Ashley Jensen Returns for Second Season of Shetland Drama

Television detectives frequently possess a distinctive characteristic. Columbo was known for his beige trench coat, Kojak for his fondness for lollipops, and Horatio Caine of CSI: Miami for his sunglasses and predictable catchphrases. In the case of Scottish actress Ashley Jensen, her character’s defining feature is considerably more practical. She reprises her role as DI Ruth Calder for her second season in the enduring drama Shetland, dressed in additional warm coats and her signature scarves, prepared to investigate the newest island mystery. For series nine, DI Calder has relocated to Shetland and becomes involved in a double missing persons investigation. However, filming for this season, which occurred earlier this year, presented colder conditions. “The weather was a challenge,” she informed BBC Scotland News. “I mean, I’ve known cold when I’ve been filming but this this was something else. “This is filming when it’s so cold your fingers had stopped working. We had heat pads in our pockets, our underwear and taped to our backs. “We even had to put our hands in hot water in between takes to literally thaw them out. It’s the only thing that would bring the feeling back into my fingers.” The upcoming series depicts Calder establishing herself in Shetland. Jensen commented: “Calder’s decided to return to Shetland because it almost felt like there was unfinished business there, or a sort of magnetic draw back home. She’s there to find out who she is which, I think, goes against all her previous instincts.” She added: “When she first came back during the last series, she thought that she’d be there to solve the case and then get away and get back to London, back to her life. But she’s experiencing that thing where home sometimes draws you back.” This sentiment resonated with Jensen’s personal experience, as she expressed enthusiasm for her return flight to the islands. “I was very excited to be getting on the wee plane off to Shetland again with my half a cup of tea and my caramel wafer. “Half a cup of tea, because there’s often turbulence and you can’t get a full cup of tea because it’ll spill, which I thought was quite funny,” she recounted. She also described feeling immersed by Shetland. “It’s the whole landscape, I mean the real star of the show is Shetland and the Shetland Isles…it’s an inimitable place,” she stated, finding the landscape both captivating and stunning. Jensen further shared: “Obviously, when I did my first series, I didn’t know whether I was ever going to go back there, so I felt like I had to rush around buying Shetland jumpers and puffin poo and things like that, just in case.” Jensen, aged 55, a native of Annan in Dumfriesshire, achieved her breakthrough role starring opposite Ricky Gervais in Extras in 2005. Subsequently, she became a regular cast member in the US television series Ugly Betty before returning to the UK for parts in productions like Agatha Raisin and Catastrophe. In 2019, she collaborated with Gervais again in the Netflix comedy series After Life. Last year, Douglas Henshall, who portrayed DI Jimmy Perez as Shetland’s main protagonist, exited the series, paving the way for the introduction of its first female lead. The program, produced by Silverprint Pictures and initially adapted from award-winning novels by crime writer Ann Cleeves, garnered an average of seven million viewers throughout its broadcast. Alison O’Donnell also reprises her role as DI Alison “Tosh” McIntosh. The two actresses have developed into an effective crime-solving team on screen and close friends off screen. Jensen remarked: “Working with Alison every day is wonderful, we just get on like a house on fire. She’s one of these people where I feel as if I can’t remember ever not knowing her.” She also shared a specific memory: “The one memory I have is when production brought in two stunt women to do a running along the beach scene for us.”It was a cold, sort of miserable day and they’d got the stunt double women in wigs and Calder coats and Tosh jumpers. “But apparently, we ran along the beach and looked like we knew what we were doing, so we didn’t need the stunt people. So we were like ‘Yes!'” The newest six-part Shetland murder-mystery series will premiere on BBC iPlayer and BBC One on Wednesday 6 November at 21:00.