The Walsh Sisters is a TV drama rarity: it doesn’t revolve around a murder, world-ending virus or love affair, but five poles apart sisters in Ireland.
The new BBC show ties together the tales of a whopping five Marian Keyes novels, having tasked head writer Stefanie Preissner with distilling the books into six, sharp episodes.
Except, when Preissner penned the scripts, she didn’t yet know she would be cast as the sensible oldest sister Maggie, who is married and reckoning with fertility struggles.
The 38-year-old told Metro ahead of the show’s release this weekend that there were times she regretted pulling double duty. One such instance was during the show’s only sex scene.
Preissner said: ‘When I was lying on my back on an office table with a stranger between my legs, dry humping a yoga ball, I was thinking, why did I write this?
‘I thought that was such a great scene for another actor to do. But it was tricky.’
They rehearsed the intimate scene one morning while shooting in Dublin. In it, Maggie arrives at her husband’s office for some afternoon congress as part of their get-pregnant plan.
There were two possible options: a ‘comedy version’ (Maggie lying on the desk with her legs over her husband’s shoulder) and a ‘less comedy version’ (the one that ended up in the show).
Preissner admitted that what came next might be ‘TMI’: ‘We went back to our trailer for four hours to wait until that scene, and in that time, my period came.
It’s never glam, and I think getting through it is the most you could ask for
‘I wasn’t due, but I was synced to these b****es,’ she said, jokily pointing at her co-stars. ‘I was so freaked out. It’s just super awkward because then you have to reorganise the scene. There had been implied nudity and now we can’t do that, because I can’t wear those invisible underwear.’
Preissner had tremendous praise for the production team on the shoot, including their intimacy coordinator Ciara Duffy, who played the scene out like it was a series of choreography moves.
Although unlike your regular dance routine, Preissner did get the directorial note to make it ‘a bit more breathless’.
‘It’s never glam, and I think getting through it is the most you could ask for,’ she said. If there’s a second season of The Walsh Sisters, she vowed it will be absent of Maggie sex scenes.
Preissner likened the task of boiling down all those books to a Rubik’s Cube. In the process of puzzling it out, the relationship between Anna (Louisa Harland, of Orla in Derry Girls fame) and Rachel (Caroline Menton) emerged as the central throughline for the show.
The former suffers a devastating loss just as the latter enters rehab (which Menton visited a rehab centre to prepare for). There, she ends up rooming with It Girl icon Debbie Mazar (‘We were so jealous,’ said Harland, who didn’t get to share scenes with her).
No one can hurt you like your family, but also no one can heal you like your family
Through all of it, both Anna and Rachel feel they are being failed in the sisterly support arena.
This is a family that can neither live with nor without one another. Galligan summed it up nicely: ‘There’s an interesting thing about families where no one can hurt you like your family, but also no one can heal you like your family.’
Preissner spoke to us alongside three of her four fictional sisters – Harland, Menton and Danielle Galligan – who are, naturally, all in a WhatsApp group. From the sounds of things, that ineffable chemistry we see around the Walsh family dinner table was evident on the first day of rehearsals.
‘We all got in there and were yapping,’ recalled Menton. ‘Ian [FitzGibbon, the director] was just observing us, and I remember so vividly, he said, “That was it”, because there were overlaps and it was just chatter constantly.’
During that rehearsal time, the many-time bestseller Keyes was on hand to lend her expertise on the characters. ‘She’s so generous with her time,’ said Preissner. ‘She’s like the source of the Nile.’
It isn’t always the case on a TV set, but the cast also had the show’s writer on deck for any queries – not that Preissner found that move from behind the camera to in front of it always a natural one.
Will you be tuning into The Walsh Sisters?
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Yes, sounds right up my street
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Not for me
‘I don’t think I did it perfectly all the time,’ she said of spending time with her fellow Walsh gals. ‘Sometimes parts of me would spill over where I know one of the actors probably just wanted to have a chat as a friend and actor, and I’d be like, I will solve this issue for you, even though you haven’t asked me to.
‘Hopefully I’ll try better next time, if there is next time. I did it imperfectly with grace.’
All episodes of The Walsh Sisters are on BBC iPlayer now and the premiere airs on BBC One at 9.15pm.
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