Shtisel actress Neta Riskin has admitted she had no idea the Israeli television show was a hit with audiences in the UK.

In an interview to promote the new series of the drama about a strictly-Orthodox family, screened by Netflix, Ms Riskin, who plays Giti Weiss, said: “Shtisel is successful in Britain? I didn’t know that. People see it? That’s crazy.”

Speaking to The Times, Ms Riskin, whose on-screen role sees her play the daughter of the widower Rabbi Shulem Shtisel,  said that when the cast were shooting the first series of the show “we were sure no one was going to watch it.”

She added: “We thought it was profound and well written but a niche series. It became a joke that whenever something didn’t work, someone on set would say ‘Don’t worry, no-one is going to watch it’.”

Shitsel achieved worldwide acclaim after it was first aired on Netflix in 2018. The drama had initially been broadcast in Israel in 2013 without becoming an instant smash.

But one year later it won numerous Israeli TV Academy awards and Doval’e Glickman, who plays Shulem, had been crowned best actor.

The third series, which was filmed after Israel’s first lockdown last summer, launches on Netflix on March 25.