Eva Pope is set to spice up Cardale…..
A new face breezes into Cardale as Peak Practice returns this week – and the town will soon be wondering what’s hit it!
New nurse Claire Brightwell arrives in dramatic style and, according to Eva Pope, who plays her, she’s set to cause even more havoc, as the series goes on.
Eva, 33, is used to playing feisty woman who stir things up. She’s best known for her role as Coronation Street vamp Tanya Pooley, who had a steamy affair with Des Barnes while he was living with Raquel (Sarah Lancashire).
‘The two characters do have similarities,’ Eva admits. ‘They both use their sexuality as a bargaining tool and they both have a dark side. But they’re different in that Claire is a professional, successful woman who’s been through a lot in her life, whereas Tanya was a girl, a sort of sex kitten. But both of them do have a definite effect on men!’
Claire arrives in Cardale looking for her old friend Dr Alex Redman (Maggie O’Neill). The pair worked together in Kosovo, but while Alex left the army of her own accord, Claire has been dismissed for serious misconduct and is in need of a job.
‘She hears that there’s a nurse’s job going at The Beeches, applies for it but doesn’t get it,‘ reveals Eva. ‘Although the doctors recognise that she’s very good at what she does, she just doesn’t look like the type of girl who would be satisfied working in a small practice in the middle of the countryside, and the job goes to a young man who’s more suited.’
But in what turns out to be typical Claire style, she manages to steal the job away from her rival.
‘A sequence of events leads to her ‘persuading’ him to let her have the job instead. You’ll have to watch and find out how it happens!’
Off screen, Eva couldn’t be more different. Doting mum to six-year-old daughter Elise, she lives in London with her husband, graphic designer Laurence Lassalle.
‘The hardest part of working on Peak Practice was uprooting myself and working in Derbyshire for six months,; she confesses. ‘It’s a fabulous role and I’ve got a great group of people around me, but I do miss my family and it’s been hard for me and Elise to be part.’