The show returns to our screens this weekend so we asked the man who plays DI Neville Parker to reveal all about the Caribbean island where he spends half of the year

A report by Stephen Armstrong for The Times of London.

It is the murder-mystery TV series that refused to die. Created by the writer Robert Thorogood after he heard about a Scotland Yard cop heading to Jamaica to help to solve a murder, Death in Paradise started in 2011, peak Scandi-noir era. The simple premise — a fish-out-of-water British detective solving crimes with laid-back Caribbean locals — offered easy plots, sunny skies and a little light comedy. Reviewers hated it, but the first series averaged nearly six million viewers per episode; the second topped seven million and it’s not fallen below that number since.

There have been four leads so far: Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’Hanlon and, now, Ralf Little, who has spent almost half of each year on Guadeloupe, where the drama is filmed, since joining the show in 2019. He insists that the job is no sunshine posting, though he can see why people find that hard to believe.

“It’s impossible to explain to anyone that it’s anything other than a complete jolly,” he says during a Zoom chat. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a magical, amazing experience, but it is surprisingly hard work in very hot weather wearing a suit at all times. And when your other half says, ‘Oh, I could come out for a few weeks,’ it is difficult to persuade her that you’d love her to come, but you’re working and you’re knackered.”

Joséphine Jobert and Little on set in Guadeloupe

Little’s fiancée does visit for a month during filming and they take time to explore the butterfly-shaped island together. The western wing — Basse-Terre, where the show is mostly shot — is mountainous and has an active volcano. The eastern wing, Grand-Terre, is geologically older, much flatter and a little bit more touristy. “But it’s really not geared up for tourism; there aren’t many resorts there,” Little says. “It’s a Caribbean island where people live and work and welcome you into their culture, rather than selling their culture to you.”

The show is mostly shot in Deshaies, which stands in for Honoré, capital of the fictional St Marie island. The cast and crew are based in the town when they film, mostly at the Langley Resort Fort Royal, though Little rents a villa nearby. Deshaies is an easy journey by bus or taxi from the capital, Pointe-à-Pitre, and the town trades on its TV fame.

The location for Honoré police station is next to the Church of St Peter and St Paul and used to be the priest’s office. When the crew aren’t shooting, it remains set up as it is in the show for tourists to visit. For Little, it’s the hottest, hardest place to shoot. “You’re inside under bright lamps,” he says, shaking his head.

“I’ve taken up scuba diving on my days off,” Little adds. “I’ve dived in prettier places in the world, but I’ve never been somewhere that’s quite so significant: it’s where Jacques Cousteau pioneered scuba diving. His underwater reserve is just off the coast of Basse-Terre, but you can just walk off the beach anywhere and snorkel around to see sea turtles grazing. It’s magical.”

The church of Saint Pierre

As a keen “but not very good” musician, Little often takes his guitar with him when he goes out. The local music is closer to New Orleans jazz than reggae or soca, and locals working on the show often invite the cast to parties. The most recent one that Little attended was in the mountains, at a house where somebody had set up a bar and locals were playing jazz. “One of the crew sang an Amy Winehouse song and I joined in with a few chords. It was a ‘money can’t buy’ evening,” he says.

The food on Guadeloupe also has a lot in common with New Orleans, blending creole and classic French cuisine. You might see fish stews, steaks and duck leg confit on the same menu, for example.

Little likes to drink on Perle beach, just north of Deshaies, at a bar called Chill, run by Willy Guéret, a former footballer who played in goal for Millwall and Swansea City from 2000 to 2007. “A lot of the great French footballers over the last couple of decades are either from Guadeloupe or have roots in Guadeloupe — William Gallas, Thierry Henry and Pascale Chimbonda,” Little says. He finds that the quickest way to make friends is to play with a scratch five-a-side team — a philosophy he has found to work everywhere he travels.

Little: “It’s a magical, amazing experience”

Little started acting while still a medical student when he was cast as Antony in The Royle Family. He gave up his studies and any plans to take a gap year and go backpacking, but his work has helped him to travel since then. “Aged 19 I went to Tanzania to shoot a video for Oxfam about an orphanage,” he says. “We landed in Tanzania, flew past Kilimanjaro and drove seven hours up dirt roads, stopping as a pride of lions went past us. There’s no tourism like that.

“For another TV show I went around the Netherlands and Belgium on a scooter, visiting all the cities that were going to host Euro 2000 games. ActionAid took me to parts of Rio de Janeiro that used to be called favelas. The first one we had to leave after our permission expired, but in the second one I was playing football with some kids, somebody started barbecuing and we were given steaks. It was an impromptu party.”

When it comes to choosing a holiday destination, though, there’s only one place for which Little has truly fallen: Costa Rica. “Some time ago they abolished their army,” he says. “They spent the money this saved on healthcare and education. They have the best green policy in the world: rewilding, farming, preserving rainforests, and they banned hunting of any sort years ago. It’s a beautiful, truly happy, peaceful place. Not a rich country, but you don’t see a lot of wealth disparity. Hotel Three Sixty near Uvita, that’s my happy place.”

He has a final piece of advice for visitors to Guadeloupe: don’t just do the TV tourism thing. “The history is amazing. You’ve heard of Haiti’s rebel slave Toussaint Louverture, but he was inspired by Guadeloupe’s uprising, which was led by Louis Delgrès,” Little says. “And it’s a living history. There’s an amazing place in Pointe-à-Pitre right by the airport, a huge, old theatre that’s now an art space where loads of graffiti artists and craftspeople have moved in. There’s just magic everywhere on the island.”
Ralf Little spoke to Stephen Armstrong. The new series of Death in Paradise begins at 9pm on February 4 on BBC1. Seven nights’ B&B at the Langley Resort Fort Royal from £1,789pp, including flights and transfers (inspiringtravel.co.uk)