AVON CALLING!
MARK BENTON AND JO JOYNER RETURN AS STRATFORD’S FINEST DETECTIVES… SHAKESPEARE & HATHAWAY: PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | BBC1 WEEKDAYS
World-weary former police officer
Frank Hathaway and inquisitive ex-hairdresser Lu Shakespeare couldn’t be more different. But like all the best detective duos, their partnership just works. This was clearly proven last year, when series one of Shakespeare & Hathaway:
Private Investigators launched with the biggest ratings for a daytime drama since Father
Brown back in 2013 – much to the delight of its stars, Mark Benton and Jo Joyner, who had been hoping that they’d get to make another series…
“We loved the first series,” grins Mark. “Even before we finished it, we were talking about what we were going to do in the second one, so its success was a thrill.”
“You spend all of the first series getting a gauge on what everybody’s doing,” adds Jo. “It’s not really until you see it at the end that you know what you’ve made – so it’s nice to come back and have a second run at it, because next time round, everybody’s singing from the same hymn sheet. And Mark and I have a laugh!”
Series two begins with the duo receiving a potentially lucrative case – tracking down an extremely wealthy dog who’s been kidnapped, with a cash bonus on top of their usual fee if they find him. And luckily for Mark and Jo, the usual warnings about working with animals didn’t apply.
“The dogs were great!” enthuses Jo. “But the funny thing about the main one was, as a working dog, he was so well-behaved, that when we wanted him to look normal, just wagging his tail, he found it quite hard. He didn’t know how to loosen up!”
The first series served as on-the-job training for newbie Lu, and series two shows her much more at home with the world of an investigator.
“That’s what’s really nice about it – we’re both solving crimes,” shares Mark, “but doing it in very different ways.”
“There’s one episode, set at some tennis courts, that has a real sense of how they approach things differently,” agrees Jo. “Lu goes off and just sort of gossips, essentially. She chats to a few people and discovers clues while Frank’s doing all the proper cop stuff.”
As well as the intriguing cases that Frank and Lu solve in each episode, one of the
show’s other star attractions is the beautiful Warwickshire countryside – and local resident Jo has been taking full advantage…
“We quite often film in stately homes,” she reveals. “Because I’m from the area, I’ve driven past those great, long driveways and thought, ‘What is down there?’ all my life. Then suddenly I’m actually filming there, and I’m on the family Whatsapp group going, ‘You know that driveway down Shipston-on-stour? I’m in their house! I bet they have some money – let me find out what the owners do for a living…’
“But I still take it all very seriously, obviously!”