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Kris Marshall: An ‘English gent abroad’ who’s familiar with Changi Airport

LIVERPOOL — When Kris Marshall plays a brilliant but socially awkward detective stationed in the tropics, all he has to do is play up the “Englishness” of the character.

Kris Marshall stars in Death In Paradise. Photo: BBC, Red Planet Productions

Kris Marshall stars in Death In Paradise. Photo: BBC, Red Planet Productions

LIVERPOOL — When Kris Marshall plays a brilliant but socially awkward detective stationed in the tropics, all he has to do is play up the “Englishness” of the character.

In the television series Death In Paradise, the Love Actually actor stars as Humphrey Goodman, a detective inspector who solves murder mysteries on an equatorial Caribbean island — paradise to anyone who’s British.

The character always manages to get his man, of course, but in all other situations, he’s a floundering fish out of water, which makes the job that much more enjoyable for Marshall. “It’s great fun to play it because it’s quite dyspraxic,” he said. “Perhaps if you were playing a bit more of a straight character, then you’d be bound by those parameters a bit more. But fortunately, given the fact that the character is quite bumbling, I do employ a sort of ‘English gent abroad’ approach.”

He explained: “I don’t mean a beer-swilling (Englishman) in certain areas of Spain or Amsterdam or Gdansk on stag weekends! What I mean is, the English people who live and work abroad. They sort of try and keep a semblance of Englishness surrounding them. They bring their culture with them, as most people do. The English have a very different way of looking at the world. It’s quirky. I don’t know whether it’s to do with our culture or our weather or the fact that we drink too much. We wear our Englishness on our back like a rucksack. We carry it around with us all over the world.”

And that bumbling characteristic, mused the 43-year-old, might simply be “a mask”. He continued: “I think the English are as rude and abrasive as anyone, sometimes. But I think we mask it with this kind of apologetic affectation — almost like an act, really. It’s almost like we revert to how people view us, rather than how we view ourselves. Because of our history, everyone always has an opinion about the British, and I think we foresee that ... and so we go, ‘I know, I’m sorry I’m British, and I apologise in advance for that.’”

As for the new fifth season, Marshall said there will be wedding bells, “but I can’t tell you whose”.

Would he then consider coming to Singapore to do an episode of Death In Paradise? After all, we pointed out, we are also a tropical paradise and we have death, too.

“But no chewing gum!” he guffawed. “Yeah, I would absolutely love to. I know Singapore quite well, actually — I spent quite a large amount of my childhood growing up in Hong Kong, and so I would always travel through Singapore on my way to Hong Kong and spend quite a bit of time in Singapore. My cousin lives in Singapore. So, yeah, I know Changi Airport quite well! I think the show would work anywhere tropical, and I think it would be great to transpose the show to another location.”

You’re welcome to come and be British here, Kris Marshall. Just don’t bring any gum with you, thanks.

Death In Paradise Series 5 is available on BBC First (StarHub TV Ch 522).

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