Two months after Red Dwarf X concluded on Dave, and as BBC One crime drama Death In Paradise moves into its second series, we spoke to Danny John-Jules about playing it straight, returning to The Cat after fifteen years, and getting the Doug Naylor seal of approval…

Would you call Death In Paradise a continuation of the classic English murder mystery serials?

I think it’s a very British thing, murder mystery, and I think Death in Paradise is an extension of that, just adding something a bit different. The format is not really any different to any other murder mystery really to be honest with you, but I think what makes a murder mystery work is the characters and I think it’s how they solve the crime as characters. That makes the difference in Death in Paradise really, the relationships between the characters and how they drive the detective forwards to solve the crime.

You’ve got all your classic, as you say, murder mysteries and they will continue to appear on our screens. That type of film and TV I don’t think will ever go away. Why would Guy Ritchie do Sherlock Holmes? It’s not only good to try to something different, he obviously picked something that he was au fait with, but he was known for doing very much the gangster rugged stuff and then all of a sudden he goes into the murder mystery genre.