Actor Ralf Little has a confession to make.
Even though he plays the astonishingly sharp detective, DI Neville Parker, in the detective drama Death In Paradise, when he first reads the script, the actor never has a clue who the murderer is until it is revealed in the final scene.
Little, who returns as Neville in the BBC UKTV Christmas special of the perennially popular series set on the idyllic, fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie, is lost in admiration for the ingeniousness of the writers.
He just cannot fathom how they keep generating such inventive new plots.
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Ralf Little plays DI Neville Parker in Death In Paradise
“I’m going to ask them one day how they do it. They clearly sit there and say, ‘I tell you what would be fun. Let’s have a murder in a volcano or a jam factory’.”
First of all, “They ask, ‘Do we have the right location?’. And then they go, ‘Should we make it a gruesome one or a tidy one?’.
“Sometimes you imagine them saying, ‘It’d be really interesting to see somebody with a kettle balanced on their head. How would that have happened? Let’s just work backwards from there.’ ”
The 43-year-old actor, whose character in Death In Paradise is an allergy-plagued city-dweller more used to urban British home comforts than the bug-ridden rural life on Saint Marie, carries on, “I have no idea how they do it. I am extremely surprised year in year out and week in week out how they manage to come up with innovative ways to make this thing work.
“And I never get it. When I’m reading the script, I never, ever figure out what’s going to happen. When I read the denouement, it’s as much as a surprise to me as it is to everyone else who’s watching it.”
The writers have delivered a typically clever plot for this year’s Christmas special.
“The mystery is great,” confirms Little, who has also starred in The Royle Family and Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps.
“But it’s also about family values. The mystery centres around a family. It’s about what family means. That’s the theme of this episode.”
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Crime doesn’t stop at Christmas in Death In Paradise.
Neville’s own family make an appearance in this episode in the form of his mother, played by Doon Mackichan. Little discloses thatshe is not at all what you might have anticipated.
“On some level, Neville is like he is because he was a little bit hobbled when he was a kid as he was allergic to everything. That’s not fake. All that’s true. So his mum had to look after him in a way.”
However, he adds, “The mother who arrives on the island is almost the exact opposite of what you’d expect. She’s really fun-loving and free-spirited.
“And actually, she’s a little bit like, ‘Neville, come on. Maybe when you were a kid, you needed to be a little bit more insular. But now it’s time to live life a bit more.’ So she’s the antithesis of him and the antithesis of what you might expect. She is slightly embarrassing to him.”
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Death in Paradise is set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.
Little goes on to consider what Neville’s perfect Christmas Day would be like.
“That is an interesting one because up until recently he would have said that his ideal Christmas would be the traditional Christmas dinner and then down the local with some friends doing a pop quiz.
“He would have preferred to do all the things that he’s done his whole life and remained very much in his comfort zone.”
But, “Since we’ve got to know him in the show, Neville now lives his perfect Christmas. Maybe he’s just about reaching the point where even he might admit that his perfect Christmas is with his friends and colleagues here in the sunshine.”
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Ralf Little as DI Neville Parker with Shantol Jackson as Naomi Thomas in Death In Paradise.
Neville’s changing appreciation of Christmas mirrors the way he has gradually altered since he has been on Saint Marie.
According to the actor, “If Neville’s journey on this show has been an evolution that has taken him out of his comfort zone and expanded his horizons, then I think the same applies to his Christmas.
“Often, before experiencing something new, he will think he’s going to hate it, and then afterwards, he will slowly come around to the idea that he actually loved it. So why not the same for the perfect Christmas Day?”
There is one aspect of Neville’s traditional British Christmas that he will not be able to change, though. Little smiles that, “He might not be able to quite move on yet from his favourite dish – chicken and chips.”
Death In Paradise Christmas Special – BBC UKTV Wednesday, December 27
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