This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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In Death in Paradise, DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) shared his Caribbean bungalow with fan favourite Harry the lizard, who has appeared in almost every episode since 2011. So, when Goodman relocated to Devon for the spin-off Beyond Paradise, now in its third series, there was room for another creature to steal the show.
When Goodman bought a houseboat, it just so happened to come with a duck, which he named Selwyn after his former boss, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (played by Don Warrington). But while Harry was a computer-generated lizard, Selwyn is very much a real duck.
While male ducks are more colourful, they moult and start looking like females, explains Anthony Bloom, who works for Birds for Film, based near Colchester in Essex. That meant, for continuity, Selwyn had to be female.
She’s played by three different ducks — usually five-year-old Mek Mek, so named because "rather than 'quack, quack', she goes 'mek mek'", says Bloom. "She’s an utter joy to work with," adds Marshall of his feathered friend.
Meanwhile, Mini-Me, who is slightly smaller, is a "very good back-up". And then there’s Nelly, who’s "not such a good back-up…"
Selwyn the Duck in Beyond Paradise. BBC
Bloom trains and keeps around 200 birds, including pigeons, flamingos, ravens and 10 ducks. When he transports the Selwyn Three to film Beyond Paradise, they travel in individual dog carriers, in what has come to be known as the "duck truck".
“Everyone likes ducks, don’t they? There’s no doubt they’re cute,” Bloom says. “Mek Mek is generally the calmest and the tamest, she’s a natural. She’s not afraid of very much. It’s more about getting her used to being in different places and being still, rather than any specific training. If we want her to move location, we’ll put one of the other ducks in a box, and as they like to be together, Mek Mek will go towards her.”
He adds, “We don’t train them to quack for food, because it’d be very hard to stop them!” In any case, they’re all call ducks, which are naturally very noisy. “In a scene in series two with Sally [Bretton as Martha Lloyd] and Zahra [Ahmadi, as DS Esther Williams], Mek Mek didn’t stop quacking, and then she started pecking one of them. I was nervous, thinking, ‘You’re not going to bite her on the cheek are you?’” Bloom recalls.
Luckily, the cast are forgiving. Series regular Barbara Flynn, who plays Martha’s mother Anne Lloyd, tells RT, "Mek Mek contributes endlessly to the richness of all her scenes, picking up cues without a ruffle of a feather! She’s a tremendously good listener and right there in the quiet moments down at the dock with poignant advice. She comes with the boat. She comes with us. She’s our duck."
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Beyond Paradise season 3 airs on BBC One on Fridays at 8pm.
Laura Rutkowski is the Junior Commissioning Editor at Radio Times magazine, where she looks after a column called "What it's like to…", which spotlights behind-the-scenes roles within the TV and film industry – from stunt coordinators to costume designers. She loves finding out how productions are made and enjoys covering a wide variety of genres. Laura is half-American and half-British and joined Radio Times in 2022. She has a degree in Psychology and a Master's in Magazine Journalism.
