Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

The world of London’s only female private detective, Eliza Scarlet, is full of unpaid bills and unmet potential.

CLIP

Phelps May I enquire if you’ve lost something? Some jewelry perhaps?

Eliza Yes. My mother’s wedding ring. Have you found it?

Phelps Does your ring have an inscription?

Eliza Erm…from my father to my mother. ‘For my beloved Lavinia Scarlet’.

Phelps Then it is yours.

Ivy I’ve told her so many times to get it resized. But does she listen?

Phelps It was found last night in the City Mortuary by a Mr Potts.

Ivy Is he the one who calls you an unchristian woman with the morals of an alley cat?

Eliza Yes, that’s the one.

Phelps You’re under arrest.

Eliza What?

Jace Even if she’s not in the clink — a situation that happens more often than Eliza might like — she’s on the hunt for the respect of her crime solving peers and the general public at large.

CLIP

Fitzroy Inspector Wellington specifically ordered me not to converse with you Miss Scarlet.

Eliza Very well. Although I am surprised that a gentleman with impeccable manners such as yourself would be so rude.

Fitzroy I am only following orders. Please forgive me. I do hold you in the highest regards.

Jace Still, as often as not, it’s Eliza who ends up cracking the case — much to the annoyance of Scotland Yard.

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Eliza How childish men are. Still he’ll get over it.

Duke No he won’t. Loyalty is everything to men like Monro and I disobeyed an order.

Eliza Oh, so this is my fault?

Duke Actually, yes.

Eliza I was the one who saved Mrs Thackery’s life and most probably yours too!

Jace The wit and pluck of Eliza Scarlet and Inspector William Wellington comes from the mind of series creator Rachael New, who joins us to explore where she found the inspiration for her winning female investigator, and what the next few episodes might reveal for the scrappy detective.

Jace And this week, we are joined by Miss Scarlet and the Duke creator and executive producer, Rachael New. Welcome.

Rachael New Thank you for having me. Nice to speak to you, Jace.

Jace So the timing of this interview is unusual. Season two is currently airing in the States, but you’ve already shot and completed season three. Having said that, I want to go even further back and talk about the genesis of Miss Scarlet and the Duke. When and where did the idea for Miss Scarlet first come to you?

Rachael Well, I had the idea, I had the characters in my head for quite, quite a long time, but I think it was around possibly 2016 — I was sitting in my garden and I sort of was feeling inspired. I wanted to write a spec script, because I’ve just come off of a detective show in the U.K. And so I just started to jot some ideas down and, and then about three hours later, I wandered in into my kitchen and said to my husband, ‘What do you think about London’s first lady detective?’ And he was like, ‘I love it.’ So I was like, ‘Okay,’ And he’s kind of the toughest audience. So I was like, ‘There might be something in this.’ And then it kind of just went from there, really. It was a very…it was such a passion project. And in my head, it was a really easy script to write. But I’m pretty sure that I’ve just created that illusion all these years later. I’m sure it was actually really painful. But when I look back, I think about when I was actually writing it, I remember it being hugely enjoyable. I’m sure there were a few frustrations, but it was very cathartic. I absolutely loved it. And it was a mixture of all my passions, which, you know, detective shows, it has a very strong female protagonist. I love historical drama, I love historical fiction. I’m really interested in the Victorian Era. So it was just a mix of all these different things, really.

Jace Getting that thumbs up from Ben, is that sort of like the Paul Hollywood handshake?

Rachael Yes. Yes, it is. I mean, I wouldn’t tell him that because he’ll be very conceited. But, yes, we have very similar sensibilities. And it was nice to hear that someone else that I hugely respect saying, ‘Yeah, that’s a really good idea.’ So yeah, I mean, to be honest, I would have written it even if he hated it, it was nice.

Jace You’ve said that among the influences for the character of Eliza Scarlet, were Gone With the Wind‘s iconic Southern Belle herself, Scarlett O’Hara and Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet. Besides, for hiding their names within that of your protagonist, how did Scarlett and Lizzie offer up a springboard for the character of Eliza Scarlet?

