‹ The HalfSample brief, as it looks in the app
Holloway Road (Series 2) · Screen

DS Kerry Walsh

5days

A detective who wins by doing less: unhurried, dry, quietly warm, completely still while Anne breaks.

Due Tue 20 Oct, 18:00 ✎ Self-tape Sides 📄 Confidential
Seen you before
Tom Rees CDG · Holloway Road series 1, March · Recalled

Your choices swipe · 3

Last line
When Kerry says “I know, love”, did she already know about the grandson?

If she knew, the whole scene is patient strategy and the line is mercy. If she's only just worked it out, it's a flicker of private recognition.

“Have mine. I haven't touched it.”
Is the offered tea a tactic, a kindness, or both?

Offhand, it reads as character. As a lever, she turns cold. Decide how she reacts when Anne doesn't take it.

Middle of the scene
Where does the detective stop and the person start?

“At quarter to midnight” is the dry challenge; “Nor do I” is the one moment she lets her own life in. Make the gap clear.

What to wear
Plain dark blazer over a simple top. A working detective, not TV-glamorous.
Check
NavyReads as plain clothes on camera
Slate greyCalm against a pale wall
OatmealA soft top under the blazer
Avoid
Fine stripes or small checks: they strobe on a self-tape.
Specific prep4
Rehearse holding the frame in silence after “He's my grandson”. The stage directions say she doesn't move or write.
Brief your reader to play Anne flat and slow, with a full beat before the grandson line.
Accent: work “love”, the glottal stops in “quarter” and “statement”, and the short vowel in “Nor do I”.
Make the takes different in scale: the tea slide in the mid shot; nothing but face and breath in the tight one.
What they asked for4
Reader off camera, eyeline just off lens
One take mid shot, one tighter
Slate at the start: name, agent, location
Vimeo link to agent, password protected
Worth knowing1
She's new to the series and walks in with no file because she's already read it twice. This scene is her proving the first team got it wrong.
Panel1
Tom Rees CDGCasting director
0 of 7 done

In the app, each step is a reminder on the day.

Your notes

Choices, beats, things to remember in the room. Kept on your phone.

An invented audition. Every name and scene here is made up.