The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
ANALYSING THE APPEAL OF VIENNESE CRIME DRAMA
Georgia Humphreys hears from Matthew Beard and Juergen Maurer, who are returning to the small screen with the stylish Vienna Blood
Matthew Beard is recalling the tragic day last year when a gunman opened fire at six locations in the centre of Vienna. It was November 2, the evening before a coronavirus lockdown came into force. Bars and restaurants were reportedly particularly busy and four people were killed in the attack. The gunman was also shot dead by police.
Londoner Beard, 32, had been on set in the city that day. He plays Max Liebermann in the BBC2 period crime drama Vienna Blood, which is returning for a second series next month, and is filmed in the Austrian capital.
He had finished work early and was on his way home from a dinner out when the shooting started.
“I have lived through terrorist attacks in London but it felt very different here,” reflects the star – who’s best known for films such as The Imitation Game and And When Did You Last See Your Father? – when he chats over Zoom from the set. “It’s relatively small compared to London. I knew those streets very well. I knew those bars very well. So, it felt very different when it happens in London. Even though this isn’t my home city, it was very shocking.”
Vienna Blood, which was last on our screens at the end of 2019, is written by Sherlock’s Steve Thompson. The new episodes are once again inspired by the Max Liebermann novels from author Frank Tallis.
Each story is 90 minutes long and follows the perceptive young doctor Max – who has impressive psychology skills – and the tenacious Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer) as they investigate a different disturbing murder case. Max is a middle-class British Jew who moved to Austria in his teens while Oskar is half-Slovak. Filmed in English, the series has become a hit around the world, and perhaps one of the reasons why is its setting of 1900s Vienna, with grand cafes and opera houses as a backdrop.
These new episodes explore the city in 1907, and the change between the centuries is a particularly interesting time, notes Austrian star Maurer. “It was the time for revolution not only in science, like psychology, but also in fine arts and music. Vienna was a hotspot for this development.”
Maurer, 54, studied art himself as a young man at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and he still lives in the city.
“What really surprised me was how filming changed my view on Vienna because you get so used to all the pictures and buildings and the sites that you forget how well you can shoot a period film in it,” says the actor, who’s previously starred in long-running German cop show Tatort. “It’s like, ‘Wow, look at this! This is where I live’.”
Like so many other TV shows, the filming of Vienna Blood was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Beard admits he was worried about getting back into the headspace of the character after such a long break.
“It did take a day or so. But once the costume was on, and especially once the Max and Oskar scenes started and that relationship kicked back in, it became second nature again.”
Setting the scene for the new episodes, Beard explains that Max has now set up his private practice, away from the hospital where certain people look down on the Freudian treatments and practices he employs.
“He’s taking on responsibility and he’s committing even more to what he believes in. His passion for psychoanalysis and Freud in the first season is there, against those people telling him that it’s a fad or it’s not based on any rational science, and he just doubles down on that in this season. And then Oskar turns up, quite early on in the first episode of the new series,” teases Beard.
What’s clever with Thompson’s writing is the balance of the show’s themes. It’s a thriller but there is also an intriguing psychoanalytical element.
Beard says he read a lot of Freud at university as part of his English Literature
degree. When the role in Vienna Blood come up, it was “a great excuse” to delve into his works once more.
Does he find Freud’s work is subconsciously in his mind while playing Max?
“He totally haunts the production because every morning we’re always talking about our dreams from the night before,” he quips.
“It’s always there and you can’t help but look at the props in the scene and the Freudian
angle on everything does start to take over. Even the crew get involved, it’s quite fun.”