Alexandra Roach on gripping new thriller Nightsleeper and why we need Welsh accents on TV

It’s guaranteed to be a runaway smash. New BBC thrill ride Nightsleeper is set onboard a Glasgow to London overnight train that’s electronically hijacked (hackjacked) by an entity known only as ‘Driver’. The consequences of disaster would be huge, especially for the Scottish acting industry as so many familiar faces play passengers (James Cosmo, Sharon Rooney, Sharon Small, Katie Leung and more). All the strangers on the train are carrying a lot of baggage, revealed during the twisty journey.

Hoping to save the day are off-duty cop Joe Roag, played by Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London’s Joe Cole, with Alexandra Roach’s Abby Aysgarth directing the response from the National Cyber Security Centre.

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Roach is best known from police drama No Offence and last year’s Viagra-inspired Men Up, but Nightsleeper is her highest-profile and highest-pressure job to date.

Big Issue: After making Nightsleeper, every time you’re at the station and see there’s a train cancelled, does part of you think, ‘I need to go and investigate’?

Alexandra Roach: Absolutely not. But you know, on every train I get on now, I’m thinking, ‘Oh gosh, if that happens could I help in any way?’ We’d have to be desperate if they were looking at me to solve a cyber security situation. Unless somebody’s written me the script I’m stuck.

Can you tell us a bit about Abby?

We first meet Abby when she’s about to go on holiday, and she’s not somebody that goes on holiday often at all. Her whole life is this Cyber Security Centre. She has, like a ‘spidey sense’ that something is not right. I love her instinct and how bold she is in her choices. This is her stepping up for the first time, there’s the pressure of that on her shoulders, wanting to succeed and to save the people on the train, but also prove herself as somebody who can cope in this situation.

Was that an aspect of her character you could relate to?

Definitely. I’ve been acting for 20-odd years, and this is the first time I’ve led a BBC One primetime show. There was an element of pressure, but also knowing that it’s time and that I’m capable. You’re following her as she realises what’s going on and how huge this situation is, but she’s also quite enjoying it. There was an element of that too in me.

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Did the character of Abby help you during filming?

Sometimes I meet characters at exactly the right time and they teach me something about myself or the world. I feel like I met Abby at exactly the right time. When I read [the script] it felt like I have to be the voice of this character. I could just see her. I could hear how she spoke.

She speaks in a Welsh accent – and there are lots of Scottish voices, which is fitting as it’s a regional service. Was Abby written as Welsh in the script?

No, she wasn’t, but it felt really important that she was Welsh for this.

Why?

The cyber community is very male dominated, still, and I really understood Abby when I thought about her coming from a working-class Swansea background, to where we meet her as the acting technical director. How resilient she’s had to be on that journey to get where she is. That unlocked Abby for me. 

To have my accent in an office full of suited people in London, kind of sets her apart from everyone else. And I quite like that – she’s a bit of an outsider. We hear a lot of similar accents on television so it feels good to lead a show in a Welsh accent. It feels right.

The role feels like it could have been written for you.

It’s always a bit of a dance, to be honest. I can never really put my finger on how much you bring of yourself and what this character brings out in you. It feels like even now, she’s still kicking around inside me. 

She’s made me braver, she’s made me more instinctive and she’s made me more confident, I think. She came and taught me something at a time when I needed it.

She’s not the first law enforcement officer you’ve played. How does she compare?

I’ve played a few coppers in my time. My brother’s a policeman, my dad and my sister were too so it is around me. I remember on No Offence I got on set and they were like, “OK, if you can just arrest that guy and put him in the back of the van”. Well hang on, I’m an actor. So I FaceTimed my brother. He was on shift: “How do you put someone in handcuffs? Can you tell me? Quick, quick, quick!” So there are perks like that. 

But with cyber, I don’t really know who I’d call. I’d just be like, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

Nightsleeper starring Alexandra Roach airs on BBC One at 9pm on Sundays and Mondays from 15 September, and streaming on BBC iPlayer.

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