The Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is Paradise found for cast of TV crime show

There is an old adage in the community of actors that roles either offer you the best work you will ever do, the most money you will ever be paid or the most idyllic filming location you will ever visit.

"Well, you'd be perverse if you didn't like it, wouldn't you?" actor Don Warrington, who has played Death in Paradise's police commissioner Selwyn Patterson for eight seasons, says with a smile.

Don Warrington, Shyko Amos, Ardal O’Hanlon, Josephine Jobert and Tobi Bakare in Death in Paradise. Credit:Jonathan Ford

In this particular case, the idyllic filming location is the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which has been home to the hit BBC crime drama since 2011.

"When you finish the day shooting, you look out on this wonderful warm sea and you could dip in it and you could come out refreshed and that's fantastic," Warrington says. "You can have a beer, if that's what you want. There's lovely food there. While it's hard work, you can play hard too if you want."

Ardal O’Hanlon as DI Jack Mooney.Credit:Dan Goldsmith

The show's lead, the relatively new recruit Ardal O'Hanlon, who plays detective inspector Jack Mooney, concedes the extraordinary filming location was a big deal-sweetener when he signed on.

"It's certainly a big part of the initial attraction but very quickly you learn it's not all paradise," O'Hanlon says. "It's a tough shoot, everyone would agree. You live together in a tight knit group for pretty much five months of the year, you get to know people very well and it becomes quite special.

"From my point of view, it's a godsend in terms of stretching yourself as an actor," O'Hanlon adds. "You've got to try and be light, got to do all that but you've got to play the drama as well. It's a real balancing act. It's a real technical challenge actually, as an actor.

"But you also get to work with all sorts of brilliant people," he says. "We have four directors during the shoot, innumerable guest stars, the core cast and you're kept very busy during the day so you're not snorkelling or hiking up volcanoes or sipping daiquiris on the beach.

"You really get your teeth into something here."

The series was created by Robert Thorogood, the story of a Metropolitan Police cop exchanging the wet, grey streets of London for an overseas posting. Ben Miller's Richard Poole was replaced by Kris Marshall's Humphrey Goodman after two seasons and O'Hanlon's Mooney took over at the beginning of season six.

At its heart, the series taps deeply into the notion of a sea change.

"It is a fantasy, first and foremost," says O'Hanlon. "It's not ground in reality, so there is an element [of that] I think that was always there. There's always this idea that you want to be somewhere else and be somebody else."

It is true, O'Hanlon adds, for both character and viewer. "From a character point of view, my character Johnny, he's a man reinventing himself after the death of his wife. For the viewers it's pure escapism, that's the primary attraction."

Equally, the series itself is structurally simple. "There's not too much blood in it, bad things happen but not really," Warrington says.

"I think there's something very reassuring about it in that you know that the bad guys will get caught and that the people who you followed through the series will all get on and everybody's going to be happy and the sun's going to shine and life will go on."

The real world, O'Hanlon chimes in, is perhaps too complex and Death in Paradise is something of a reaction to that.

Arriving on the set, O'Hanlon said he was acutely aware of the show's history and that "you're always reminded of the very high ratings and the international sales".

"There's also meeting a whole bunch of new people as well," he says. "My own personal philosophy about these things is that you can only do what you can do. I learned over the years not to beat myself up as much as I would have, maybe 20 years ago or 10 years ago, about things like this.

"It's an acting job at the end of the day," he adds. "And it's very enjoyable and I'm very lucky to be doing it. I wouldn't agonise about it too much. What I would do is put enormous preparation into it and work incredibly hard and try impress the lads and do the very best you can."

O'Hanlon handled himself excellently from day one, Warrington says.

"If we're worth our salt, we are learning all the time," Warrington says. "It's a bit like rehearsing a play. Every day you learn a bit about the person you're doing the scene with. It's the same with this because we haven't got a great deal of time so we have to be smart. We have to work with each other otherwise we're going to be in trouble."

Despite his brilliance as a comedian, and the tendency in Death in Paradise to indulge the wry, O'Hanlon has resisted playing the part for full-blown comedy.

"It's always been kind of quirky and funny and I think there is a little bit of trying to keep it light," he says. "But it's a delicate thing, because I quickly learned that comedy set pieces don't really work. It's like you force the comedy in a show like that it just won't work. It won't sit with that show.

"You also have to take the crime quite seriously," he adds. "You've got to find the moments. It's a real tricky balancing act every day trying to figure out how can we crowbar a little bit of humour in there but without taking away from the credibility of the show and the investigation. It's amazing, it's fascinating."

WHAT Death in Paradise (new season)

WHEN BBC First, Friday (January 11), 8.30pm

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