Back on our screens in spin-off Beyond Paradise, Death In Paradise’s Kris Marshall has revealed how filming for the BBC series was far more difficult than it might have seemed on screen
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Filming BBC One’s Death in Paradise on the sun-drenched Caribbean island of Guadeloupe for six months of the year might seem to be a dream job for an actor.
But Kris Marshall, who starred as Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman in three seasons of the long-running BBC show, says that, behind-the-scenes, things can “start to unravel” very quickly thanks to the brutal conditions.
The popular detective series is generally shot between December and May every year. Kris explains on the My Time Capsule podcast: “They film it in the off season – the rainy season in the Caribbean. It’s cheaper because it’s just not the main tourist season.”
That schedule helps the series stay on budget, but there’s a serious penalty to be paid, Kris says: “You do get useful sunny days, of course, but it rains nearly every day. And until it rains, it builds up this incredible humidity and it can get up to 40 or 41 degrees.”
Kris says that would be idyllic, if you were actually on holiday: “It’s manageable when you’re on a beach in a in a nice pair of budgie smugglers,” he explains, but it’s no fun if you’re actually in costume.
Filming in the glorious sunshine of Guadeloupe means the interior scenes also have to be very brightly-lit for consistency’s sake. “What they do,” Kris explains, “is bring every light they’ve got in the truck into this room when you’re filming inside to bring up the light levels so they match with the outside and, you slowly begin to just cook.”
He says that, under the harsh studio lights, temperatures can climb to over 50 degrees. In these sweltering conditions, Kris adds, actors then have to repeat their complex lines over and over again: “It’s quite intricate… in the way it’s written. If you get a word out of place, the whole thing kind of starts to unravel.”
All the time, Kris adds, he could see the tempting waters of the Caribbean though the window, just a hundred yards away.
Former EastEnders star Don Gilet, who is the latest actor to play the lead detective on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie, reveals that he’s often tempted to run off set and dive into the sea when the heat gets too much to handle.
Don told BBC News that he works hard to retain his composure during filming, “even during those testing times when every sinew is screaming at me to run off the set and dive into the sea, swimming pool or an ice-cold beer – whichever happens to be closer at the time!”.