Rachael Well, actually, it’s funny because I really wasn’t aware — Scarlet came actually more from do you remember Cluedo?

Jace Mmmhmm.

Rachael When I was when I was a kid, I always wanted to be Miss Scarlett, always. So that was more and it was also, A Study in Scarlet, the Sherlock Holmes. So just this Scarlet kept coming up, coming up. I know it sounds crazy. I really wasn’t aware of doing it because of Scarlett O’Hara, and I loved that film as a kid. I’ve got very different views of it now, but as a young woman, a young girl watching that very sort of strong female protagonist on screen, it really did blow my mind. And I love Jane Austen, Lizzie Bennet is my favorite Austen protagonist. I think she’s lots of people’s favorites. So I probably did take a bit of them and mix it up into Eliza. Initially there was an awful lot of me, in terms of her hopes, her dreams, her aspirations, her frustrations. But since casting Kate, when I when I write Eliza now I really do have Kate in my mind. I think she sort of…I feel like I gave my baby over to Kate and she now runs with it. And she does just such a beautiful job. I never get tired of seeing her rehearse. And when we’re shooting and what she brings to Eliza, I just love it. I love working with her. So maybe there’s a bit of Kate in there now, too. Now I know Kate well, Eliza’s just a mix of lots of different elements, really.

CLIP

Clementine Miss Scarlet. Welcome to my castle. Hope you’ve made yourself at home?

Eliza Hello Clementine. Yes, yes.  Moses has shown me all the amenities. Thank you for allowing me to shelter here. I have allegations made against me that are completely false.

Clementine Aren’t they always?

Jace I mean, I do feel personally vindicated, because I have always wondered if you weren’t just the biggest Cludeo — or what we would call Clue in the States — Cluedo fan. I mean, Miss Scarlet solving mysteries in the conservatory, all of that. Were you were you always drawn to murder mysteries, given how many you’ve now written?

Rachael I don’t think so. Not really. I really love period drama and I’ve always been drawn to that. Two of my favorite shows in recent years are Wolf Hall and The Crown, so I love anything like that. But I did find myself, I sort of, a bit like Eliza, I kind of stumbled into things and I did find myself working on various detective shows and I really enjoyed them. I like having a spine to, you know, when I’m writing a story, I like that sort of comfort of that structure. And, for me, Miss Scarlet, the most important elements to it were really the serial, like you have your crime of the week and I love writing them and Ben and I love storylining them and that and with that, it’s generally something that will somehow be connected to Eliza or Duke or, you know, a bit of social commentary as well. So they are, they are super important, the crimes of the week. But essentially I think people are really investing in the serial of our characters and that’s what they are really hooked on. I mean, I do have a look at Twitter. I don’t think anyone ever mentions the crimes. It’s always generally, Duke and Eliza, this this season, you know maybe a bit of, Eliza and Nash, you know. So the crime of the week is important and I do really enjoy writing it, but I really get a kick out of, yeah, the drama between, you know, the dynamics between our regular characters.

Jace Miss Scarlet and the Duke is set squarely in the Victorian era. Change is in the air and huge shifts are occurring in society through industrialization and colonization. Conversely, there’s a lot of repression as people are being pigeonholed into specific roles in this era. How does this provide the ideal backdrop for the story that you wish to tell?

Rachael It’s perfect, really, because I wanted a recognizable world so that a modern audience would want to watch — maybe people that wouldn’t necessarily enjoy period drama generally. But I also wanted to say, look, it wasn’t that long ago, but look how different it was for women back then. And it’s it was really important to me to have this very strong female protagonist, but put her within the constraints of her world. So she has to operate within these limitations. And that has to mean she has to be smarter. It means she has to really plan and work out how she’s going to get the best of the situation. It’s more fun. It’s much more fun having all these obstacles in her way and just enjoying seeing how she’s going to go this one or how she’s going to solve this. And I think Eliza’s at her best when she’s at loggerheads with somebody, because that’s when we see her kind of true nature or that’s when we see her really use her smarts. So it’s entertaining. I guess with this show, yes, I wanted the drama, but I was a comedy writer for a long time as well. So I wanted to have a real mix of drama punctuated with comedy. And at the end of the day, the most important thing for me was that it was entertaining. And I think it is from what people say about the show. I do think it kind of rocks along, which is, with a bit of fun, to it doesn’t take itself hugely seriously. That was very important to me.

