Patience: who’s who in the cast of the Channel 4 detective drama?
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What better way to cheer up a dreary January than with some good television?. Channel 4’s new detective show Patience certainly looks set to be that. Set in York, it stars newcomer Ella Maisy Purvis as Patience, a young archivist at York Police who has a knack for solving crimes. But there’s a twist: Patience is autistic, and the show itself aims to also authentically explore hers (and others’) lived experiences as neurodivergent people in a world that doesn’t feel built for them.
Here’s who’s in the cast. Patience is a young woman who works as an archivist in the criminal records department of York Police. She’s autistic, and the quietness and solitude of the job suits her – though her knack for spotting links between crimes and cases means that she ends up assisting detective Bea Metcalf in solving a series of crimes.
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"I think a lot of autistic women grow up being pulled and pushed and bent into shape to fit a mould that slots as best it can into the rest of society,” Purvis has said about the role. "With Patience, the journey she goes on allows her to instead really come into her own and do what she needs and wants, rather than being terrified to speak up for herself.".
Purvis herself was born in London in 2003 and trained as a classical ballet dancer before turning to acting and studying at LAMDA. She’s appeared in shows including Heartstopper and Malpractice, and in 2024 was nominated for The Breakthrough Award by the NI Royal Television Society.
She has autism and ADHD, and said that filming the show and “getting myself settled into a routine was certainly challenging… but the whole cast and crew were just incredible, and there was so much care involved from the very start that it ended up being a lot easier than I anticipated.”.
