Anna Friel makes her glorious return to television drama with the arrival of new eight-part series Marcella next week.
It’s fair to say we are very excited and we think you should be too. But what the dickens is this ultra-tense crime drama all about, and what can we expect from it?
She plays the lady of the title, Marcella Backland – a troubled former detective with a slight Brummie accent living in London.
The story begins as she finds herself dragged back into an unsolved murder case and the search for the Grove Park killer at just the wrong time, because her marriage is breaking down.
The main problem is that Marcella is not exactly normal – and as the trailer has revealed, she soon becomes a detective, witness and suspect in the case she’s involved with. Pretty intense.
But what else do we know about the show? Well….
1. We know it’s pretty violent.
As well as the whole Anna-in-the-bath-covered-in-blood thing, the actress actually knocked herself out whilst filming the show. Her character doesn’t pull any punches, it seems.
‘She [Marcella] gets quite physical,’ Anna previously told Jonathan Ross. ‘There’s one direction I have to push my husband, who’s just told me he doesn’t love me anymore, down the stairs.
‘But [in] the last job he’s just had, he played a boxer so he was very strong and he’s really tall and my head comes up to his chest and as I’m pushing him down the stairs he came towards me.. and I knocked myself out.’
If one of the scenes shows her pushing her husband down the stairs we dread to think what the rest of the show holds (apart from murder, obviously).
The hallmarks of the Grove Park killer are that he ties ‘the victims’ hands and feet with cable ties before taping a plastic bag around their heads’. So he’s a fine, upstanding chap, or chappess, then.
2. It’s set in London, but written by a Swede who writes Nordic Noir…
Hans Rosenfeldt, who wrote acclaimed Scandi drama The Bridge, has penned this drama – so if you were hooked by that it’s time to tune in.
He’s a surprisingly cheerful-looking chap considering the stuff he writes. Maybe it’s the glasses.
And the director of the show, Charles Martin, worked on the English-speaking Wallander with Kenneth Branagh, which was pretty good, if a bit depressing.
3. But Marcella won’t look gloomy. Honest.
‘It does not look at all bleak, gloomy or depressing as some Nordic Noir does,’ Rosenfeldt told the Evening Standard.
‘For me, London is a huge city, very vibrant and colourful,’ he added.
Obviously the writer is living in an alternative universe if that’s his view of London, but whatever…
4. That guy from Corrie’s reeee-aaally creepy in it.
Ian Puleston-Davies is best known for playing lovable Owen Armstrong in Corrie, but he’s made a huge departure with this new role.
In Marcella he plays an ex-prisoner called Peter who was the main suspect in a serial killer case, which was originally worked on by Anna Friel’s character.
According to his co-ctar Laura Carmichael, he is ‘really creepy’ in the role, and she claims you won’t even recognise him as the same actor.
5. Some great little-known actors are in it…
There are lots of characters in this show, with new ones introduced each week – and the core cast includes some absolute acting gems.
Law And Order’s Jamie Bamber, W1A’s Nina Sosanya and up-and-coming actress Florence Pugh are just a few of the stellar cast you may not have heard of, and who aren’t Olivia Colman.
6. And some more well-known ones.
Alongside Anna Friel, Laura Carmichael of Downton Abbey fame crops up as a MA student studying criminology who meets up with potential killer Peter.
Lady Edith’s nosy enterprising spirit lives on, it seems.
7. This is not a show to unwind to.
Unless you find extremely ‘fast-paced’ dramas with lots of ‘twists and turns’ relaxing, you might want to make sure you’re in a switched-on zone before hitting this show up.
Marcella’s puzzles require a lot of your brainpower – hardly surprising for a show where the lead character is not sure how on earth they are actually involved in the search for a serial killer.
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8. It’s pronounced March-ella, not Marsella.
Got it? Good.
Marcella begins on Monday April 4 on ITV at 9pm
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