Everything you need to know about new Shetland series by Ashley Jensen

Jensen, 55, made her Shetland debut last year, taking over the reins from Douglas Henshall who had played DI Jimmy Perez since 2013. Her character DI Ruth Calder is a native Shetlander who has returned home after more than 20 years working for the Met in London.

The actor, who grew up in Annan, Dumfriesshire, brings a wealth of experience, with a prolific CV that includes Mayflies, Catastrophe, After Life, Extras and Ugly Betty. She leads the cast alongside Alison O’Donnell, who plays long-running viewer favourite DI Alison “Tosh” McIntosh.

As crime-fighting, telly detective duos go, this is shaping up to be a rather good one. “They bring out the best in each other,” agrees Jensen. “They are parts of a jigsaw puzzle, the two of them. One thinks one way and the other one thinks the other.”

Ashley Jensen (Image: Jamie Simpson)

Also reprising their roles are Steven Robertson as DC Sandy Wilson, Lewis Howden as Sgt Billy McCabe and Anne Kidd as forensic pathologist Cora McLean. 

Plenty of “twists and turns”

A double missing persons case hits close to home, when Tosh realises her personal connection to the unfolding investigation. Calder joins a worried Tosh in the search, where they soon discover there is a tangled web of suspicious behaviour to unpick.

“There is so much going on – it twists and turns,” says Jensen. “When we were given the first three episodes, I made it my business to not know who the killer was.

“I decided it would be an interesting angle to see if I could work it out from the information I was being given in every scene. That kept me very present and focused on the scenes and the actors I was working with, trying to see if they were giving stuff away that they didn’t mean to.

“It is a very complex but intelligent script,” she continues. “Needless to say, I didn’t guess it, which is why I’m an actress and not a detective. But I was in the right ballpark.

“It was funny because it kept me awake at night. I would go back to my digs in Shetland and suddenly think, ‘We need to get that person in and find out what that argument was about …’”

New faces

Shetland always garners an impressive guest cast, with Ian Hart (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, The Last Kingdom) and Vincent Regan (Traces, Luther: The Fallen Sun) among this year’s contingent.

Shetland with Tara Lee as Lisa Friel and Jimmy Yuill as Angus Wallace (Image: Jamie Simpson)

The line-up also includes Nalini Chetty (River City, Six Four); Robert Jack (The Last Czars, Gary: Tank Commander); Sarah MacGillivray (The Lost King, Outlander); Tara Lee (The Fall, The Suspect); Lesley Hart (Granite Harbour, River City); and Scottish acting stalwart Jimmy Yuill (Much Ado About Nothing, Wycliffe).

Character dynamics

“There is a very instinctive feel for Calder and sometimes the instinct can be wrong,” says Jensen. “But she commits. She is very direct and doesn’t pussyfoot around. With her experience of 25 years in the Met, there is not a great deal that shocks her.

“I think, in some ways, it is more of a complex story for Tosh this year because she has got that personal angle. It has been nice for us to play the development of how they work together.”

Is this something which mirrors her own working relationship with O’Donnell? “Alison is one of these people where I now can’t remember not knowing her, which is lovely,” confirms Jensen.

“The pair of us really do have a giggle. When we’re out there in the cold for 11 hours, we’re losing the light and need to get a shot in, we are both quite good at giving each other a laugh and keeping each other’s spirits up.

“We get on well and often look forward to the scenes in the car, where we are together on the low loader and warm. I always feel that in a show like Shetland, it is important to have a little twinkle with somebody on camera because not everyone is doom and gloom all the time.”

Ashley Jensen and Alison O'Donnell (Image: Jamie Simpson) Putting down roots

Previously Calder couldn’t wait to hotfoot it back to London. And now? “She has committed to buying a house, which is in the most beautiful location,” reveals Jensen.

“But also, very like Calder, it is an isolated house. The location almost mirrors what the character is doing. The house is in the middle of this landscape on its own, with big solid walls and nobody getting in – that is a bit like the character.”

The actor recounts having a conversation with Shetland’s lead writer Paul Logue about Calder’s home life. “We were saying, ‘She probably gets a bottle of wine and a ready meal and doesn’t even put it on a plate, then sits on the internet looking at cold cases,’” says Jensen, with a laugh.

“Calder has bought this house, but she has not committed to unpacking yet. Everything is still in boxes. She could be like that for months.”

Making the role her own

Calder has a complicated relationship with Shetland. It is a place she chose to escape at 18, yet now finds herself back there. That constant push and pull, says Jensen, makes it a fascinating character to play.

“The first season, from an acting point of view, my whole super objective [playing Calder] was to get the f*** away,” she says. “To solve the case, leave and get back to London. But there has been this strange, magnetic pull back to the isles.

“I didn’t know whether there was going to be a second season, let alone a third season. When I did it last year, people kept saying, ‘Oh, is it a strain taking over from Dougie?’ I was like, ‘Well, it could be if I thought about it like that.’

“Because it is such a popular show, he was so well-loved and had such a big fanbase. I could get totally overwhelmed and swamped by that idea. But I thought, ‘I have to look at this as a six-part series. It might not go again. I can’t be worrying about that just now.’”

With Shetland since recommissioned for a ninth and tenth series (the second and third post-Henshall), Jensen has managed to largely ignore the white noise that can ensue when a new character comes in and takes over from an old favourite.

“Of course, there are people who are not going to like me, that’s what happens in life,” she asserts. “There are people that my face is just going to annoy them and that’s OK. Because that’s life. We can’t like everyone.

“A performance or art or a piece of music is so subjective. I personally loved The Joker 2, and it’s got gubbed. I thought it was a beautiful masterpiece of a film, but it is only me, my family and Francis Ford Coppola that appear to think that.

“What resonates with one person doesn’t resonate with another. There are going to be people who go, ‘Aye, it’s not the same with her, get her aff my screen.’ That’s OK.

“I personally don’t do social media, so I don’t see all that stuff. I have seen so many people who take comments to heart. All you can do is your best.”

Shetland adventures

“To be honest, I don’t get a great deal of spare time,” says Jensen, when asked about exploring the islands during filming. “Alison and I are always like, ‘I just go home and have a bath, read my lines and go to bed.’

“This time, however, I did take a little trip up to Unst to visit a gin distillery and the most northerly tearoom. It was a proper day out. Me, Ian Hart, one of the transport guys, three drivers and two make-up artists, all got in a couple of cars.

“We got on a ferry for 15 minutes, drove a bit more, got on another ferry for 15 minutes, then drove to the most amazing gin distillery. Shetland Reel it is called. Everybody went away with bottles of gin. Then we went to the tearoom.”

The juxtaposition of the cosy Victoria's Vintage Tea Rooms against the wild, rugged landscape on Unst, says Jensen, put her in mind of Derek Jarman’s famed garden project near Dungeness nuclear power station in Kent.

“There were little flowery china cups, scones the size of a man’s fist, buns and cakes,” she says. “That was a cracking day out.”

Shetland begins on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, Wednesday, November 6, at 9pm