Where was Moonflower Murders filmed?
Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd return for the Magpie Murders follow-up.
New BBC crime drama Moonflower Murders has hooked fans in with a star-studded cast, a gripping murder mystery and some
The six-part drama, which is the follow-up to Magpie Murders and also based on Anthony Horowitz's best-selling novels, revolves around Lesley Manville's Susan Ryeland, who's retired from publishing and is running a boutique hotel in Crete with her boyfriend Andreas.
However, it's not long before her idyllic existence is haunted by the shadow of a murder committed at a hotel in Suffolk eight years previously.
Naturally, many fans are wondering where Moonflower Murders was filmed. Read on to find out.
Moonflower Murders filming locations: Was it filmed in Suffolk?
Despite being set in Suffolk, Moonflower Murders was filmed in Dublin and Crete.
When we first meet Susan in Moonflower Murders, she's living in Crete, so that's exactly where Lesley Manville and the crew filmed for that strand of the story.
Speaking about how they went about making that possible, series producer Suzanne McAuley said: "First of all, we had to find a Greek production company to work with. I knew I wanted a boutiquey company in Crete, not dissimilar to my own company [Salt Films] in Ireland, that we could work together rather than a big corporation that's not based in Crete.
"That straight away was key to kind of getting the chemistry right for who we were going be working with over there. So then we briefed them, and we went out and we spent eight days scouting with quite possibly the nicest, talented, loveliest, hardworking people in Greece who knew we wanted and knew how to show it to us. So we got a feel for what we were looking for."
That led them to the Hotel Trifilli.
"We literally found this hotel that couldn't have been more perfect for the script," said McAuley. "He [Anthony Horowitz] was then able to see the geography of where we were going actually shoot a lot of our Greek scenes. We were able to doctor the script to actually match, and it just became more and more fun."
The different locations combined with the different period setting also made the team feel like they were "making three different shows in one", added McAuley.
"We shot the period out at the beginning and we said goodbye to the period world, and then we came into the modern world, and now we're going to Greece. It's a very enjoyable experience."
Howth Castle in Dublin was another of the locations used in Moonflower Murders.
It doubled as Branlow Hall, the modern-day hotel in Suffolk which is owned by the Trehernes and is where a man is murdered on the day of their daughter Cecily's wedding, before she goes missing.
Speaking about how they differentiated the two hotels, set decorator Justine Wright said: "We needed Moonflower and Branlow to look very different, and that had to be obvious for the viewer.
"For Branlow, we referenced Kit Kemp who designs hotels in the UK and New York. I was inspired by her work. She uses lots of interesting textiles, pops of colour and art inspiration from all over the world, combining traditional furniture with quirky colours as well being a practical space for hotel guests. So that's where the look came from and how we turned it into a luxury contemporary boutique hotel."
Speaking about the period setting, Wright added: "We knew that the period part of the filming schedule was at the beginning of the schedule, so we got straight into looking at 1930s film references, and looking at old Hollywood hotels, and references like that.
"There was a lot of looking at beautiful old Hollywood homes – Mae West and Errol Flynn – just gathering different elements from real Hollywood homes."
Read more:
- Moonflower Murders: Release date, cast, plot and trailer
- Moonflower Murders star Lesley Manville says series is "quite unexpected"
Moonflower Murders continues at 9:15pm on Saturday 30th December on BBC One and iPlayer, with all episodes available to stream on iPlayer now.
Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
Abby Robinson is the Drama Editor for Radio Times, covering TV drama and comedy titles. She previously worked at Digital Spy as a TV writer, and as a content writer at Mumsnet. She possesses a postgraduate diploma and a degree in English Studies.