Belinda Giblin spoke about her character Martha Stewart’s continued loyalty to Kieran’s son.
Viewers recently saw Martha and Kieran (Rick Donald) reunited after years of alienation, but their time together was shortened when Kieran’s alcohol problems forced him to leave Summer Bay.
Kieran has a serious alcohol problem and this week’s Channel 5 scenes saw him turn violently towards Martha’s husband Alf (Ray Meagher) when he was confronted with his behaviour.
The troubled character has since left the Bay to avoid the sun, but the next episodes see that Martha refuses to accept that he has done anything wrong. Instead, Alf and their daughter Roo (Georgie Parker) are accused of driving Kieran away.
Belinda explained, “It’s all about remorse. Martha feels extremely bad that she’s not a good mother.
“Martha told Alf at some point that Kieran ‘didn’t have a chance.’ His father wasn’t very useful, and Martha couldn’t cope with her issues, of course.
“A lot of Martha’s behaviour and Kieran’s defence comes from remorse. She’s afraid of him, but she feels extremely guilty. She wants to be angry that she should do something about making things work, but it gets out of control too easily.
“It doesn’t help Alf and Roo to go to Martha all the time about Kieran and how they can’t trust him, because they see things that Martha doesn’t see.”
Now that Kieran has left Summer Bay, the show begins to explore a troubled time for Martha’s mental health as she tries to get to grips with everything. The show has previously shown that Martha has a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
Belinda said, “This is one of the reasons the authors wrote this storey – because they wanted to see more about this disease. Of course, I read and did a lot of research on this condition – feelings of abandonment are very intense, feelings of not being able to cope with responsibility, of not being able to deal with establishing a relationship properly.
“What Martha needs more than anything is to be able to do it with her baby. It’s easy to manipulate for that purpose. She needs to believe what she’s telling her. Even if the others can see the way past, Martha can’t. It’s a horrible recipe for disaster.
“When Kieran leaves, Martha will blame Alf and Roo for a long time. There’s a lot of crying going on and she’s torn. Alf is desperately trying to look after Martha, but she’s pushing him all the time.”