Jace Eliza is an outlier in Victorian-era London. She’s a working woman who sets herself up as a private investigator following in her father’s footsteps. William Wellington is a Scotsman who grew up in the workhouse working in London. Moses is a black man. Rupert is a closeted gay man. Did you always envision the show’s cast as a collection of outsiders?

Rachael Absolutely. That was that was the main kind of ingredients for me. I wanted to write about what people might call “misfits,” because that’s where the drama lies, where you’ve got people that have pressures on them and they haven’t quite got to where they wanted to. So I think that becomes a really kind of interesting premise. But then on the other hand, you know, I think most people at some point in their life feel that they’re outsiders. I know I certainly did. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think everybody’s very unique and most people don’t feel that they belong a lot of the time. I think that’s what pushes people on. And so I find that really, really interesting that they’ve all got their own personal struggles. And I think that’s why people tune in every week, because it’s just more there’s more opportunity for drama and comedy and pathos. So yeah, that was very intentional to create this sort of gang of misfits.

Jace If Eliza was influenced then by Pride and Prejudice and maybe some Gone with the Wind and some Cluedo in there, too, what were the influences for characters like two of my favorites, Moses and Ivy?

Rachael Well, Moses for me was that kind of man with no name. As a kid, I used to love watching the spaghetti westerns with my with my dad and my older brothers. And there was just something very cool — Josey Wales is one of my favorite films as well, and I just like the idea of this kind of outsider who would just rock up at different moments throughout the story. And Eliza can never quite pin him down, which really annoys her because she’s a bit of a control freak and she likes to know what’s going on and and likes to know, you know, she likes to just feel a bit in control. And Moses is just like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to tell you anything. I’m not going to tell you where I’ve been, who I’ve been talking to, where I’m going,’ which would drive her mad. And I just think that it’s just a really lovely dynamic between them. So that for me was, was Moses. And Ivy, I just felt that Eliza needed — she is a real outsider and I felt like she needed that sort of, that kind of comfort, that anchor at home, which would allow us as the audience to really through our efforts to really understand who Eliza is, let’s dig down a little deeper and to see what her hopes and her dreams were and are. And I think Ivy allows us to do that and, you know, it’s a really beautiful relationship, Ivy, yes, she is her housekeeper, but she’s also her friend and really her mother. She’s known Eliza since she was born. I loved those domestic scenes. Some of my favorite scenes are between Cathy Belton and Kate. There’s more of those in season two and three where they’re in the kitchen talking about life. And Cathy Belton is such a beautiful actor. They’re really moving, some of those scenes. So, that to me was really important, that Eliza have that person in her life that she could go to to talk to if she needed to. And there’s a lot of love between them, which is lovely.

Jace Before this next question, a brief word from our sponsors…

Jace Eliza is thrust against society’s expectations. She’s a middle-class woman who needs to earn a living. She won’t marry for money, and she genuinely loves her vocation. Season two opens with Eliza freeing a set of caged birds in a gentleman’s club. That to me was the perfect metaphor for this entire series.

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Eliza Lord Bullingdon? The matter of my fee?

Lord Bullingdon Oh of course! I shall send payment to your office on Friday.

Eliza May I ask why not now?

Lord Bullingdon Because it is not convenient.

Eliza But Friday is not convenient for me. Our contract clearly states payment in full on delivery.

Lord Bullingdon I have daughters your age. If they spoke to me in that kind of fashion, they would be reprimanded at once. You will be paid at a time agreeable for me young lady. Now, I bid you goodnight. What in heaven’s name? You would not dare.

Jace Do you see Eliza as opening the bars of her own cage through this series?

