Ella Maisy Purvis is a huge fan of Channel 4 drama Patience – so much so that she binged its recently launched second season in just one night. She also happens to be the show’s star.

“I was only sent episode one [in advance], so I was watching it alongside everyone else,” she tells DQ. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s what we were doing for half the year. Lovely.’”

Yet even though she might not know what the finished episodes will look like, she can pick up their “really clear pace and style” just from the scripts and the way the show is filmed in the English city of York.

“But the nature of filming, you’re up at five, you don’t get home until eight, and so the days just merge into one,” she says. “We’ll do five weeks in the police station, and then everything blurs together and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what episode we’re doing.’”

One of Channel 4’s biggest dramas of last year, Patience introduced Patience Evans (Purvis), who works in the City of York Police’s criminal records department, cataloguing and filing the evidence produced during major cases. A young autistic woman, she craves routine and order, relishing the solitude and structure her job provides. But the self-taught criminologist also yearns for more – and has developed an instinctive eye for crime scenes and a passion for problem-solving. Her talents are soon spotted by Detective Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser), who brings her on to a series of seemingly baffling cases.

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