Beyond Paradise’s Kris Marshall reveals ‘out of touch’ parenting struggle – and real thoughts on family upheaval
Beyond Paradise fans were delighted to see Kris Marshall and Sally Breton reprise their roles as DI Humphrey Goodman and Martha Lloyd on the Death in Paradise spin-off comes back for a much-anticipated third season.
© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss BarrattAhead of the series’ return on Friday 28 March, leading duo Kris and Sally spoke to HELLO! and other press about everything in store for fans.
Their fostering journey
The official synopsis for season three promises “a host of baffling cases” and “unexpected hurdles” for Humphrey and Martha as they continue on their fostering journey.
Sally explained how the creators of the show worked to authentically portray the fostering experience. For this series producers spoke to a social worker and ran scripts past them to check tone.
© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss Barratt“It was really important the storylines felt right, and we’re a healthy representation of what fostering can be like,” said Sally.
“I feel, as in every different foster placement, I suppose it’s just, how you react to it is according to each child, and they’re learning on the fly, and they’re trying to do the very, very best they can with something they haven’t done very much of yet.”
Kris emphasised the importance of the show reflecting reality. “The truisms in the script have to be truly representative of people’s actual journey, for people who are actually experiencing this.”
Kris and Sally’s parenting experience
Both actors drew on their personal experience of parenting to portray the role.
Kris told HELLO!: “Parenting is often three steps forward, two steps back, and when you think you’re winning, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you.”
The 51-year-old shares two children, Thomas and Elsie, with his wife of thirteen years Hannah Dodkin, and shared with HELLO! the difficulties he experienced working away from home.
© UCG“Certainly something I could draw from is that I when I’m away from home for a long period of time, I’m not doing the more mundane facets of parenting, school runs and washing the clothes and trying to get them to bed on a at a decent time.
“When I’m away filming, I stopped doing those things for a good long while, and when I come back, I’m out of touch. I’m out of touch with the tricks and the management of the whole situation, and the way you where you work with your kids to make the whole thing work.
© Tullio M. Puglia“I become unmatched, not match fit, I become not a good parent, not using my humour to get to get them into bed, get into on the school bus in the morning and all that kind of stuff and so, I use that, I draw on my experience to think how that might impact someone who’s on a fostering journey. Because there’s that lack of permanence, even though my kids are permanent.”
Sally’s personal experience of parenthood was similarly a cornerstone in her portrayal of Martha.
“I understood the juggle personally. I understood the madness of it, I understood getting it wrong. I understand thinking right, I’m getting somewhere, and then the next day, there’s a new problem or another worry you’ve got on the shelf.
“I understand that you never get to a point where you think: ‘I’ve got this’, and then absolutely haven’t. And that is parenting in my experience.”
© BBC / Red Planet Pictures / Mark HarrisonA return to Guadeloupe?
While fans are delighted this season to see the cast return to the fictional town of Shipton Abbot, Humphrey and Martha first won audiences over in Death in Paradise, filmed in Guadeloupe in the Carribean.
Kris told HELLO!: “I loved my time in Guadeloupe. I had four amazing years out there. It’s a lifelong affinity now with the Caribbean, of which I will never lose.
“It’s my dream to go back there at some point, not just for a whole day either. I really, really have a huge affinity for the place.”
© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss BarrattDespite the idyllic lifestyle, Kris described the filming as “challenging” as “the Carribean is a tricky place to get home from”.
He added that the bonus of filming in Cornwall is being able to go home at weekends to be with family, but moving his family around for filming commitments was not quite so simple anymore.
“Now my kids are at an age where they have their own lives and so they don’t want to be moved wherever I’m filming. They want to stick with their mates and so I still have that thing where I live away from home during the week, but it’s closer to home. Equally, they’re both brilliant locations.”
© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss BarrattKris’ favourite episode
Fans have plenty to look forward to this series, including “a body discovered in a river on the county border, a perplexing chocolate box poisoning, a long-standing farming feud, and a spiking incident at sea”.
“I think the beauty about Beyond Paradise is that not every crime is a murder, and so it becomes more representative of this environment and the rural, wild beauty of the place,” Kris said.
© BBC / Red Planet Pictures / Mark Harrison“There’s only a certain amount of ways you could murder someone, I believe. I don’t have any personal experience, but there are myriad ways you can rustle sheep or steal art or commit arson or kidnap.
“We’ve got all those kind of crimes going on. The puzzle in episode six and the solving of the puzzle is probably the most incredible and incredibly intricate puzzle I’ve ever witnessed in TV. It’s insane, it’s so clever, I don’t know how they wrote it. It’s brilliant.”
A special cameo
Eagle-eyed fans will recognise a familiar face gracing the screen in episode one of the new series as comedian and Outnumbered star Hugh Dennis makes an appearance as a guest actor.
© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss BarrattKris described working with the Not Going Out actor as an “absolute delight”, but said Hugh “showed him up” during a particular moment.
“There’s a particularly brilliant scene with us running, where he frankly shows me up and I’m not out of shape.
“All I can say is that it was a very steep hill and I was in brogues.”
