Jill Halfpenny was locked down on the island for weeks while filming The Holiday – but she can’t wait to return
Ed Grenby - 21 February 2022
"I was Alan Partridge, times 5,000,” says Jill Halfpenny. She’s talking about his infamous 183-day stay at the Linton Travel Tavern – but also about her own seven-week stint locked down in Malta last year when she was largely confined to her hotel. But that didn’t stop her falling in love with the little Mediterranean island. Halfpenny was filming Channel 5’s new primetime thriller The Holiday, but the experience was anything but a vacation.
“For the first two weeks, we were in complete isolation, each in our apartment. You couldn’t even go out for a little walk or anything, because there were police patrols. I was just walking up and down the stairs trying not to go mad, and Zooming Owen McDonnell [Killing Eve’s Niko Polastri], who was playing my husband – attempting to get to know each other over a screen so we could act man and wife! “Then we spent five weeks in the gorgeous Radisson Blu Resort and Spa in Golden Bay (radissonhotels.com). But that was almost worse: all these lovely restaurants and jewellery shops there, but all closed – they wouldn’t even let you stop and look in the window – and I could see the sea from my balcony, but you weren’t allowed at the beach even.” It made for a claustrophobic atmosphere, says the former Coronation Street and EastEnders star, but that was perfect for the drama they were shooting.
“The story’s about a group of friends holidaying in a villa to celebrate a big birthday, but my character Kate suspects her husband of having an affair with her friend. And because Kate’s in the police force, she tries to work it all out herself – and makes things a lot, lot worse, because someone’s prepared to kill to protect their secrets.” As Covid restrictions eased, Halfpenny and the rest of the cast were able to explore a little more of Malta. “The capital, Valletta, is this really beautiful old walled town of honeycoloured churches and forts and harbours,” she says, “and it opened up just before we finished shooting, so we all dashed around there buying presents for the families we hadn’t seen for two months. It was like we were looting the place!”
The Holiday isn’t the only show to shoot in Malta. Game of Thrones, Gladiator and Troy all took advantage of its timewarp beauty – and Robin Williams’s 1980 Popeye movie built an entire cartoon village there, which has survived as a theme park (popeyemalta.com). “They kept the whole set,” says Halfpenny, “and it’s a gorgeous, colourful, fairy-tale place, built into the cliffs. I just sat on the edge of a cliff gazing at it.” The best thing to do in Malta, meanwhile, insists Halfpenny, is to get out on its exquisite aquamarine waters.
“On the last day before we left the island, a local stuntman, who also has his skipper’s licence – swoon! – took us out on a yacht. We had great food, a few drinks, the music was blaring, all us girls were bouncing up and down at the prow… it was like a Duran Duran video. We stopped at a famous spot, the Blue Lagoon, off the neighbouring island of Comino, where the water is an amazing fluorescent colour. It’s so crystalclear you can see these little jellyfish floating around in it, so we jumped in and swam while one of us stayed on deck and yelled ‘jelly!’ if we got too close to one.”
Even with the restaurants shut – and they’re now open, along with everything else from nightclubs to gyms – Halfpenny was able to sample the local cuisine: “I was just sitting outside the trailer one day, and this guy said to me, ‘Jill, have you ever had a fig roll before?’ And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, my mum used to buy them from Asda all the time.’ But he had some his wife had made because they’re a local delicacy, and they’re like a mille-feuille pastry with fresh fig in it. “I took a bite and I was like, ‘Oh… my… God…’ They’ve got to be at least 1,200 calories in one square, because they’re deep-fried, too, and it was just the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. It made my week.”
We’re not in Asda any more, as Judy Garland might have put it. But in fact Malta did remind Halfpenny of her roots in Gateshead. “Maltese people are just the nicest, warmest, friendliest folk,” says the 2004 Strictly winner. “They’ve got this warmth and approachability about them that really reminded me of home – they’re like the Geordies o f the Mediterranean. “I was pretty much locked down on that quite small island for seven weeks – and worried for some of the time that we’d actually get trapped there, and not be allowed to come back into the UK – but I can’t wait to go back to Malta now. That’s how lovely it is.”
