Dalgliesh star Bertie Carvel explains "personal connection" to character

"A big point of personal connection for me with the first series was grief," he said.

"Because I recently lost my mother, and I was able to work through that to some extent. But one of the things that struck me in the aftermath, in the initial year of grief was a big questioning of what am I doing? And what's it all for?"

He added: "And so when in the first episode Blanche [his literary agent] asks him why don't you give up your day job and stop looking at dead people and come and be Dylan Thomas? I think inside a voice goes why not? Why wouldn't I do that?"

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He continued that the "big existential question" of what the character is doing with his life was useful for him in trying to find an arc for the series and added that "the journey of the series is about confronting that question".

"What activates that is the offer on the table to give it all up," he said. "And so he's almost going through each day or each scene where usually something incredibly depressing is happening, and he's having to look very acutely at pain and death and dysfunction.

"And some part of him is massively excited by that and energised, and some part of him is hugely depressed by it. And he's trying to wrestle those two things together."

Dalgliesh season 2 launches Thursday 27th April at 9pm on Channel 5, followed by episode 2 on Friday 28th April at 9pm.

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