Rachael I think she certainly tries to. I think she will forever try to. That will never stop being her mission, because the fact of the matter is, yes, she can change her immediate world with people that learn to maybe respect her. But, you know, women in general, there is an awful long way to go. So she’s an interesting one, Eliza, because she is kind of consumed with her own journey and her own mission. And we did sort of touch upon this in season one where, you know, she’s slightly accused of maybe not opening the doors for other women, but you kind of relate to her. You know, it’s a different time. It’s such a tough time. And, yes, I think she does want to release, to open that cage. And I think she will never stop trying to escape her constraints. But I think it will be a lifelong mission for her. I do think we see her progress further in season two. I think she knows that, yes, she has got a long way to go. But with her determination and drive, yes, she will never stop trying to set herself free and be a woman, an independent woman who is, you know, financially, somebody who can stand on her own two feet and pay her own bills.

Jace Was that notion of her sort of finding her sense of agency a vital component of how you saw this show coming together?

Rachael Absolutely. Yeah, it’s this central drive for this show. This woman in a man’s world utterly determined to show everybody what she’s made of. I have said this before, but for her, it’s, you know, Duke is her mirror. You know, they’re roughly the same age. And she watches him walk into any room, no matter what the kind of the social strata, he is a man everybody listens to. And I think deep down she thinks, ‘Well, actually, I’m probably a bit better at the job than he is.’ And yet she’s powerless compared to him. So she has to use her smarts even more in order to get what she wants. And I think that does make her smarter. So, yeah, she’s completely driven. And that was very important to me that at the center of this story, the engine of the story is her drive and determination.

Jace I mean, just based on their solve rates, she’s definitely got one up on the dude. Chalk and cheese pairings are a staple of murder mystery shows. But there’s something novel to me about the pairing of Eliza and Wellington because they know each other so well. There’s this spark between them, but they’ve known each other since childhood, and to me, it’s evocative of the dynamic between Emma and Knightley or something similar to that. What do you think makes their dynamic tick?

Rachael I love that you compare it to Emma and Knightley. I  just adore that novel. I think he’s probably my favorite Austen man, it’s such a lovely dynamic. Yes, they were friends since they were young teens and they are each other’s family. I mean, Duke came from the workhouse. He’s got no family, living. Eliza has really only got Ivy. So they do rely on each other. They do have this almost sibling connection, but obviously bubbling underneath is this attraction which creates a lovely, delicious, ‘Will they / Won’t they?’ But I feel, it’s their friendship really as well that I feel very invested in, I think beyond anything else, whatever happens with Duke and Eliza that their friendship is the most important thing. I really do believe that because they have got each other’s backs, you know, they do bicker and banter, and they fall out all the time. And as Stuart said on the panel the other night, they get over it so quickly. And I think that’s a measure of a very close friendship. When you when you do, you know, you can have a bit of a spat and then you go, ‘Oh, it’s fine.’ And then you just move on and everything’s fine, you know? So they are connected on lots of different levels. And what I love as a writer is looking at the scene and going, ‘Where are they now? Are they work colleagues, are they rivals, are they relying on each other like family? Are they just best mates, or is there, you know, is this where this sort of bubbling attraction, you know, starts to build?’ So there’s so many levels between them. And as a writer, that’s it’s it’s really it’s really enjoyable writing their scenes.

Jace I mean, they love to needle each other in a way that Emma and Knightley do as well. You mentioned a mirror before that they sort of provide a mirror for each other. And I was going to ask, are they somehow reflections of the other’s desires or frustrations?

Rachael I think, particularly with her with him. I think Duke’s is slightly different in terms of what he wants. He’s very interesting, Duke, because he is a 19th century man and he wouldn’t really approve of her being a detective. He has got used to it. He knows there’s no sense in kind of arguing with her. But, you know, really he would want a wife that was there when he came home from work, and he wants a family. But he is in love with her. And so he has this, there’s this conflict running inside of him. Probably thinking she would make the most awful wife. But that’s who he wants. That’s who keeps him on his toes. So there’s definitely a mirror between what her aspirations in watching him. I think it is slightly different for him. I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that for him.