"I was Alan Partridge, times 5,000,” says Jill Halfpenny. She’s talking about his infamous 183-day stay at the Linton Travel Tavern – but also about her own seven-week stint locked down in Malta last year when she was largely confined to her hotel. But that didn’t stop her falling in love with the little Mediterranean island. Halfpenny was filming Channel 5’s new primetime thriller The Holiday, but the experience was anything but a vacation.
“For the first two weeks, we were in complete isolation, each in our apartment. You couldn’t even go out for a little walk or anything, because there were police patrols. I was just walking up and down the stairs trying not to go mad, and Zooming Owen McDonnell [Killing Eve’s Niko Polastri], who was playing my husband – attempting to get to know each other over a screen so we could act man and wife! “Then we spent five weeks in the gorgeous Radisson Blu Resort and Spa in Golden Bay (radissonhotels.com). But that was almost worse: all these lovely restaurants and jewellery shops there, but all closed – they wouldn’t even let you stop and look in the window – and I could see the sea from my balcony, but you weren’t allowed at the beach even.” It made for a claustrophobic atmosphere, says the former Coronation Street and EastEnders star, but that was perfect for the drama they were shooting.
“The story’s about a group of friends holidaying in a villa to celebrate a big birthday, but my character Kate suspects her husband of having an affair with her friend. And because Kate’s in the police force, she tries to work it all out herself – and makes things a lot, lot worse, because someone’s prepared to kill to protect their secrets.” As Covid restrictions eased, Halfpenny and the rest of the cast were able to explore a little more of Malta. “The capital, Valletta, is this really beautiful old walled town of honeycoloured churches and forts and harbours,” she says, “and it opened up just before we finished shooting, so we all dashed around there buying presents for the families we hadn’t seen for two months. It was like we were looting the place!”
The Holiday isn’t the only show to shoot in Malta. Game of Thrones, Gladiator and Troy all took advantage of its timewarp beauty – and Robin Williams’s 1980 Popeye movie built an entire cartoon village there, which has survived as a theme park (popeyemalta.com). “They kept the whole set,” says Halfpenny, “and it’s a gorgeous, colourful, fairy-tale place, built into the cliffs. I just sat on the edge of a cliff gazing at it.” The best thing to do in Malta, meanwhile, insists Halfpenny, is to get out on its exquisite aquamarine waters.
“On the last day before we left the island, a local stuntman, who also has his skipper’s licence – swoon! – took us out on a yacht. We had great food, a few drinks, the music was blaring, all us girls were bouncing up and down at the prow… it was like a Duran Duran video. We stopped at a famous spot, the Blue Lagoon, off the neighbouring island of Comino, where the water is an amazing fluorescent colour. It’s so crystalclear you can see these little jellyfish floating around in it, so we jumped in and swam while one of us stayed on deck and yelled ‘jelly!’ if we got too close to one.”
Even with the restaurants shut – and they’re now open, along with everything else from nightclubs to gyms – Halfpenny was able to sample the local cuisine: “I was just sitting outside the trailer one day, and this guy said to me, ‘Jill, have you ever had a fig roll before?’ And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, my mum used to buy them from Asda all the time.’ But he had some his wife had made because they’re a local delicacy, and they’re like a mille-feuille pastry with fresh fig in it. “I took a bite and I was like, ‘Oh… my… God…’ They’ve got to be at least 1,200 calories in one square, because they’re deep-fried, too, and it was just the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. It made my week.”
We’re not in Asda any more, as Judy Garland might have put it. But in fact Malta did remind Halfpenny of her roots in Gateshead. “Maltese people are just the nicest, warmest, friendliest folk,” says the 2004 Strictly winner. “They’ve got this warmth and approachability about them that really reminded me of home – they’re like the Geordies o f the Mediterranean. “I was pretty much locked down on that quite small island for seven weeks – and worried for some of the time that we’d actually get trapped there, and not be allowed to come back into the UK – but I can’t wait to go back to Malta now. That’s how lovely it is.”
ED GRENBY
The Holiday Tuesday—Friday 9.00pm Channel 5