Ten Pound Poms: Michelle Keegan recalls huntsman spider drama while shooting new BBC series

Michelle Keegan returns in Ten Pound Poms on Sunday, telling the story of Britons who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s after being enticed by a better life, warmer weather and improved housing. However, as the BBC drama explains, the post-war life they found wasn’t necessarily the one they were promised.

The first series of Ten Pound Poms premiered in 2023, starring Keegan, Faye Marsay and Warren Brown. Now the second series catches up with Kate, Annie, Terry and their families as they try to make the most of their new lives.

Returning for this second season, Keegan, Marsay and their co-stars brought a more intimate understanding of what their characters went through. Filming in Australia, far from home comforts, plunged them into the realities of living and working in a new country – though, thankfully, they didn’t have to travel by boat for six weeks.

Despite the fact that they loved getting into the Aussie lifestyle, there were some things that took some getting used to.

“It’s just, like, the norm for everyone to go: ‘Oh yeah, we’ve loads of huntsman spiders’,” says Coronation Street star Keegan, 37, who is returning as Kate.

“They’re not poisonous, but they’re just huge. And I remember one of the make-up girls, actually, we were in a house, and she went: ‘Just look up there’. And I looked up at the ceiling, and there’s a huntsman spider just sat on the wall! Anyway, we went out, we came back in, and it was gone. So I knew it was in the room somewhere, but we couldn’t find it.”

The heat was also something the cast had to get used to: Some days it got up to 40C, and when it’s that hot, “there’s not a lot you can do”, says Game of Thrones and Fresh Meat’s Marsay, 38, who plays Annie.

“The minute you walk out of a room, it’s like a wall and then all your make-up melts off. So you’ve got maybe two minutes to do a scene, and then everything has to be reset. It’s not comfortable… You’re in costume, it doesn’t breathe. So you stink a lot. I’ll just be honest, there’s a lot of smelling!”

In its second series, Ten Pound Poms returns with more stories of parenting, family life and complex dynamics as the characters’ drama transcends the difficulties of immigration.

Kate is continuing to fight for her relationship with her son, Michael, who she was reunited with after he was sent to Australia in the care system and was adopted into an Australian family without her knowledge.

“Trying to find him is what took her to Australia,” Keegan explains. “This series is really about Kate trying to expose the fact that her and her son have been separated against her wishes, which happened to so many families and to so many women in the 1950s, it’s absolutely heartbreaking.

“Kate is not just trying to help herself and Michael, but she wants to help others as well and put a stop to families being unnecessarily separated.”

“She finally found him, but he is actually missing his adoptive parents, because he’s obviously been with them for quite a long time, he misses his friends, so she’s sort of torn with what’s best for him and what’s best for her,” she adds.

“And obviously, as a mother, she wants to put his needs first, but her sole purpose has always been Michael. So for the whole of this season, it’s her being torn [about] what to do for the best.”

Kate’s tenacity is one of Keegan’s favourite things about her character: “She has no fear – she fights for what she believes is right, and even being a woman in the 1950s can’t stop her!”

The question of what it means to be a modern woman is also an integral element of Annie’s storyline in this series, adds Marsay.

The Roberts family are adjusting to having a new addition – baby Mary, Annie’s unexpected granddaughter controversially born out of wedlock – in their lives, and Annie grapples with carving a new, independent identity while also being a mother, wife, and now a grandmother.

“I think for Annie, she’s been given a sense of something that she couldn’t have in the UK, a sense of freedom, a sense of independence,” says Middlesbrough native Marsay.

“So I think she’s feeling a lot of frustration that she’s not in a place where she’s able to follow that journey… She doesn’t want to be a grandma. This is too soon for her. She feels like this is a new beginning, and she’s sort of been dragged back into that maternal, matriarchal role, which is wonderful, but I don’t think it’s where she wants to be.

“So there’s a lot of struggle with what’s expected and what she actually wants.”

“Annie’s major journey throughout this series is about her trying to establish herself as independent and the breadwinner of the family,” she continues.

“She wants to have a successful job, she wants to have a successful business. She wants to expand the experiences that she’s privy to, being a woman in 1957 – like wearing a bikini and running Marlene’s store – totally new experiences for women. Annie’s ultimately trying to carve out a place where she feels valued away from the family unit and her identity as a mother, grandmother and a wife.”

Marsay adds that if she could give Annie any advice, it would be to “stay true to your belief in a better life”.

As we’ll see as the series unfolds, that’s sound advice for all of the ‘Poms’ as they embark on the next chapter of their bewildering journey down under.

All episodes of Ten Pound Poms series two are on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Sunday, March 9, with episodes airing weekly on BBC One from 8pm that night.