If you spot Silent Witness forensics expert Jack Hodgson snacking on murder victims' brains at the crime scene, don't be too alarmed.

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Revealing the behind-the-scenes secrets of the long-running BBC crime drama, actor David Caves tells RadioTimes.com that the grisly brain-splatters are actually made out of banana. And walnut. Actually sounds quite... tasty?

Caves, who admits to a "morbid fascination with it and how they do it", explains: "I love when they tell me that they've made brain matter out of bananas and red blood and walnuts and stuff." (The red blood, we are hoping, is fake.)

And even though his character Dr Thomas Chamberlain is a forensic pathologist who explores plenty of dead bodies, Richard Lintern reckons Jack's work is bloodier than his.

"The crime scene stuff is sometimes a bit more brain-splattering than digging out the kidneys," he says.

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So are the actors ever tempted to see what it tastes like?

"Occasionally I just have a little –" Caves jokes, pretending to wipe up some "brain" with a finger and eat it. "That's kind of Jack's thing. At the crime scene he's like a vampire, tastes the blood. I'll pitch that to them, see if they want to take that one on..."

Lintern already has a script ready, complete with munching noises: "What are you doing Jack?" "Nothing!"

It seems Silent Witness could be about to take a strange turn...

Richard Lintern and David Caves were talking to RadioTimes.com at the BBC Worldwide Showcase.

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Filming for series 22 of Silent Witness begins in April

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