THAT’S AMORE!
SHAUN EVANS TELLS US HOW ENDEAVOUR’S HOLIDAY ROMANCE LEADS TO HEARTBREAK…
It’s a brand-new series and a whole new decade for Endeavour this week, and he’s seeing in the 1970s in style – in Venice, as it happens. His well-earned holiday allows him to take in a bit of opera and even make a new female friend. However, it’s not too long before duty calls him back to Oxford to deal with a murder. Inside TV joined Shaun Evans, who plays him, on the set of the drama (in the UK, not in Venice, sadly) to find out more…
You got to go to Venice to do some filming for this series – how was that?
It was amazing! I was very fortunate, because it was the episode that I directed as well. Just four of us went, and there was something fantastic about being there. We started setting up our shots and asking people politely if they would stop so we could do our work, then carry on. Venice isn’t dissimilar to Oxford, inasmuch as you can put the camera anywhere and it looks extraordinary.
What can you tell us about the first episode?
My story opens in Venice at the opera on New Year’s Eve. I meet a girl there and we have a bit of a holiday fling – and that takes us through the series in one way or another. While I’m away, a girl is murdered on the towpath in Oxford, and Thursday, Strange and Bright are left to sort it out. So when I come back, it’s about picking up the debris of a case that’s yet to be solved.
Will we start to see Morse becoming the man we know from the original series?
Well, there’s way less to go than we’ve already travelled,
so each interaction has to be significant in order to change him and make him slightly more recognisable. The woman who we meet in Italy represents something very different from what we’ve seen before. She’s not Joan; she’s not the girl next door. There’s something quite operatic and unobtainable about her – which should break your heart…