DANGEROUS musings

ESME CREED-MILES and MIRREN MACK on playing twins in a story exploring the art of obsession

-  STEVEN PERKINS

THE DOLL FACTORY

NEW FROM MON 27 NOV, PARAMOUNT+ DRAMA (FIRST TWO EPS FROM 27 NOV, THEN ONE NEW EP DAILY UNTIL FRI 1 DEC)

Inside a studio, TV Times is peering through the window of a Victorian-era doll emporium filled with cabinets displaying an immaculately arranged collection of beautifully detailed, if ever so slightly creepy, figurines.

We’ve been invited to County Wicklow in Ireland to watch filming for new Paramount+ thriller The Doll Factory, based on the bestselling 2019 debut novel of the same name by Elizabeth Macneal.

Set in 1850s London against the buzz of the Great Exhibition, the six-parter centres around Iris (Hanna star Esmé Creed-Miles), who alongside her twin sister, Rose (The Nest’s Mirren Mack), paints the faces of dolls for a living at a shop owned by the cruel Mrs Salter (Magpie Murders’ Pippa Haywood).

While Rose fears the outside world, aspiring artist Iris yearns for freedom and her life is turned upside down when she meets Louis (Finding Alice’s George Webster), a PreRaphaelite painter who’s searching for his next muse, and Silas (The Sixth Commandment’s Éanna Hardwicke), a taxidermist who develops a sinister obsession with her.

Here, Esmé, 23, who’s the daughter of actors Samantha Morton and Charlie Creed-Miles, and Mirren, 25, give us their take on the story…

How would you describe the dynamic between the siblings? MIRREN