Amanda Redman’s performance as Audrey is one of the best parts of Murder Before Evensong. Not only because the Acorn TV series needs a foil for Canon Daniel Clement, but because Redman is a queen of the crime drama genre. Audiences know and love her for her decade on New Tricks as Sandra Pullman, helping to make that show one of the staples of British TV.

In an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, Amanda spoke about what attracted her to playing Audrey in Murder Before Evensong. She also revealed when she found out she’d be in the same show with her New Tricks successor Tamzin Outhwaite. Plus, she discussed developing Audrey’s character and her rapport with Matthew Lewis, who stars as Daniel.

Brittany Frederick: You’ve played so many beloved roles across British TV. What was it about Murder Before Evensong that made it stand out to you as different?

Amanda Redman: It’s always the writing. The scripts came, I read them and I thought, I love the writing. I love his [creator Nick Hicks=Beach] style, and I loved the character and how he’d written character—also the other characters, not just my own. And I just thought yeah, this could be a lot of fun to do.

The sort of icing on the cake is that New Tricks fans who come to the show will get to see both you and Tamzin Outhwaite. When did you learn that the two of you had been cast?

At the read-through.

Anyone who comes to Murder Before Evensong because of that show might be expecting to see you solving the mystery. What was it like for you to play a foil to the proverbial detective, instead of doing all the sleuthing work?

It’s like anything. It depends on the character. If the character is interesting to play, the character is interesting to play, irrespective of whether they’re in the driving seat or not. I really liked this character, and I thought that she’s quite an unusual character—not often seen on British television, certainly.

Audrey seems like she’s lived a very full life, like Murder Before Evensong could just follow her around and get an entirely separate adventure. How did you approach developing her?

I read the book, and of course, the book goes into far more detail, so I had all of that. And she is based on Richard Coles’ mother, so I had a long chat to him about about his mum. From that, you just piece it all together. It’s like a jigsaw; you put it all together, and then hopefully you come up with a cohesive character.

Did you have a favorite part of portraying her?

I loved doing the scenes with Matthew [Lewis]. There’s one coming up that I can’t remember if it’s the final episode or the penultimate episode, where we literally put our cards on the table and it could go either way. It could go disastrously wrong. They literally say what they think, and a lot of pain and a lot of hurt comes out. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed doing that. It was something we could get our teeth into.

How did you develop such a great rapport with Matthew? Because the relationship between Daniel and Audrey turns out to be the emotional core of Murder Before Evensong.

We were just lucky. Sometimes it just happens that you meet another actor, and you just click and get on, and it all falls into place, which is what happened with Matthew. That doesn’t always happen. When it does, it’s a joy because, of course, it makes it so much easier.

What’s important really is that when audiences watch it, I just hope that they believe in the characters. And I hope that they get to understand that sort of community, because I think that sort of community is so fascinating. They’re all quite insular and not particularly worldly, and that, of course, allows for all these resentments to build up and for it all to become quite ugly. So that’s very interesting.

Murder Before Evensong streams Mondays on Acorn TV. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Acorn TV.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.