Dublin sets the scene as detective Kate plays a Blinder
THERE was drama a-plenty on Dancing With The Stars and now the show’s producers have taken steps down memory lane for a period thriller made in Ireland.
Kate Phillips, of Peaky Blinders and The Crown, oozes sexual tension in Miss Scarlet And The Duke, a Victorian detective drama.
After a fortuitous meeting with international production company Element 8, Larry Bass of Shinawil, which makes Dancing With The Stars, revealed: ‘I said to them why don’t you shoot it in Dublin? We
‘There is definitely a simmering interest’
have done a lot of Victorian shows in Ireland like Penny Dreadful and Ripper Street. So the guys came over, we had a good look around and they decided to shoot it here.’
The series was made late last year in Wicklow’s Ardmore Studios and around Dublin in Cabinteely Park, Kings Inn and Marlay House. And Bass was full of praise for Kate.
‘She is a very talented actress. I have to say, in watching and looking at the application to duty. She was in nearly every scene, which meant she was on the set most mornings at 5.30 or six. She is fantastic,’ he told the Irish Mail on Sunday. While Kate’s raunchy antics have lit up screens in Peaky Blinders, Bass is keeping quiet on whether Miss Scarlet sends screens steamy. ‘I can’t spoil anybody’s viewing but there is definitely a simmering interest. It was Victorian times so things were a little different.’ He also lauded the leading man. ‘Stuart Martin, who plays The Duke, is a wonderful actor.’
Miss Scarlet And The Duke follows Eliza Scarlet who, after her father dies, is left penniless, at a time where marriage is her only option for financial security. Luckily, she has an ace up her bonnet – her father’s business – a private detective agency. Eliza knows the tricks of the trade but, as a genteel 19th-century lady, she’s never been allowed to put them into practice. She needs a male partner. Step forward Detective Inspector William Wellington of Scotland Yard, who is also known as ‘The Duke’, a drinker, gambler and womaniser.
Eliza and The Duke strike up a mismatched, fiery relationship that smoulders with sexual tension as they solve crime in the murkiest depths of 1880s London.
Bass has just finished the latest season of DWTS and he said that despite having to end it a week early he was thrilled that the finalists all got to have their last fandango.
‘It was a hard call to make, it was a really difficult week, the country was a changed place, there was nothing we could do. Social distancing had just begun but our dancers were already working together.’
He said: ‘We could have pulled them apart but they had already been together all week. We stripped everything back, the audience, the crew. We literally just made the call at lunchtime on Sunday to go ahead as the final. The six-episode drama series, Miss Scarlet And The Duke, will premiere on the Alibi channel on Tuesday at 9pm.