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Sun, sea and sizzling chemistry
The will-they-won’t-they romance at the heart of new police drama The Mallorca Files is just like Moonlighting, says its star
When Welsh actress Elen Rhys – who had carved out a respectable career with roles in Silent Witness, Casualty and Keeping Faith – was asked to send in an audition tape for BBC1’S new tenpart daytime police thriller The Mallorca Files, she knew it was her chance to land her first lead role. ‘But it couldn’t have come at a worse time,’ she laughs. ‘I was seven months pregnant. So I filmed myself from the neck up so they wouldn’t see my bump.’
It worked, and the producers asked to meet her. ‘I got called back when my son Wilf was two weeks old. I started filming when he was four and a half months,’ recalls Elen, 35. ‘It was two lifechanging things at once.’ So she was determined to embrace her big moment – her partner took a sabbatical from his job as a chef and they all moved to Mallorca for the seven months of filming.
Elen plays British detective Miranda Blake, who’s sent over to bring home a British supergrass. But he’s shot as she gets him to the airport. She stays in Palma to investigate and sweettalks her way into working with the local police. Her new Spanish boss (Holby City’s Maria Fernandez Ache) pairs her up with mischievous German policeman Max Winter (Julian Looman), and they set about tackling more cases. Despite Max having a girlfriend, Carmen, the chemistry between the new partners is tangible, reminiscent of the ‘will-theywon’t-they’ feel of Moonlighting, which starred Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. ‘We watched that for research,’ says Elen.
The show is co-created and cowritten by Dan Sefton, the former
A&E doctor with the Midas touch whose TV hits include Trust Me with Jodie Whittaker, Dawn French’s Delicious and The Good Karma Hospital with Amanda Redman. ‘I saw an article about the Met police sending cops to Magaluf to deal with British lager louts,’ says Dan. ‘I thought, “What if a more senior officer went?”’ The police show can be a familiar formula, but Dan gives it a twist. Instead of a chilly German and easy-going Brit, he reversed the personalities. ‘I’ve met Germans – they’re fun and loving life. I wanted to write a character like that, with an uptight British detective as a contrast.’ A series of ‘chemistry castings’ helped Dan and co-creator Ben Donald find their Max. ‘Julian’s Max has a Labrador puppy quality,’ says Ben. ‘He’s handsome but not overly chiselled, and unafraid to make a fool of himself. The camera loves Elen.
There’s a cool elegance about her, a Cybill Shepherd quality.’
Add in the sort of exotic climate that has seen Death In Paradise score good viewing figures, and The Mallorca Files has the makings of a hit. ‘It has a less rigid format than Death In Paradise,’ says Ben. ‘And we don’t have a dead body every episode.’ The Mallorca Files has a hostage crisis, a dog killing and a reality show gone wrong.
What sets this show apart from other BBC daytime dramas is its budget. Thanks to funding from international networks, it boasts thrilling car chases and dramatic locations such as Palma Cathedral and the Soller railway.
The show is perfect winter fare, warming up audiences with crime-fighting and romance on a sun-soaked Spanish island – even if the actors were often faking it during the November-may shoot. ‘Often the director would say, “Can you stop shivering?”,’ says Elen, ‘and they’d have to colour our lips as they were going blue!’ n
Vicki Power The Mallorca Files, Mondayfriday for two weeks from 25 November, BBC1.