Character profiles
Created by Jess Brittain (Skins), Clique is a brand new six-part drama which sees two best friends - Holly and Georgia - drawn into an elite clique of alpha girls led by lecturer Jude McDermid in their first few weeks at university.
Published: 16 February 2017
Created by Jess Brittain (Skins), Clique is a brand new six-part drama which sees two best friends - Holly and Georgia - drawn into an elite clique of alpha girls led by lecturer Jude McDermid in their first few weeks at university.
Holly McStay (19) – Synnove Karlsen
Holly is self-assured, likeable and smart. Her difficult childhood has made her wary but resilient, and she has a sense of self that puts her at odds with her more hedonistic university peers. Holly is aware that she doesn’t fit in, and this is made worse by her childhood friend, Georgia, slipping away from her. When she meets Professor McDermid and her clique, Holly isn't sure whether she's finally found a world to fit into or if these are the most dangerous people she’s ever met. But Holly is a natural investigator - she’s highly perceptive and has an unwavering refusal to take any crap - and she will root out the dark heart of this glittering elite.
Georgia Cunningham (19) – Aisling Franciosi
Optimistic, excitable and childlike, Georgia smiles big and fakes well. Talk passionately to Georgia about anything and she will be converted to your cause without thinking about it. Her open attitude has got her into all sorts of trouble but never with any serious consequences. Until now. Drawn into the Clique's inner circle, Georgia grasps the opportunity to out-do her talented best friend. She can’t or won’t see that she was chosen for less than valid reasons. Instead she cuts herself off from Holly, too afraid to see the truth written on the face of the person who knows her best. Georgia will hold onto her new life even as it threatens to destroy her.
Rachel Maddox (22) – Rachel Hurd-Wood
Rachel is a master of human behaviour – knowing what the people around her are thinking or feeling before they do. To some extent, Rachel would be a natural soulmate for Holly – they are alike in their intelligence, their difference and their ability to read others. Rachel is a born leader, and when things around her fall apart, she is always the one to put them back together.
Fay Brookstone (22) – Emma Appleton
Fay was the first person to be admitted to the Solasta Women’s Initiative. She is ambitious and beautiful, the kind of woman other girls look up to. But as we join the series, something is clearly haunting Fay – just a flicker beyond her bright smile that indicates all is not right in this glamourous world.
Phoebe Parker-Fox (20) – Ella-Rae Smith
At first Phoebe appears a loveable, minor aristocratic idiot but while she may not be a financial whizz, nobody can work a room quite like her. Life is one big party to Phoebe and she will ignore anything that threatens to kill it.
Louise Taggart (21) – Sophia Brown
Louise is the cleverest of the girls – she’s a natural with mathematics and has worked long and hard to get where she is. She is pragmatic about her lack of people skills, and wants to rectify the imbalance but is too smart and too honest to fake it. Deep down, she admires Holly’s ability to say it like it is – and wishes she had the courage to do the same.
Jude McDermid (late 30s) – Louise Brealey
Jude is a hot-shot economics lecturer and philosopher at University in Edinburgh. Her motivational books are airport bestsellers. Jude’s feminist philosophy is a hard kind of pragmatism – do what it takes to get ahead, stop complaining and use what’s in your arsenal. Whilst flawed, it seems a refreshing and appealing alternative to debates over gender-neutral children’s toys and pure semantics. To put her philosophy into action, Jude began the Solasta Women’s Initiative alongside her brother, Alistair McDermid, CEO of Solasta Finance. The initiative selects a small group of girls each year and places them in elite bespoke internships at Solasta. The girls live in a beautiful house in New Town where they are mentored by Jude, so they can bypass the time-wasting dross of the usual undergraduate experience and be taught how to live and work as young women.
Alistair McDermid (late 30s) – Emun Elliott
Alistair is the charming and clever CEO of Solasta, an Edinburgh-based private bank. Recently widowed, he is publically still mourning the death of his much-loved philanthropist wife Kirstie. Together with his sister, hot-shot lecturer Jude McDermid, Alistair runs the Solasta Women’s Initiative to help fast-track bright women into finance through much-coveted internships at his bank. But Alistair is a deeply flawed man, driven by a corrupt desire for power, influence and money.
Rory Sawyer (28) – Mark Strepan
Rory works at private bank, Solasta Finance. It’s a job that comes with a lifestyle – smart suits, glittering parties and a beautiful penthouse apartment. But while he’s often surrounded with braying hoorays and coked-up beta males, Rory’s the real deal: smart, intuitive, charming, ambitious and totally alpha. But there’s another side to Rory. As he and Holly get closer to one another and closer to the truth of what happened to Fay and James, the pressure will mount and Rory must decide how far he’ll go to keep his own dangerous secrets.
James Buxton (27) – Jack Bannon
Sharp, handsome, charismatic and smart, James was well on the way to a highly lucrative career in finance. He thought it was the life he wanted. But when he and Fay got together, he came to suspect there was something rotten at the core of Solasta.
Charlie Lamont-Smith (28) – Chris Fulton
Charlie’s the kind of good-looking that money rather than genes creates. His skill is charm – borne out of his private schooling. He is a performer, great at entertaining clients. Charlie is ambitious – he knows how to play the game, and he usually wins. He wants money and good times and is happy to keep secrets in order to protect that aim. Charlie doesn’t take his relationship with “little Phoebe” seriously, has no intention of settling down but Phoebe has other plans.
Sam (21) – Harris Dickinson
Sam is a talented musician with a dream. A bit of a hipster, he lives for creativity and love, has many sisters and a natural ease with women. He’s sexy and self-assured but still really just a kid. Sam is bored by the vacuity of most of the Uni girls who throw themselves at him after his gigs. When he meets Holly, he’s genuinely intrigued by her difference to that pack.
Elizabeth (18) – Sorcha Groundsell
Elizabeth has not considered her outward appearance a single time in her life. She’s earnest to the end, socially awkward but surprisingly insightful. People’s duplicity makes her blood boil. She loves animals more than people. She hates binge drinking, smoking, attention seekers, and gendered toys. Holly is the only person who treats Elizabeth with any respect at all, and even when Holly drifts away to the clique, Elizabeth remains loyal. She represents an oddball sanity that Holly can return to from the midst of that dark chaos.
Mo (25) – Peter Bankole
Mo is a Somali illegal immigrant. He has no one in Edinburgh and is trying desperately to make a life for himself. His main aim is to stay out of trouble, try not to see things or hear what is said in his car. He’s quiet, stoic and sensitive. Mo couldn’t help but care for Fay and now feels like he may have found a kindred spirit in Holly. But to connect with her and what she’s doing would be to risk everything Mo has.
