Top of the cops

Kris Marshall and his crack team are back in Beyond Paradise – criminals beware!

DS Esther Williams and Humphrey stood together smiling

BBC

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There are worse places to work. I’m trying to keep up with the long strides of Kris Marshall as we depart the production set of Beyond Paradise in search of a coffee. We’re on a cobbled street in a timeless Cornish village and, while the sky may not be the azure of Guadeloupe, with boats bobbing alongside us and jazz wafting through the window of a nearby restaurant, it’s a very English paradise.

Marshall agrees he’s a lucky man. “We exist in a world with so many unknowns, so to have a job where we get to film in a location like this… It’s joyous! Plus I’m a coastal person, so living down here for five months of the year is a delight. I was in the sea first thing this morning.”

Marshall’s circumstances are a lesson in fortune favouring the professionally brave. Like Ben Miller before him, he had the courage to quit a hit – specifically, Death in Paradise – after four series as the show’s resident fish-out-of water policeman Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman. Don Gilet has recently become the fifth – is there a club of former detectives? “There’s no WhatsApp group,” says Marshall. “But I would love some kind of reunion where all five of us meet up on screen.”

On the fictional Saint-Marie, Marshall brought his own brand of klutzy but brilliant oddness. Now, three series into a spin-off back in Blighty, Humphrey and his partner Martha (Sally Bretton) are central to a different kind of show.

“We learn more about Humphrey and Martha’s home lives,” agrees Marshall, referring to the couple’s journey into fostering, following last series’ focus on if and how they should marry. “Also, I started filming Death in Paradise 11 years ago. I’m now in my early fifties. We retain an element of Humphrey’s oddities – I never want to lose them – but I’m always thinking and firing off new ideas to Tony [Jordan, the series creator].”

I’d love a reunion with all five Death in Paradise detectives on screen

Kris Marshall

After 11 years, how much of Humphrey is in Marshall and vice versa? “Well, there’s an element of the tall, posh guy,” he nods. “I’m tall but not that posh in reality. There is an element of existing on the fringes of everything about him that’s definitely me. He’s happy to tread his own path without apologising too much. Plus, there are parts of an old uncle I had and also just people I see in the street.”

Being away from his wife Hannah and their two children for 18 weeks each year is no small order. Between 13-hour working days and occasional trips to the pub with fellow cast and crew, Marshall’s great respite is the sea – “surfing, bodyboarding, sailing. It’s all good for my mental health. But it’s not a consolation, it’s an addition to the brilliance of the job.”

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Authors

Caroline Frost

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