Jace You are no stranger to television mystery dramas. You wrote for among many others. You wrote for Grantchester and New Tricks. You co-wrote a CBS pilot with Jed Mercurio. You mentioned people not mentioning the crime of the week on Twitter. How do you approach the mystery of the week format, and what comes first when you’re initially breaking the story — a theme, a crime, a personal arc? Where are you starting for each story?

Rachael I think it is the personal arc, particularly for Eliza, because she’s always going to be our in to the world. So it would generally be more about, where do we want to take her, where does she start of this season and where do we want to take her and what’s going to stand in her way? And then sort of from there comes, ‘Right, so how is she crossing over with Duke? Are they working together this week? Are they rivals?’ And that starts to kind of, you know, spread. And, you know, you start off with — our kitchen ends up covered in this like magic whiteboard and it starts off with one, and then the whole wall is covered with all these notes. And, and from there, really when you start getting the shape of what’s going on for Eliza and for Duke, then you can start introducing, ‘Right what’s an interesting world? What was happening in the in that era in the 1880s?’ For example, you know, we’ve just had episode two, you know, Charles Darwin did die that year. This is like 1882. So that’s a sort of different way of thinking in terms of, like, ‘Right, let’s do some research,’ and yeah, you create that world. But as I said earlier, whatever the crime is in that world, it comes back to how is this going to affect our characters on a personal level. So it’s a it’s a mixture of everything. Sometimes it can be literally, ‘That’s an interesting world I’ve read about. Let’s try and make that work.’ But often, more often than not, when you do that and then you try and shoehorn the character arcs into it, it often doesn’t work. So I prefer to say, ‘Right, okay, where do we want to take Eliza and Duke and even then Ivy and Potts and Moses.’ And that’s the best starting point, I think, for Ben and I when we’re plotting out a season.

Jace We talked about Eliza and Cathy Belton’s Ivy, who’s clearly a surrogate mother for Eliza of sorts. Looking back to season one, there’s the incredibly beautiful scene where Eliza teaches Ivy how to write the vowels of the alphabet, a moment that connects these two women from very different classes. How does that scene captured the love between these two women, and what was it like writing it as a woman in the 21st century?

Rachael It was hugely important that, that scene for me, because it came off the back of Eliza being kind of accused of being selfish, that she wasn’t really paving the way. And I don’t know how well you remember the episode, but, you know, the point is, is that the woman who the kind of thing she wasn’t quite a suffragette, she was of an early version of the suffragette, sort of said, you know, ‘You get paid by men and you’re no better than working in a kind of brothel,’ and sort of accused her of paving the way for herself and nobody else. So that for me was very important that we see that that isn’t quite the case. Eliza was literally just trying to survive in very difficult circumstances. Sitting down with Ivy and giving something back I just thought was a really beautiful way of showing that, yes, Eliza is flawed, like we all are, and she can be impetuous and impatient and so determined sometimes that, you know, people might think she can be a bit judgmental, but she’s also got this real vulnerable side to her as well. She does want to do the right thing and she does have a very deep capacity to love. And she adores Ivy. So it was this moment of real kind of sisterhood between them that was really important to me. And I think it works out really beautifully. Every time I see that scene, I can’t help but feel a little emotional watching it.

Jace The Ivy in season two that we see has a confidence and a pluck that was only previously hinted at. I love, for example, that she’s not shocked by discovering Wellington in bed with a woman when she calls on him in episode three and that she goes undercover as Cecilia Thackeray in order to get close to Mr. Potts. How did you envision Ivy’s arc this season?

Rachael I just wanted her to have a little bit of fun, I think. I think Eliza has opened the door for, I think Cathy Belton, put it beautifully. So she’s opened that, you know, it’s like a little open to the crack of the door that Ivy’s peering through it and thinking, yeah, maybe, maybe this isn’t all there is to life. And maybe there are other ways and things that women can do and aim for.’ And so I just wanted to give Ivy a bit of fun and a bit of romance at some point, and Cathy Belton is a great actor. She’s got real comic timing as well, and I knew that. So I kind of wanted to give her the opportunity to really enjoy that. And with Simon Ludders, who plays Mr. Potts, Simon is a very good friend of Ben and I, so, yeah, I wanted Ivy to, just to understand and get to know Ivy on a slightly different level but also see her blossom and have a bit of fun. I think it was really delightful to watch that and to write that.

