Broadchurch murder on back burner

The hit drama, starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman, was originally intended as a one-off series but was recommissioned after pulling in millions of viewers last year.

Now writer Chris Chibnall and producer Richard Stokes have said that the second ITV instalment - due to air in January - will have the same tone as the debut but move away from being a murder mystery.

Stokes told Radio Times magazine: “People have said, ‘Don’t turn it into Midsomer Murders in Broadchurch’. We have nodded in that direction. It’s not Midsomer in Broadchurch.”

Chibnall added: “I promise we do not start with the discovery of another body beneath the cliffs.”

He said that he had stuck firm to the original series, in which it was said that the murder of a child was the sort of tragedy that never happens in the fictional, picturesque Dorset town.

“I will not betray that,” Chibnall said. “That’s always been my pact with the viewer - this (Danny’s murder) is an unusual event that has massive repercussions.”

He added: “The feel of the show is slightly different this time... Grief is not our driving emotion this year.”

Charlotte Rampling and Eve Myles are among the new cast members in the second series.

But Chibnall said: “They are not grieving relatives, they aren’t the relatives of another body, it’s not another crime case.”

Colman, who plays DS Ellie Miller, the wife of the murderer, said that she wanted to refrain from weeping this time.

“I’ve really tried not to cry. I don’t want people to turn on the telly and go, ‘Oh, it’s her (again), she cries,’” she said.

Tennant, who plays DI Alec Hardy, said of the new series: “We’re back in the same situation, though it’s a different sort of suspense this time” to which Colman joked: “Apparently it’s like Bobby Ewing’s dream, nothing happened.”