BLUE MURDER
Stars of last year’s breakout crime hit tell why the job isn’t getting easier for the not-so-new recruits
IT’S the most talked about cop drama since Line of Duty and now shock hit Blue Lights is back for a highly anticipated second season – which promises to be even more explosive than the first.
Set in Belfast, the show follows three new Police Service of Northern Ireland recruits as they navigate the turbulent and violent streets of a city still living in the shadow of The Troubles.
With murders, riots, extortion rackets, petrol bombs, drug deaths and beatings galore – the fast-paced first series, with its cast of likeable characters, became an overnight hit and left global audiences begging for more.
Viewers’ prayers have at last been answered with season two of the drama, written and directed by Declan Lawn and Adam Paterson, hitting our screens this week and a third and fourth series commissioned and in the pipeline.
The new series, on BBC iPlayer now, is set one year on from constable Gerry Cliff ’s death and sees Belfast city centre awash with drugs and beset by street crime.
Response officers Grace Ellis, Annie Conlon and Tommy Foster are no longer wide-eyed rookies, and are beginning to feel the personal and psychological effects of relentless and punishing police work. As the episodes progress the truth behind the city centre crime wave is slowly revealed – Lee Thompson, a young man from a Loyalist background, has decided to make a play for absolute power within his community, pushing aside the godfathers who have ruled it for a generation.
Writer Lawn said: “Series two is bigger, bolder and more dramatic. Series one was about our recruits having their feet held in the fire and in series two they are firmly in the fire. The city is under siege with drugs and petty crime, and they can’t work out what’s going on nor do they have the resources to deal with it.”
Welsh actress Sian Brooke, who plays probationer and former social worker Grace, is excited for viewers to see how the much-loved characters have developed. The Good Omens and Sherlock star said: “Now we know who these characters are, we dig deeper into their lives and understand why they react in certain situations.”
i did a lot of my own stunts which was quite terrifying KATHERINE DEVLIN on filmiing series
This second series will, Brooke said, bring some high stakes action for the constables. Her character Grace gets caught up in a “serious incident”, one which “involves her pulling out her gun”, which led the actress to spend a length of time with a police advisor to try and understand “what that does to you as a police officer and as a human being”.
She said: “You have to come to terms with the fact that you are prepared to take a life in order to save someone else from harm, and it really does alter how you feel after that.”
Katherine Devlin, who plays Catholic probationer Annie, enjoyed exploring more aspects of her character’s personality and doing her own stunts. She said: “This time round we find Annie sharing a flat with Grace.
“They make a good team, and while the death threat is still present in Annie’s life, we do see her unfold a bit more and be less constrained – she definitely has more freedom.
“We had lots of bigger set pieces this year and I did do a lot of my own stunts which was quite terrifying but really exciting too.”
Nathan Braniff ’s character Tommy is still reeling from the death of his pal Gerry but throughout the second series we see him developing as a copper. He
said: “I mean, Tommy’s definitely changed. He’s had to grow up a little, pull up his socks. Obviously Tommy went through something super difficult at the end of the first series, and I think that’s had a massive effect on him, and that effect will stay with him for the rest of his policing career.
“I think you see a much more mature Tommy, but again, we haven’t lost those little things about Tommy that make him him.”
The way in which Blue Lights tackles the reality of police work in Belfast is part of what made the first series so acclaimed. It’s also something that its cast, many of whom are Northern Irish, appreciate. Braniff, who was swarmed by Blue Lights fans while filming on the streets of Belfast, said: “The policing job in Northern Ireland, I think, is especially difficult, having gone through what they’ve gone through in the past 30 or 45 years.
“They have an incredibly difficult job, and you want to pay respect to that. You’re sort of carrying the flag, almost, a little bit, for the PSNI.
“To make sure that I was doing that appropriately, it just meant doing lots and lots of research again, for the second series, spending some time with police officers.
“We actually even did a little police boot camp for the read-through of this second series.”
Braniff, who has become a poster boy for the popular show, added: “There’s no doubt that Northern Ireland police have a very specific job, because of where they’re operating.
“Unlike the other sort of day-to-day police in the rest of the UK, they have to carry a sidearm.
“We’re trying to put the spotlight on the police of Northern Ireland, you know, because they deserve it. They do a great job.”
Devlin, who grew up in County Tyrone, agrees it is this “authenticity at the heart of the show” that makes it so gripping. She said: “We see time and time again when a show is unapologetic and real, audiences really engage with it.
“It’s a drama with really beautifully crafted characters at its heart, and it doesn’t spoon-feed the audience, which is so important.”
Brooke, who also starred in Scottish thriller Guilt, added: “The new series will be quite explosive, moving and an authentic reflection of some parts of present-day Belfast but audiences can still expect those comedy beats alongside the serious side of the story.”