A lot of what I've written in television
has been set in London or other big cities.
This is often what television commissioners want.
What I really wanted to do is write something
in a very small community.
EVE: It's a very, very small setting.
Everybody who's there was born there, brought up there,
worked there, had children there, and retired there.
Except for Faith Howells, who's an outsider
and comes in because she's married into a family.
So everybody knows everybody's business,
nothing happens without anybody knowing about it.
People are painted in far more vivid colours
when they live in small communities.
Everybody gets to know everybody else.
People are warmer with one another,
but they're also judged far more closely
by their friends and neighbours.
And when someone falls from grace in a small community,
there isn't really very far to fall
and you can't really escape.
This is er...
This is strictly in confidence, of course, Mrs Jones.
Well... (Clears throat) ..he usually waves.
But not today.
Mind, the state she came home in last night!
Legless, she was!
- Faith Howells? - Yes, yes.
No wonder she slept in the spare room.
I saw the light go on, see.
At the height of the drama, it can feel claustrophobic,
because there is nowhere to run.
And certainly for Faith's storyline, and for Cerys's...
Cerys is bearing a lot of secrets at the beginning
and placing it in this very small town makes it feel very...
...claustrophobic and stifling.
So I think it definitely offers that.
This extraordinary thing happens,
which opens up this enormous can of worms.
But this enormous can of worms is still set...
in this little village...
...by the sea in Wales.
How close knit we all are...
is why the disappearance of Evan impacts on everybody.
I mean, as much as anything,
we're practically all related,
aside from living in the same town.
Yeah, I think it just feels like a very tight bunch of people.
So if one person goes off, then it kind of starts crumbling
and falling apart a bit.
We're all family, Faith.
We all love Evan and we have a right to know.
PIP: I think it's pretty important.
I think that in a metropolis,
it wouldn't have the same hothouse feel.
And it is very much a family story.
That's why the prologue at the beginning
is all the family together.
And it's the only time we see those people together
in the whole series.
Because it's that circle round the fire
that is destroyed along the way.