Halfway point for thriller After the Flood

You may not have heard of Quay Street productions, but you will certainly have seen one of their projects.

Based in Manchester, it was set up in 2021 by Nicola Shindler, a Rochdale-born TV producer who had previously worked on Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley and Hillsborough. She’s also worked extensively with Russell T Davies; Quay Street’s first commission was Nolly, the screenwriter’s series about Crossroads star Noele Gordon, which appeared on ITV1 recently.

Since then, the company has been behind comedy-drama Significant Other, Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once and Viagra film Men Up, so Shindler and her colleagues have been very busy. But somehow, they also found the time to produce After the Flood.

“What grabbed me in the initial pitch was there’s a huge flood in a town, a dead body is found in a lift and then very quickly we realise that body was killed before the flood,” explains Shindler.

“It felt such a good hook to me. You’ve got the important story to tell with the flood, the murder mystery about who put that body in the lift, who killed that body and why was it killed? It’s important to try and put environmental issues in every drama that we do… in this it is right at the centre of the plot in a very natural way.”

Sophie Rundle, Lorraine Ashbourne, Nicholas Gleaves, Philip Glenister and Jonas Armstrong are among the stars, and as they’re all in demand, we should have realised early on that Mick Ford’s scripts must have been fabulous to have attracted them.

Shindler is quick to credit casting director Andy Pryor for assembling the cast.

“He cares about who he puts in front of you and treats actors so well,” says Schindler of her colleague. “He thinks about every single possibility and potential sensitivity. He works with a director to understand what they want from actors. He then makes it work behind the scenes with the agents, which isn’t always easy.

“We were both on Cracker in the 1990s where he was an assistant casting director and I was a script editor. We have gone through the ages together. With a big ensemble it isn’t just about one person, it’s about casting a group of people who look and feel right together.”

Pryor didn’t have to work hard to find someone to play the husband of Rundle’s character – her real-life partner, Matt Stokoe, accepted the role.

“It’s so interesting to see the husband-and-wife relationship of Jo and Pat played by Sophie and Matt,” claims Shindler. “There is a naturalism that comes with them knowing each other, but this isn’t their relationship. What they have managed to do is create characters who aren’t them (but) give us a convincing marriage.”

We’re now at the halfway point, and it’s pleasing that Shindler’s dreams for After the Flood have come true: “I hope (viewers) are entertained by a story of a real family in a community and a thriller. That is the most important thing.

“On top of that, if everyone is there thinking, ‘This is awful that towns have to suffer like this and why wasn’t there enough sandbags to build the wall? Why weren’t there people helping them when it was clear it was going to flood again?’ I think if you raise those questions in people’s minds then that’s only a good thing.”