Despite being told that it would be very difficult to find somewhere to park, we were determined to get to Port Navas on Friday 11th March for the filming of Troubled Blood. The village certainly was a very remote location.
By suekmoorhen
Of course, we arrived quite early. We parked at the side of the road around a 5 minutes walk from Port Navas. When we arrived, the crew were setting up outside the village hall and seemed quite busy.
We tried to stand out of the way, by the slope going down to the boatyard, and waited for filming to start. A crew member gave a speech to the whole crew about the day’s schedule; he gestured to the house behind him where they would be filming later on.
Just before Tom Burke arrived, we moved to an unoccupied space near the village hall where we could sit on a wall and watch everything going on.
The first scene filmed was of Strike walking towards Ted and Joan’s house while on the phone.
We witnessed a few scenes, which we probably can’t give any details about, unfortunately. All we’ll say is, in one scene in particular, Tom Burke’s acting blew us away – it was phenomenal.
A little later on, a film car arrived. This car we guessed to be Dave Polworth’s, though don’t hold us to that. We did see the actor playing Polworth though, but this actor hasn’t been officially announced yet so we can’t say anything.
We were so lucky to meet the actress playing Joan (another unannounced cast member) and Ian Redford, who played Strike’s uncle Ted in Career of Evil and who has returned to the role for Troubled Blood. To get out of the way of the filming, Ian/Ted led us through a small garden parallel to the main road in Port Navas. We sat down on a stone bench, he signed our books and we had photos taken with him. We had a nice long chat about his role as Ted Nancarrow and more.
He told us he is also currently playing Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play in London. He said J.K. Rowling was currently his boss, as all he was doing was her work.
Ian told us that he hadn’t expected anything more to come of his role in Career of Evil, and was surprised when he got called back in. He told us that the short scene in Career of Evil was done on location in Buckinghamshire and only took a couple of hours, starting from 9am and finishing before noon.
We asked Ian how he prepared for his role, particularly how he practised the Cornish accent. He said that he’d watched videos, talked to Cornish folk during his trip and paid attention to the accent. He also said that he didn’t want the Cornish accent to be too strong, as it would be harder for people outside the UK to understand, so he went with a softer Cornish accent.
We were very impressed by Ian’s commitment to his role in the series. He said he’d read the Strike novels a couple of times and had also read the Potter novels for his role as Dumbledore in Cursed Child and was planning on reading them again.
Meeting Ian Redord was definitely a highlight of our whole trip. It was so nice of him to take the time out of his day to talk to us.
A little later on, we decided to go to McDonald’s for dinner, 15 minutes away from Port Navas. We brought back some coffees for some of the crew. By this time it was dark and the following scenes were set at night. One of the scenes was outside Ted and Joan’s front door, and another one with Strike further down the street towards the boatyard.
By suekmoorhen
Shortly before filming was due to wrap, we decided to call it a day and head home. The following day was a rest day for cast and crew, and we certainly needed that day of rest ourselves.
The fifth day of filming, Sunday the 13th, was the filming of Anna and Kim’s house in Falmouth. Stay tuned to hear all about that!