Shirley Dander emerges more emotionally raw in Slow Horses season six, as Aimee-Ffion Edwards returns to expand the character’s anger and grief after the death of her colleague Marcus. The change shifts Shirley from a chiefly physical presence to a figure whose temper and vulnerability drive key moments in the new series.
The Story in Pictures
Edwards brought the role’s physicality to life during production, performing a risky balcony jump that she repeated five or six times despite nerves. “It was quite hard,” she said of the stunt, describing the split-second self-talk needed to leap while harnessed and perform in front of an audience. The actor traces some of that fearlessness to childhood sport: she played in a boys’ rugby team and once represented Wales in a single match, an experience she says helped make instinctive choices on screen.
Raised in Newport and a fluent Welsh speaker, Edwards has deliberately kept Shirley’s accent authentic, pleased that the character’s Welshness is not made a talking point. “Nobody ever mentions it,” she said, arguing that normalising Welsh accents on mainstream drama corrects an underrepresentation that too often treats those voices as novelty, especially in comedy.
Edwards has spent her career mining contradictions in her characters, from Sketch in Skins to opportunistic Esme Shelby in Peaky Blinders and Elizabeth Barton in Wolf Hall. That interest in paradox sits at Slow Horses’ centre, as Shirley’s physical bravery and moral self-sabotage coexist. The death of Marcus, played by Kadiff Kirwan, has left the actor with more material to explore. She described their characters as “partners in crime,” a relationship she found lonely to lose and one that has altered Shirley’s emotional arc.
Outside the spy drama, Edwards is widening her profile. She will voice Princess Leia in the first Welsh-language dub of Star Wars, a version scheduled to be broadcast in Wales on Christmas Day, with Matthew Rhys voicing Han Solo. She is also attached to the 2025 film Mr Burton, in which she plays Cis, Richard Burton’s older sister.
Edwards still commutes from Newport and says the mix of tough roles and home life keeps her grounded. If she ever left acting she joked she would get a dog and become a carpenter, a nod to the practical instincts she brings to work. For now she returns to Shirley with fresh edges: more rage, deeper grief and a distinctly Welsh voice that reshapes how the character reads within the Slow Horses ensemble.
