Broadchurch star Matthew Gravelle reveals the secret behind the ITV crime mystery drama’s success

ITV hit Broadchurch returned recently, and millions of viewers are once more well and truly hooked on the drama.

Matthew Gravelle plays Joe Miller, husband of DCI Miller, and who was outed at the end of the first series as the alleged killer of schoolboy Danny Latimer.

Matthew has had a long career in TV, but didn’t expect Broadchurch to be quite the success story it’s proved to be.

“Everybody on board knew it was a brilliant script and they definitely wanted to be involved in it, but nobody had any idea how successful this was going to be,” he says.

But Broadchurch of course starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman was destined to be a hit, coming from creator Chris Chibnall and executive producer Jane Featherstone, who worked together on other dramas such as Life on Mars.

Jane likes to keep her actors on their toes Matthew only found out he was playing the killer with three weeks left to shoot.

“I was tense all the way through!” he admits, “though I’d like to think I’d have been able to carry on with a good poker face even if I’d known from the start.”

And if that had been the case?

“I would have been even keener to play him with a certain amount of trepidation!” he laughs.

So can Matthew, from Wales, say exactly why this tense Dorset whodunit has caught the public’s imagination?

“Its excellent writing,” he says. “Its actors being brilliant me excepted obviously and just everybody being on top of their game.

“But a lot of it is that Broadchurch caught the people’s emotions, and the audience related to the horrible prospect of a child going missing.”

With series one such a success and series two clearly following suit, Jane was excited if apprehensive for what was to come.

“There was a pressure on us, which we put on ourselves,” she says.

“You make something you’re proud of and that the audience have responded so well to, you want if you do it again to give the audience something that they love as much.

“We were able to take the story in quite a surprising direction, rather than do another crime with a body at the bottom of a cliff, and that’s quite a risk.

“However, we are drawing on the fact that the audience has fallen in love with the characters and are interested enough to continue on the road with them.

“There’s lots of new stuff thrown in too, all sorts of elements.”

An element of suspense has definitely been a part of every episode so far, the most recent seeing the return of Susan Wright, played by Pauline Quirke.

Susan testified that the man who murdered Danny was not Joe Latimer at all but rather her own son, Nigel Carter.

Is Joe innocent after all? And what is the significance of the bluebells that keep being referred to?

Broadchurch is on ITV, Monday, February 9, 9pm.