STACK NZ Magazine April 2015 Issue 61

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In Broadchurch , just about everybody
seems to be hiding a secret of some
sort. So in some ways, it’s not surprising
that a similar sort of secrecy pervades the
TV production as a whole. For example, in
the first series – in which detectives Alec
Hardy (David Tennant) and Ellie Miller (Olivia
Coleman) hunt the murderer of a young boy
in a sleepy coastal town – the cast were kept
in the dark about the identity of the killer right
until to the very end of shooting.
And writer and creator Chris Chibnall
was also keeping resolutely tight-lipped in
interviews before the start of the second
season, declining to even reveal the time
frame in which the new series was set in
relation to the first.
“I think you don’t want to be secret just
for the sake of it,” he explains. “The purpose
of the secrecy is can we get this story to the
audience without them knowing what it is
before they see it, because nowadays there’s
so many spoilers. It just feels like what the
audience responded to in the first series of
Broadchurch was they didn’t know what was
coming.
“Funnily enough on the first series it
was a bit of fun not telling the actors who
the killer was; it was about secrecy, but it
was also keeping some ambiguity in their
performances. Everybody sort of bought into
it, to be honest, which I was quite surprised
about. We told them when they joined the
project and they were like ‘okay that’s cool’.”
Of course, by now most people will
probably know that the second series of
Broadchurch continues a few months after
the end of the first one, with old wounds
being reopened when the murder trial begins
and the accused killer shocks everyone in
the community by pleading not guilty. At
the same time, Hardy persuades a reluctant
Miller to help him in an off-the-books
investigation into the unsolved murder case
which prompted his transfer to the town of
Broadchurch.
As well as Tennant and Coleman, most of
the main characters from the first series have
returned for the second season, including
Jodie Whitaker and Andrew Buchan as the
murdered boy’s parents, and Arthur Darvill as
the local vicar.
However, there are also plenty of new
faces, too: Marianne Jean-Baptiste and
Charlotte Rampling play the rival barristers
trying the murder case, while Eve Myles and
James D’Arcy join the cast as key figures in
the new murder investigation.
Chibnall was delighted that the French-
based Rampling agreed to sign on for the
show, even though he was doubtful they
would be able to get her. “I think some
actors are quite adventurous and want to try
new things. I knew she hadn’t done
a British long form television series
and I just thought ‘let’s give it a go’.
Luckily Broadchurch, the first series,
was going out in France just as we
had started talking to her, so she had
watched the first couple of episodes
whilst she was waiting for our English
DVDs to arrive.
“She’s an incredibly rich and
complex performer. Also the thing
about Charlotte – which I think you
don’t see that often on screen with her
– is she’s very funny, so there’s a real gentle
humour to that character as well that she
really brings in. We were all jumping up and
down with excitement.”
With its dark tone and its focus on human
drama, Broadchurch has been seen by many
as the UK’s answer to acclaimed Nordic Noir
series such as The Killing ; like the latter,
the English show has been an international
hit and has already inspired a number of
remakes.
However, Chibnall downplays the
influence of Scandinavian crime shows on
Broadchurch. “It’s less the Nordic noir for me,
because I’ve wanted to do this for about ten
years but nobody was interested, frankly. For
me, there’s two big shows historically: one
of which is Twin Peaks, just in terms of that
single murder, a community, a story about a
town. The other one is a show Steven Bochco
did called Murder One, which was one case
over 22 episodes. So those are the two that
I think I must really be lodged in me as a
writer.
“And the thing about both those shows is
they’re quite cheeky in their storytelling. I like
a nice cliffhanger: emotion and truth is really
important but also big narrative twists. We’re
all story addicts and I loved that those shows
did that and I think that informs Broadchurch
as well.”
with CHRIS CHIBNALL
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