Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
NOW GO ON SET WITH BROADCHURCH
Olivia Colman, David Tennant and their big-name co-stars tell all about the gripping new case at the heart of the last ever series
So this is it, the eagerly awaited third and final series of Broadchurch. The dark ITV whodunnit had always been conceived as a trilogy by creator Chris Chibnall, and the first series in which DS Ellie Miller and DI Alec Hardy investigated the murder of schoolboy Danny Latimer in the fictional Dorset town of the title was so successful that series two went into production immediately. The revelation that Danny’s murderer was DS Miller’s husband Joe in series one was the biggest TV talking point of 2013, and the second series – which centred on the effect of Joe’s trial on his wife and the Latimer family – was ITV’s highestrated drama of 2015.
Now Olivia Colman and David Tennant, who play the detectives, are back for the final time to investigate a new case. Single mother Trish Winterman, a new character, has been the victim of a serious sexual assault and the first episode starts as Miller and Hardy lead the hunt for her attacker, whose identity will be revealed in the eighth and final episode.
‘ We put a crack through a community in series one and we’re doing that again in series three,’ says producer Dan Winch. ‘But there are only so many times you can do that before you stretch credibility. Authenticity is key on Broadchurch.’
The show’s reputation for realism, its high- quality scripts and huge ratings have drawn a clutch of big names for this new series. Julie Hesmondhalgh, awardwinning as Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street, appears as victim Tr ish, while Sir Lenny Henry plays Ed Burnett, the irritable boss of the farm shop where Trish works, and Sarah Parish plays
Cath Atwood, Trish’s largerthan-life friend and colleague.
Despite her success in Corrie, Julie seems almost overwhelmed to be a part of Broadchurch. ‘I’ve had to work hard not to feel I’m like a competition winner who’s been given the privilege of filming with David and Olivia, two of British TV’s finest actors,’ she says. ‘I have to stop myself from saying, “Thank you very much for having me” when I leave the set each day. I feel like I’m in some kind of parallel universe when sitting down to breakfast with Lenny Henry.’
Although her character’s in a troubled state, Julie seems very chirpy as we chat on location in Dorset, close to West Bay’s beach with its imposing cliff. ‘ I’m enjoying the work although I feel a weight of responsibility to get it right,’ she says. ‘ I’m aware rape and sexual assault has been badly handled on TV at times in the past, and shoehorning it in as entertainment is a thorny subject. The first scenes were a baptism of fire for me. We were filming at a sexual assault referral centre and meticulous attention was being paid to getting it correct. But we had a police advisor there to make sure I was on the right track, and Olivia was brilliant. She was very protective of me because she knew I might not be comfortable with what I was having to do.’
David Tennant says this series has been tough to work on because of the storyline. ‘ For research we met women who help victims of crimes like the one suffered by Trish and I was hugely affected by those meet- ings,’ he says. ‘Hardy’s been even more difficult to play this time because he’s conflicted. For the sake of his work he needs to understand what kind of a man would commit this kind of crime, but he’s almost ashamed of his own gender, that a man could commit this sort of crime.’
To protect the identity of the perpetrator, the denouement has not been revealed to the cast and they’ve been told little about their characters’ backgrounds so they don’t play them in too knowing a way. Sarah Parish says, ‘ I had a few qualms about playing Cath because I only
knew the bare minimum about her. It’s slightly scary when you don’t know much about somebody you’re going to be playing for five months.’
The attacker could be anyone on a list that includes Lenny’s character Ed Burnett, a solitary man who nobody seems to like, Cath’s husband Jim, who has some potentially incriminating items in his car, and Trish’s ex- husband Ian, played by the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson. ‘It’s been a massive talking point among the cast as to who the perpetrator might be,’ says Julie. ‘We’ve all had conversations just like the rest of the country will have.’
There have been lighter moments during filming, not least some dodgy Dorset accents. ‘I had this amazing dialect coach who taught me how to talk like a local,’ says Julie. ‘But then I had a month off during filming and couldn’t do it any more. I rang her up and she said, “You’ll be all right”, but for a while I was proper Farmer Giles!’
Despite the popularity of the show, there’s no chance of it going to a fourth series. Chris will have his work cut out after being named executive producer of Doctor Who, while Olivia Colman is making a new movie version of Murder On The Orient Express with Johnny Depp and Sir Kenneth Branagh.
So for t hos e involved with the show from the start, it really is the end of an era. ‘It’ll be tough saying goodbye,’ says David. ‘We all feel as if we’ve been doing something very special and that we’re part of each other’s lives now. I’ll miss seeing people like Olivia every day, I’ll miss Chris’s scripts.’
Olivia agrees. ‘It’s been a wonderful job from the very first day of filming. When we started, David and I had this game where he would race me to the set every day. I’d be sitting in my trailer eating toast and I’d hear, “See you on set!” as he raced past my door. David and I get on brilliantly. We giggle, he knows all his lines, he’s a dream to work with. What’s extraordinary is I almost said no to Broadchurch. It’s just as well the scripts were amazing because I wanted an excuse to say no when I first read them, so I wouldn’t be away from my family for such a long time. Imagine if I’d said no and missed out on Broadchurch! It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ Broadchurch, Monday, 9pm, ITV.