Channel 5's new drama The Fortune has arrived on screens this week, featuring a stellar cast that includes Eleanor Tomlinson, Callum Woodhouse, and Matthew Lewis. Among them is actor Stephen Tompkinson, who plays Boots Maddison, the groundskeeper of an inherited estate.
The series centres on Amanda Blakefield (Eleanor Tomlinson), who unexpectedly inherits a fortune from a man she has never met. As she delves into the Worrall Family's past, her life and theirs are thrown into chaos.
Stephen Tompkinson is no stranger to television audiences, having starred in the beloved BBC series Ballykissangel. It was on that set that he met his former fiancée and co-star, Dervla Kirwan. The pair played on-screen sweethearts Father Peter Clifford and Assumpta Fitzgerald, and their off-screen romance quickly blossomed.
After getting engaged in 1997, the couple made wedding plans, but their relationship ended abruptly in 1999. Both have since spoken about the split, attributing it to the immense strain of their professional commitments and filming demands. Dervla told the Irish Echo Newspaper: "It was really upsetting when Stephen and I split up after four and a half years. I felt terrified and vulnerable and a big failure because I'd been so deeply in love with the man."
Despite the broken engagement, the duo worked together on two more productions, one in 1999 and another in 2001. Both eventually moved on: Dervla married actor Rupert Penry-Jones, with whom she has two children. Stephen has been married and divorced twice, first to BBC radio producer Celia Anastasia and later to Nicci Taylor, with whom he has a daughter named Daisy.
The Fortune is currently airing on Channel 5.
