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10 YEARS OF TV'S HOTTEST WHODUNNIT
Quirky killings, star guests, a Caribbean backdrop (and a bit of heatstroke). that’s the magic Death In Paradise formula...
Ben Miller wasn’t prepared for the emotional and physical impact a return to the Death In Paradise set on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe would have on him. His character DI Richard Poole (below) was the first in a succession of fish-out-of-water British detectives seconded to the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie to solve local crimes when the show started in 2011, but it has been seven years since Poole was killed off with an ice pick.
Invited back for a secret cameo appearance in the sundrenched whodunnit’s 10th anniversary series – which starts this week on BBC1 – Ben drove straight to the set when he got to the island. He wasn’t due to be working that day but felt the siren call of the crew and cast he’d worked with for three years.
‘I knew they were filming at the shack where the detective always lives, and as I drove there everything came back to me,’ he recalls today over Zoom.
‘I knew which coconut tree I should park under, and where I should get an ice cream from. I could see the lights of the set ahead of me. I trudged along the beach, pushed through the foliage and then I saw the yellow police truck, and I literally burst into tears. I hated that truck so much. It was so uncomfortable it was like riding in a bucket with wheels. But I burst into tears and couldn’t stop.’
The series was created by writer Robert Thorogood after he heard about the suspicious death of English cricket coach Bob Woolmer at the 2007 Cricket World Cup in Jamaica, where he’d been in charge of the Pakistan team, and how local police had brought in Scotland Yard to help with the investigation. While that mystery was never solved, Robert pictured the idea of an uptight London copper trying to solve murders in the tropics – and one of the world’s most popular detective series was born. The show gets some of the BBC’S highest ratings, and is loved from India to Russia, Australia to Sweden, Kazakhstan to Canada.
When it first appeared on British television no one could possibly have anticipated its massive success. The first reviews were brutal; at the time Scandi-noir dramas were all the rage, and no one knew quite what to make of this lighthearted crime series. ‘There was a tidal wave of criticism,’ recalls Ben. ‘But the viewing figures were extraordinary.’
For all the beauty of the island, it’s a tough job that means being away from home for half the year. Ben left after two series because he hadn’t seen his newborn son for six months. ‘I was divorced once and I didn’t want it to happen again,’ he says. He was succeeded in the expat detective role by Kris Marshall, Ardal O’hanlon and now Ralf Little, who’ve all had to work in the gruelling heat wearing a suit and tie. For all his cheerful memories of the job, Ben was reminded of this once he started work on his cameo as Poole, which comes in a two-episode story in the middle of the series. ‘I’m still bad in the heat,’ he says. ‘I start to get heatstroke after about an hour. They could tell I was getting too hot again, because I slightly lose the plot and start talking gibberish.’
When Ben decided to leave after his initial stint, there were fears the show would crumble without him. But at the end of the last series it was still drawing more than eight million viewers per episode. ‘It’s become the Doctor Who of police drama, hasn’t it?’ laughs Ben. ‘It’s pretty unique.’