WHO ARE THE STARS?
STEVE THOMPSON is no stranger to adapting great detective fiction.
The 52-year-old writer is perhaps most famous for his work on hit BBC series, Sherlock. Now he’s turned his hand to the Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis, about a brilliant young doctor, Max Liebermann, who helps an Austrian detective inspector solve mysterious cases in 1900s Vienna.
The result? Vienna Blood, a three-part, feature-length BBC series.
“The period detail in the novels is phenomenal,” enthuses Steve, “It’s dripping in detail. It was an incredibly vital time for the history of Vienna – so much was changing.”
Here’s everything else you need to know about the crime drama...
WHAT’S THE STORY?
MAX, the protege of Sigmund Freud, is keen to understand the criminal mind and jumps at the chance to observe
Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt, who works in the Vienna Police Department.
Struggling with a perplexing case, Oskar finds Max’s skills of perception and forensics, and his deep understanding of human behaviour and deviance, very useful.
Each episode is 90 minutes long. The first – The Last Seance – sees Max and Oskar searching for the killer of a medium.
MATTHEW BEARD
– best known for films such as The Imitation Game and And When Did You Last See Your Father? – plays Max, who moved to Austria in his teens. Now a junior doctor, he has fallen under the spell of the new science of the day and is studying neurology.
“I was already interested in
Freud,” says the London-born star, 30. “I did English literature at university, and did many Freudianangled papers – much to the distaste of many of my teachers, he’s actually not popular at all now in academic circles.
“So I loved an excuse to go into that.” Meanwhile, 52-year-old Austrian actor Juergen
Maurer is Oskar, a police inspector with something to prove.
“Everything in my life is so much easier than it is in Oskar’s life, but I have lots of compassion for him. He’s a good man, troubled and a sad character, but I like his convictions.”
HOW HAS IT BEEN ADAPTED FOR THE SCREEN?
THIS show is a great example of a global co-production – filmed in Austria but with the script in English, it will also be shown in Germany and Austria.
“Shooting this series is definitely different to the work I am used to doing in Austria and Germany as a film actor,” notes Juergen.
“It’s the first production I’ve shot in the English language, which is special, and I definitely wouldn’t mind becoming familiar to an international audience!”
Steve found having so much material – the book is 600 pages long – challenging.
“It sounds slightly absurd, but the real question is what you leave out. It’s really about stripping back, which seems like a brutal thing to do, but of course it has to come down to the spine of the relationship between those characters.”
WHERE WAS IT SHOT?
ON location in Vienna, and the beautiful city is a central character.
“One of the excitements for me about this whole project was, I simply didn’t know Vienna,” says Steve.
“I went there as I was learning about the show and creating the show, and my love affair with Vienna is part of what we see.”
Asked how he prepared for the role, Matthew says:“I went to a lot of the art galleries and I watched documentaries about what was going on at the time, because in 1906 there was huge burst in architecture, art and science.
“I tried to get a feel of what was going on in 1906.”
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?
AS well as being an intriguing crime drama, Vienna Blood is also a show about friendship.
Steve hopes people “buy into Max and Oskar and friendship. It becomes a very warm relationship,” he continues, “they’re people you want to hang out with.”
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