly tactless exterior. A brilliant soldier, STAN is a committed, knowledgeable and loyal sergeant, and when, in their early days of battle, HARRY becomes overwhelmed by the task before him, STAN steps up to set him, and their unit, back on the right path.

HENRIETTE GUILBERT
Played by Eugénie Derouand
HENRIETTE is a nurse at the American hospital in Paris and WEBSTER’s closest ally there. She is a brilliant nurse and they’ve grown close over time. HENRIETTE, as well as being a little in love with WEBSTER is also hiding a more important secret. When war breaks out, and Paris falls to the Nazis, HENRIETTE conceals her Jewish heritage, working with WEBSTER to smuggle French prisoners of war out of the hospital under the noses of the Nazi authorities.

Programme Information

• Episode one
• Episode two