Jace You mentioned romance. The episode ends with Mr. Potts taking Ivy on her offer of a homemade steam pudding, albeit with more raisins.

CLIP

Eliza  Mr Potts before you say anything please let me apologize…

Mr. Potts I am not here to see you, Miss Scarlet.

Ivy Mr Potts. You received my message?

Mr. Potts And I would be delighted take you up on your offer of that homemade steamed pudding Miss Woods.

Ivy Prince Albert’s favorite. And I’ve added some extra raisins Come on in.

Jace  Is this possibly the most Victorian foreplay imaginable?

Rachael Yes. Yeah. It’s so cute, isn’t it?

Jace I mean, adorable.

Rachael It’s really it’s really beautiful. I love the bit where she sort of gets upset going, ‘You didn’t buy a new tie, did you?’ because he was so excited about potentially going to dinner at the chief coroner’s house. So, yeah, it’s a very gentle, sweet romance pairing between them. And Potts is played so brilliantly by Simon that even though he’s very officious and actually quite annoying, there is that part of him that he wants to be loved. Everybody wants to be loved. They want to find somebody to love them that will love them for themselves. And Mr. Potts is no different to that. So and Ivy would be very good for him. She’d be very kind and considerate. But she’s also got that kind of side to her where, you know, he will say something and her and Eliza will kind of look at each other and either roll their eyes or kind of stifle a giggle. Because Ivy’s quite, you know, she’s quite…she’s smart. She’s got a nice wry sense of humor. She’s there’s a knowingness to Ivy, which Mr. Potts is a little bit more. He hasn’t got huge amounts of social emotional intelligence, let’s say. So it’s a very fun pairing and very sweet.

Jace Eliza’s arrest for breaking into the mortuary in episode three forces Ivy and Moses and Wellington out of their normal roles. Eliza’s normally the one doing the investigating, but this time she’s under suspicion. Did you want to subvert the audience’s expectations with a mystery drama by having our protagonist be the suspect in this episode?

Rachael Definitely. And there was a there was a couple of reasons. I just thought it was quite a fun thing to do, but also to let the other characters have a little bit more and see them in slightly different situations, like the gang is coming together to help her and working together. You know, I love the idea of Ivy and Moses working together. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say, you know, they do become friends, you know, like it turns up in one of the other episodes and Ivy has made him lunch. There’s something lovely that Moses gravitates towards that kitchen and Ivy because she’s a really good cook and he becomes like family to them. So which is which I really which is really enjoyable. I love the idea that that these these characters would, you know, hang out together and Eliza’s s kitchen is always this hive of activity. And so it was it was a mixture, really, of yes, it was really a nice kind of interesting story of the week and seeing Eliza under the caution being a wanted criminal, but also to allow, you know, Ivy and Moses to to work with with with Duke, which we we’ve never seen before.

Jace So there is no writer’s room on Miss Scarlet and the Duke. You and your writing partner and husband, Ben Edwards, have either separately written or co-written every episode of the show. What is it like working and writing with your spouse, and do you draw upon your own marriage when writing, or is that off limits? Do you have an agreement with Ben that that’s just a no go area?

Rachael Nothing is off limits. We literally throw everything at it. We plan everything out to get the– we go off and do our own research and then come together and throw our ideas between us. But as I said, Ben is a brilliant writer. He really is. And he brings he has slightly different skill set and I have a slightly different skill set so that when we’re working together, it’s very effective. I mean, we obviously like anybody, you have these moments of writer’s block. So we do do a lot of walking to try and get that going. But yeah, we, we, I don’t, I can’t think of anything being off limits. I suspect that there’s a lot of our bits and pieces from our marriage on screen. Yeah, I wouldn’t like to admit to which bits, but I’m sure there will be.

Jace What can viewers expect coming up in the back half of season two then?

Rachael In the back half, I would say we get to know our characters on a on a deep level, particularly Duke. There’s some brilliant Duke episodes coming up where we really understand him a little bit more and his and Eliza’s relationship is tested, let’s say. But there’s huge amounts of fun, I think there’s more comedy, and a bit of romance.

