Protection airs from Sunday, March 16th, 2025 on ITV1 at 9:00pm
Siobhan Finneran is no stranger to gripping drama, but even she admits that ITV’s new thriller Protection is something else entirely. “Within minutes, there’s a big event, a major disaster that draws you in immediately,” she says. “It’s a great hook, and the story is so complex. It’s fascinating to me that a writer can fit all that together and it still makes sense at the end.”
Siobhan stars as Liz Nyles, a dedicated witness protection officer trying to balance the pressures of work and home. “Liz is in her fifties with a 16-year-old daughter, and she’s just become a full-time carer for her dad. Like hundreds of thousands of women, she’s trying to keep a balance between personal and professional – until that all gets blown up, of course!”
Liz prides herself on being great at her job, but her life is turned upside down when her affair with DS Paul Brandice (Barry Ward) is exposed in the worst possible way. “She went into Protected Persons because she wanted to be at home more. Then the murders happen, her lover is taken out on a stretcher, and everything’s up in the air. She’s completely compromised.”
“Liz has always been desperate for his approval. She grew up hearing about his brilliance as a policeman, and that’s part of why she joined the force. But now he has dementia; she’s not going to get that approval, and that’s hard.”
One of Liz’s toughest assignments is protecting Amy, a 12-year-old girl whose parents are brutally murdered. “She feels maternal towards her, but she also feels a huge amount of guilt. She asks herself, ‘If I hadn’t had that affair, would the killers have found this family?’ Shame is a horrible emotion to carry around, and Liz has to live with it.”
The drama also sees Siobhan reunited with Katherine Kelly and working alongside Nadine Marshall. “There’s history between Liz and Wheatley (Katherine Kelly). “It’s not a rivalry exactly, but there’s definitely a past. And with Kelman (Nadine Marshall), Liz thinks she’s found an ally – but things shift. No one can be sure who to trust.”
Protection airs from Sunday, March 16th, 2025 on ITV1 at 9:00pm
You must be logged in to post a comment.