After being a beloved television staple for over ten years, Death in Paradise is finally treating fans with their first-ever Caribbean Christmas with a festive special - after the season ten finale left viewers hanging with a major cliffhanger, the cast are revealing what to expect from the new episode. As part of our Christmas Digital Issue guest-edited by Martine McCutcheon, we spoke to the gang about what to expect...
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Ralf Little is as elusive as ever about the potential romance between his character and Sergeant Cassell, affectionately named 'Floreville' by fans. Speaking to HELLO! and other reporters, he said: "The reason that the people are invested in those characters is that they're well written, and Josie [Jobert] is a fantastic performer. Just charming and lovely and I think we work well together.
WATCH: Ralf Little takes us behind the scenes
"People are invested in those characters and they want to see how it plays out. I think this series, our character interplay is more and more developed and the narrative between characters plays out really well which involves all of us so hopefully people will love it."
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Luckily for fans, the Christmas special is 90-minutes long, and the 30-minute extension from the length of a usual episode means much more time to play about with fan favourite characters, including Don Warrington as Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, and Élizabeth Bourgine as Catherine Bordey. The episode also very excitedly hails the return of Danny John-Jules as the one and only Dwayne Myers.
Danny is back as Dwayne
Chatting about the special show, Don explained: "It's our first one, it's very nice, it's a lovely thing to do. It's like making a film, because it's 90-minutes so you get more time for it, and it's more about how we want to spend Christmas together, so I thought it was very exciting."
Tahj Miles as Santa's Christmas elf!
Ralf added: "It was great, it was really, really fun. It has some responsibility like, 'Okay there has been a decade of fans loving it so let's give something more to them,' so we really got our teeth into it, and hopefully the audience responds. And getting Danny John-Jules back was pretty good too!"
Josephine stars as Florence Cassell
So, what can we expect from the special? "It's brilliant, it's a Death in Paradise classic really," Ralf explains. "Someone is found dead, and we have to get to the bottom of it - but there are added dimensions, we have more time for character development and interplay between ourselves… We have time for it to be more layered, and you feel the consequences of the story.
"Sometimes on [the show] it's like, 'This is the murderer, arrest the murderer,' but this time you see how it plays out. Apart from that, a body turns up, it can't possibly be what it looks like, and we spent 90 minutes working out why."
The special will have a host of guest stars
Naturally, the cast's own Christmas celebrations will be looking a little bit different from their characters' festive fun in the Caribbean. Ralf said: "I'm going to spend Christmas with my mum who I haven't seen in ages in North Devon!
"We're from Manchester originally, then I spent one Christmas moving my mum to Devon so I'm going to reap that this year and have a lovely time there, and my brother's visiting too so it'll be nice. But I am going to be cold for the first time since July 2020 which is when I arrived [in Guadeloupe], and I haven't been back to the UK since!"
Élizabeth plays Catherine in the hit show
Élizabeth Bourgine added: "I'm going to my house in the South of France, and I work on my garden, and I cut trees and I have oranges and lemons and I try to make a very famous and good drink we have in Italy – limoncello!
"I want to try and make it, and that's it! I don't think I'll have time to do the cooking, so I'll ask my neighbours, who are very good fishermen and women, and we'll have fish!"
And what will they be watching on the big day?
"Die Hard!" Ralf exclaimed. "Best Christmas film ever, don't '@' me."
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