Jace What was the first thing for which you were paid to write?

Rachael Oh, wow. The first thing I was paid to write was a play that was based on when I was pregnant with our daughter and it was based on what we call an antenatal group. I think the Americans call it something slightly different. It’s when you when you have birthing classes before you have your baby. So I didn’t know what —

Jace Prenatal, prenatal.

Rachael Yeah, prenatal. So we went to this slightly crazy group and we would drive then and I would drive home and I would be laughing just going, ‘My gosh, you know, the lady that was teaching it was very nice, but it was her first time doing it and then getting to know the other couples.’ And so then we just started to write this down because we both wanted to be writers and it went from we did it wanted to do it as a drama. And then we were going to do it as a film and then ended up being a Radio 4 play. I think Talkback did it with us. I think they were our production company. And then years later I found the listings, and Emily Blunt was in it.

Jace Wow!

Rachael Which we didn’t. Yeah, isn’t that crazy? And it was just like I had to keep looking at these listings because I’m showing my age here. But this was 20 years ago, so I didn’t have a clue who she was then, but I was just like that. For years, I didn’t realize that I only found the listings a couple years ago. So yeah, it was called Bumps and Bruises and it was and we got our first paycheck for that and I remember being very excited about that. It wasn’t probably very much at the time, but it was like there’s a real buzz you get for being paid. Doesn’t matter what it is, paid for a piece of professional writing. And it was really I felt very proud of that. Yeah, it was lovely.

Jace That’s incredible. What lessons did you take away from your time on Grantchester and New Tricks or other mystery dramas that you then subsequently applied to your own drama?

Rachael I think particularly, I think New Tricks was interesting for me because I think that was the first proper detective show I’d worked on, and that really taught me how to structure a really solid detective story. And that was when I realized how much I enjoyed doing it. I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy that kind of labyrinth and the winding of the twists and turns and the clues. And I really enjoyed that. With Grantchester, it was a very, very nice team headed up by Daisy, who was such a lovely person. And yet the actual show was this lovely, warm kind of show working on that, had a great script editor and and then with Mallorca Files, it was just so much fun because the writing team became very close. We would go to Mallorca and to write the series. I still don’t know to this day whether we actually needed to go to Mallorca, but we did. And the combination of those three shows, I think for me personally was yes, how much I realized, how much I enjoyed crafting a detective show, but also how much you get out of running a team by having a bit of fun and how important it is to treat your team with kind of respect. And you just get so much more out of it. The creative process is so much better when you all get on and there’s this lovely harmony and that that really brought that home to me and I think we’ve, myself and Patty Ishimoto, are out in Belgrade, I’m the only Brit, she’s the only American and that was hugely important to us that we would turn up and we would have this kind of harmonious team and a really happy set. And, and it has been like that, that sounds quite cheesy, but it has been like that. And I think that’s when you get the best out of people. So it’s been so creatively fulfilling because of that. So yeah, I think those shows sort of did leave their imprint on me.

Jace Season three of Miss Scarlet is in the books already. Is there a chance we might get to catch up with these characters again in a fourth go round?

Rachael I would say there is a good chance of this. That’s all I’m going to say. I always say this, but “watch this space.” You never know.

Jace Hmm. Rachael New, thank you so very much.

Rachael It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Jace Back in the modern era, a different female detective, editor Susan Ryeland, is getting closer to solving her unexpected mystery — with the unexpected help of fictional detective Atticus Pünd.

CLIP
Susan I just can’t believe it. Andreas was there.
Pünd He lied to you.
Susan He said he was coming over Saturday at lunchtime but that he’d be out in the evening.
Pünd Out visiting Alan Conway?
Susan No. That’s not what he said.

Jace Timothy McMullan joins us on the podcast November 13.

MASTERPIECE Studio is hosted by me, Jace Lacob, produced by Nick Andersen and edited by Robyn Bissette. Elisheba Ittoop is our sound designer. The executive producer of MASTERPIECE is Susanne Simpson.