Tom Durant-Pritchard plays Detective Inspector Alexander Blake, the new detective inspector at Scotland Yard in Miss Scarlet season 5. He has some big shoes to fill with the departure of William, Duke of Wellington, but he will certainly make his mark.
We chatted with Durant-Pritchard about the role, including what drew him to the character and what we can expect from Alexander Blake. It’s clear there is more to the story than we’re initially going to get to learn.
Getting to know Alexander Blake in Miss Scarlet season 5
We started the interview with a discussion about who Alexander Blake is. After all, we’re getting to meet him, making Miss Scarlet season 5 a bit of a soft reboot in a way. It completely changes the dynamic for Eliza and Scotland Yard.
“He’s very against having private detectives, so he’s trying to go about his business, solving crimes in London, without the pesky Miss Scarlet.”
Eliza is certainly a skilled private detective. She helped William out a number of times, but it’s clear we’re getting a different relationship between Eliza and Blake. What was the dynamic like?
“I think it’s going to be fantastic. It’s a good combination of two people whoa re quite good at their jobs, trying not to get in each other’s way.”
Tom Durant-Pritchard joins the series five seasons in
It’s not always easy to come into an established show. It’s even harder when it’s to replace the male lead. After all, Martin Stuart is gone and we won’t see The Duke again. What was that like for Durant-Pritchard on the set?
“I think it’s sometimes quite nice to have somebody come in and mix stuff up a little bit, throw the cat among the pigeons and see what happens. I think for Miss Scarl, she’s met her match in Blake and vice versa, so between them, they’re sort of adversaries, work partners, and there’s a lot to work out between them.”
While we get to see that play out on screen, what was it like behind the scenes? It’s a change for everyone with getting a new male lead so many seasons in.
“Everyone was a little bit apprehensive. This new character arriving, was it all going to work out? There was a buzz about the set, and I think I’ve slotted in quite nicely.”
Deciding that Alexander Blake was the character for him
There’s always something about a role that makes an actor feel like this is the one for them. What was it about Alexander Blake that made Durant-Pritchard know he wanted to play this, and did he even know the series beforehand?
“I didn’t know a huge amount about the show, but I knew Kate Phillips as an actress…I read [the script] and it just sort of sat in me really nicely. I felt like I could do something with the character…I thought I could bring something exciting and different to the character.”
We got to chat a little about Blake and the mystery behind him. There is a lot that he’s not sharing with people in his life, and we get to see some of that at the end of the Miss Scarlet season 5 premiere.
“I think there was something really nice in the old period drama style of that Mr. Darcy-style character, who doesn’t reveal a huge amount about themselves, keeps their private lives very private and goes about their business, so they’re quite hard to unpick, which means as an actor, you get to really delve under the skin and try and work out what makes him tick as a person…All the actors and characters are still trying to work out who this Blake character is throughout the whole series, which was quite fun to watch.”
It turns out that all scripts arrived at once, which meant that Durant-Pritchard had the backstory and could work with that. However, that didn’t stop him from filling in some of the gaps as not everything was written on the page.
Something that Durant-Pritchard noted was that he didn’t watch the series before getting the role. Did he decide to go back and watch, or was it useful considering as a character, he wouldn’t know what came before he made it to Scotland Yard.
“I did try to watch a bit. I watched a few episodes, and I went to YouTube, and then all I could find was Eliza-William compilation albums, and I was like ‘I’m not sure how much of this I need to see’…I did’t want any of that to kind of inform what I was going to do, so I watched what I think I needed to see, and then actually tried to avoid it, because I wanted to put my own stamp on things.”
When it came to describing Blake in three words, Durant-Pritchard chose courageous, brave, and honest. We’ll certainly get to see if he’s right as we delve into Miss Scarlet season 5 on PBS.
Take a look at the full interview with Tom Durant-Pritchard below:
Miss Scarlet season 5 premieres on Sunday, Jan. 12 at 9/8c on PBS.
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