Feeling the HEAT

FAYE MARSAY and MICHELLE KEEGAN on being back playing Brits starting over in 1950s Australia...

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Michelle Keegan is clutching a big mug of tea and Faye Marsay is wrapped up in a woolly jumper as they join TV Times for a video call to discuss the second series of BBC1's hit period drama Ten Pound Poms.

It's a cold mid-February day in England, and with rain falling against Michelle's window, the conditions couldn't be more different from last year's sun-drenched shoot in Australia.

"The weather was much better than it was for the first series," she says. 'I bought a lot of warm clothes with me because it was freezing last time, but we shot a bit earlier in the year so we had some 40-degree days. I loved it!" Both Michelle and Faye's characters have also become acclimatised to life Down Under, but challenges await for the two Brits in 1950s Australia.

The new six-part series opens immediately after the climactic ending to the first, which aired in 2023, when nurse Kate Thorne (Michelle) was finally reunited with her lost son Michael, after travelling across the world to find him. But where does their relationship go from here? Meanwhile, Annie Roberts (Faye) and her husband Terry (Warren Brown) are desperate to find a bigger home for their teenage son Peter (Finn Treacy) and daughter Pattie (Hattie Hook), who gave birth to a baby out of wedlock last time out.

Michelle, 37, who is expecting her first child with her husband, TV personality Mark Wright, and Faye, 38, who can also be seen in Netflix's Adolescence this week, tell us more...