British TV favourite Stephen Tompkinson reveals all about his new detective role – and what he learnt from DCI Banks
"It was joyous to work on."
Stephen Tompkinson has played plenty of detectives in his time on our screens, but his latest take on the murder mystery genre takes us into an entirely new realm for him - the surrealist art movement.
This is Not a Murder Mystery, a series filmed in Ireland and Belgium which is now coming to U and U&Drama, is set at a lavish English estate in the 1930s.
The series sees a group of guests at a private art exhibition shocked to learn that one of their number has been murdered. It just so happens that all of these guests - and suspects - are also rising stars of the surrealist movement, including René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Lee Miller, Man Ray and Max Ernst.
Into the mix comes Scotland Yard DCI Thistlethwaite (Tompkinson), who is called to the estate to investigate the murder. He is joined by a new detective partner in the form of DC Mary Quant, played by Donna Banya.
Describing his new character, Tompkinson told Radio Times in an exclusive interview: "He's had a military background, and he's sort of traditional through and through - although he does give a hint to being more forward thinking than his initial persona could make you think.
"He's quite gruff, does everything by the rule book, but he's also looking to move things forward into the future and sort of mentoring his new detective partner. That's a very nice relationship that Donna and I established, she was wonderful to work with."
Tompkinson continued: "You don't get many opportunities to do joint Belgian-Irish productions, with a cast from all around Europe. It was fascinating. It was joyous to work on. It really galvanised everyone. The cast and crew were very close and really determined to make this thing the best that we could.
"And I think the design of the piece as well, from every department, was fantastic. We had a wonderful day developing the look for Thistlethwaite. They found the small moustache for him, because I would have had time to grow one in myself, if required. So, yeah, we had a great day doing that, and we found the look quite easily, and then everything started to fall into place."
Meanwhile, Tompkinson also revealed that he "did have a good guess" as to who the killer was before he got to the end of reading the scripts for the series.
"I suppose doing years of DCI Bank had led me to think about various who had done it and who hadn't. So I had a bit of an advantage there as well," he said.
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The show's title refers to Magritte's 1929 work The Treachery of Images, which features the image of a pipe alongside text saying "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" - "This is not a pipe".
This is Not a Murder Mystery will air on U&Drama from Wednesday 29 April at 8pm.
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Authors
James Hibbs is a Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering programmes across both streaming platforms and linear channels. He previously worked in PR, first for a B2B agency and subsequently for international TV production company Fremantle. He possesses a BA in English and Theatre Studies and an NCTJ Level 5 Diploma in Journalism.
