Steffan Rhodri Talks BBC’s Steeltown Murders

A Welsh Story

Steeltown Murders is a new BBC drama coming this Monday and here’s one of its stars Steffan Rhodri talking about the series…

What first attracted you to this script?

I am from really near where it happened actually. I was a bit young to really remember it, but my school was about a mile from the woods where two of the murders happened. I just had a sense of adults talking about it, it was something I was sort of aware of.

I certainly think these horrific crimes changed the whole atmosphere of an area. Temporarily it caused a lot of fear but in the long term as well, in terms of how much freedom young people had.

It is a true story, does that change the way you approach the role?

As soon as I read the script, I saw the respect. I think that if you are going to be doing stories like this, there has to be cooperation and the respect of the people involved.

Some of the real-life people involved have been on set, as an actor is that useful?

It was certainly useful for me to meet the real Phil Rees, it was fascinating to meet him. Its priceless really, you can go all around the houses trying to think of character choices, but you just have a conversation with the real guy for half an hour and I got an insight of him. He is a really nice guy. I got the sense of decency, respect morality and that he wanted to do this for all the right reasons, it just oozes out of him.

I have worked with Marc Evans before and I played a sort of similar character. Straight copper, doing his work diligently for the right reasons to bring justice for people who have been affected by crime.

How important is authenticity in this production?

I am really looking forward to seeing the complete 1970s period because the authenticity of our scenes in 2002 is faultless. In studio, a lot of the design detail that we use is a 2002 version of a shut off series of offices and store rooms from 1973. It has got a sort of double time thing going on.

I am not an actor who watches back but sometimes you get a glimpse of a still or something and the lighting just looks incredible and I am excited to see it actually. And to work within it, everything feels so authentic in terms of design, props and costume. I think the script suggests that as well, the script is incredibly accurate and detailed. There is nothing glossed over or approximated, the research is there to have the required detail, that feels very important to put across.

What has it been like working alongside your fellow cast members?

I had never met Phil Glenister before, I think we just hit it off straight away, we get on great. Gareth I have known for a while, I actually directed him in a youth theatre production many years ago, when he was like 15. You can’t get much more authentic than a guy playing his own uncle with the same surname in a drama set years later, he is the real deal. Actually, in script terms he is a great foil as well and a great script device because it allows me and Phil to have a great shorthand; two guys who have known each other for 30 years, but then we have someone who we kind of have to keep in the loop. That’s a great dramatic device obviously because then we have to give some exposition to him and we have someone to do that with rather than falsely do it with each other which wouldn’t seem right. That really helps tell a story, I think.

Did you enjoy the role because it is part of a Welsh story with authentic Welsh voices?

Yes, definitely, I have loved working on it. I think Phil is a bit more of an outsider even though he is half-Welsh and is the authentic deal in that sense but hasn’t worked or lived in Wales as much as I have. He must look on it bizarrely with me because any guest actor coming in I was either in school with or youth theatre with or did theatre education 25 years ago or whatever. Pretty much every actor who has come in I have been like ‘Oh, hi how are you doing?’. That’s the kind of community that Wales is really, we all know each other and our paths cross in different ways.

How would you sum up the series?

I’d say it’s an important story to tell in terms of showing a long-term respect for victims of crime. And unlike some stories it gives respect to those victims and honours them. But it also does something which is not always fashionable which is honour good, old fashioned policing and crime solving through diligence and open-mindedness, I think that’s important to show.