Shetland may be the setting for one of our bleakest crime dramas, but for new cast member Ashley Jensen, filming alongside killer whales, puffins and seals was a magical experience.
In the upcoming eighth series of the show, Ashley joins as DI Ruth Calder, who will be teaming up with DS Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh, played by Alison O’Donnell. The change follows the departure of Douglas Henshall and Mark Bonnar, who played DI Jimmy Perez and criminal Duncan Hunter.
“Every day we’d be like, ‘Are we going to see an orca today?’” says Ashley. “There are orcas, there are seals. I was doing a scene on the beach and I was wearing cashmere, sweating, and there were about 40 seals on the beach, all basking in the sun. I thought, ‘This
is just magical and this is Scotland.’ It was one of those moments where you had a wee warm heart.”
Fans love the show for its serious scripts and Ashley was so dedicated to learning her lines that she missed out on joining the crew for evenings of wildlife spotting and bathing in the clear waters.
“Everybody on the crew would be going, ‘Did you see the puffins?’ and I’d say, ‘It’s alright for you – I’m going home, learning lines and working out what I’m going to be doing tomorrow.’ They were all running about, wild swimming or looking at puffins. I was
so jealous,” Ashley confides.
However, on her last night, Ashley set off to see what she’d been missing. “Me and Stuart, my driver, went looking for the puffins and they’d all gone to bed,” she laments. “We saw about two puffins, and I was shown photographs of the crew with thousands of puffins!”
But Ashley still appreciated the beauty of her location, saying she usually ends up filming in mundane locations like Beaconsfield or Gerrards Cross.
“It has this bleak beauty about it. We were fortunate enough that even when the weather was s**t, it was magical. The landscape is like nothing I’d ever seen before. Everyday I delighted in the sheep!”
Her character DI Ruth Calder, however, does not share her enthusiasm. Ruth is a Shetland native who has left the island for a life in London, only to find a gangland killing leads her home.
“When the opportunity comes up for her to go to Shetland, she’s less than pleased,” reveals Ashley. “Not because she dislikes Shetland, but because that’s where she’s from and she left at the age of 18 – and left for a reason.
“So she’s being drawn back and having to face her past, her ghosts, people that knew her, people she knew. She’s clearly not expecting to be there for very long and arrives with a wee tiny case and without her hair straighteners. She thinks she’s only there for a few days to solve the crime.”
Ashley became a household name after Ricky Gervais cast her in 2005’s Extras . From there she joined Ugly Betty, and in 2014 she took the lead in Agatha Raisin .
After he initially gave her her big break, Ashley believes Ricky also helped her cross over into serious acting by casting her in his Netflix hit After Life as a care home nurse.
“As an actor, if you’re in comedy you want to be taken seriously, and if you’re in drama, you’re like, ‘I’m light! I’m funny!’” says Ashley. “I’ve been very, very lucky that I’ve been able to bridge the two worlds.”
When Douglas Henshall and Mark Bonnar’s left the show, there was much chatter about who would join, and Scottish Line Of Duty star Martin Compston’s name was much bandied about. So Ashley was thrilled when she won the role.
Ashley knows Mark from when she played his wife in Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe. She says, “I had a text from Mark and he said ‘well done’ when I got the job.”
Alison O’Donnell’s character Tosh steps up to lead the drama alongside Calder, and the actresses are enjoying proving that women are just as capable of leading a show and driving the narrative as men.
Alison explains, “Our focus puller Paul said, ‘It’s so nice to work on a show that passes the Bechdel test every single day.’ The Bechdel test is when two women, who both have names, are talking about something other than a man. Loads of films don’t have any scenes which pass the Bechdel test, but this passes it every day, which is very nice.”
Shetland,Wednesday, 9pm, BBC One
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