As dark as this series gets, it doesn’t take itself too seriously...
FAR from your run-of-the-mill police procedural, Ragdoll serves up a cocktail of drama and comedy in equal measure, says Henry Lloyd-Hughes.
The former Inbetweeners star plays disgraced detective DS Rose in Alibi’s new six-part drama series, which is based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Cole.
“I would describe Ragdoll as a horror thriller that’s also really funny,” muses the 36-year-old Londoner, having worked with upcoming comic book series Ms Marvel writer Freddy Syborn for the part.
“I know that’s a strange combination, but all of those elements are at play; it’s genuinely scary, but also taut, and fast-paced – in fact, I under-estimated on the page how much of an action series it was.
“It’s like a Korean-style thriller that also has that vein of really British humour.”
DS Rose has just been reinstated to the London police when he and his colleagues, newly promoted DI Baxter (played by Anne Boleyn actress Thalissa Teixeira) and young American ingenue, DC Edmunds (Pretty Little Liars’ Lucy Hale) are called to a grim discovery in a block of flats.
A “ragdoll” hangs from the ceiling, made up of six different body parts.
When a hit list is released naming more victims due to die, the team are in a race against time... but will they be too late?
Intriguing. So what else can viewers expect from this “modern-day Faustian thriller”? Henry gives us the lowdown... vein of levity and humour and absurdity, is challenging, but what’s great about this show is, as dark as it gets, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
He used to be a slightly more senior officer, but he’s spent time away from the police due to a deeply troubling personal incident involving a suspect.
Where we meet him in the show is almost in a work rehabilitation setting, and he’s trying to find his feet.
Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the viewers, the case he’s getting involved in as we start the show gets him dragged back into the very case that got him removed from the police force in the first place. So that’s the push and pull.
Moving on from that, he’s trying to fix his mind – but also at the same time, more than anything else, trying to fix the case as well.
So he’s trying to juggle those things: fix his relationships, fix the case, and fix what’s left of his own sanity.
Baxter and Rose can’t live with each other, and they can’t live without each other.
Rose has very little in his life; it’s a very sparse existence.
Baxter anchors him to some kind of continuity, I suppose, but only in a certain context.
It can’t cross over beyond where the line in the sand is – but it’s unclear where that line is.
They’re completely entwined, but at the same time they’re very different people and not necessarily naturally suited.
They’re like polar opposites, and yet together they create a kinetic energy that they both feed off.
It’s an interesting relationship that shifts its shape throughout the series, in a way that is hopefully compelling, and makes people question what the nature of the relationship is.
On the second day on set, I had to leap like Spider-Man over several rows of people and beat someone unconscious in a courtroom.
I remember one day my children hadn’t slept at all and I was operating on about two hours’ sleep.
I was strapped to a wire on the top of a sevenstorey building, ready to film a scene with my eyes closed, where I had to hang off the side.
I remember opening my eyes and looking down, and it was like one of those anxiety dreams where you’re falling.
I’d been up for hours, I’d already had plenty of coffee, but it was like I’d just woken up and I was leaning diagonally over the edge.
Put it this way, some of those reactions are for real.
But we’ve got everything: fire, water, cars, chases, me sprinting through the streets of London beating people up, guns, nail guns, the whole box of tricks.
Filming around London is totally brilliant, and a complete nightmare.
I’ve lived in London my whole life, so obviously it’s a treat to be able to film in my back yard, and also to have a show that feels like it’s set in London.
The only way to do that wholeheartedly and authentically, in a way, is to have all those locations.
For the crew, and obviously for the production, it’s a huge undertaking to go from Tottenham Court Road on a Monday to Tooting on a Wednesday but there is a valueadded authenticity when you see me pounding the pavements and running through the streets.
Those are real streets and real houses, which adds to the flavour and the language of the show.
What I’ve enjoyed most about filming Ragdoll is that I’ve got to do more in one character than I have in anything else I’ve ever done.
The scope of physicality, the emotional range, jumping through genres, is like wearing different hats.
I’ve done huge action sequences, deeply upsetting emotional stuff, horror, and comedy.
I’ve never had to do all those things in the same project before.
Ragdoll premieres tomorrow on Alibi at 9pm