The soon-to-be-released six-part series opens with the gruesome discovery of a naked teenager’s body, strangled and staged face down in the desert.
Mark Rowley(Image: Getty Images)
It might be supposed to be summer, but Scotland is getting a whole lot colder thanks to it TV thriller The Dark – a chilling new drama about a masked serial killer stalking the highlands.
The soon-to-be-released six-part series opens with the gruesome discovery of a naked teenager’s body, strangled and staged face down in the desert. Filmed in Glasgow, Greenock and around Inverness, The darkness is a creepy adaptation of GR Halliday’s novel From The Shadows.
The drama stars Outlander actress Laura Donnelly as DI Monica Kennedy, alongside Paisley-born actor Mark Rowley as her new partner, DC Connor Crawford.
Also in the cast is Friends star Helen Baxendale as distraught English mother-of-two Bethany Morgan, who finds herself at the center of a close-knit rural community haunted by dark secrets and past traumas.
But for Mark the highlands is anything but sinister. The 36-year-old actor, whose film credits include The Last Kingdom, SAS: Rogue Heroes, Trigger Point and Karen Pirie, moved north after spending 13 years in London building his career.
He now lives in the Highlands and says the change has changed his life. He said, “I have lived in the highlands for over three years and feel like a new person. Nature turns off your brain. You don’t hear cars and buses, instead it’s birdsong. It just dilutes all the bad things out of your life.
“London was great, but when you’re in it you’re in a constant rush and you don’t actually realize until you stop that energy can really drain away from your life. Today, if you have a moment of stress, you walk the dog and you feel better.”
To prepare for his role as keen detective Connor Crawford, Mark sought advice from his high-ranking policeman namesake, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. He joked: “We always have a thing where we fight each other on Google, so if he says something crazy, it goes to the top.”
While plans were initially made for him to spend a day shadowing officers, help came closer to home. Mark said: “I shook hands and then we arrange a one-to-one to take me out for the day, but there was an online police retirement organization in Scotland and they put me in touch with a superintendent from Inverness and I had him as a mentor.
“It was overwhelming, you’re expected to go back to normal life and turn it off, but with these stories you can’t.”
Mark is idyllic Highlands lifestyle is far from the world The darknessa drama that makes viewers think twice about moving to a remote village. The series uses real Scottish homes weathered by years of harsh conditions, helping to create an atmosphere of isolation and menace. Cast members admitted filming last year’s scenes in the elements was freezing.
As the masked killer continues to strike, the seemingly tight-knit community begins to unravel. Mark’s own experience of village life has been very different.
He said: “In London we didn’t know our neighbors but when there was the big storm last year we weren’t there and a neighbor rang to say ‘It’s OK, we’ve secured your property’. It doesn’t happen anywhere else.”
Mark is also full of praise for production company Poison Pen, who he says made a conscious effort to ensure Scottish talent was represented both in front of and behind the camera.
Meanwhile, Belfast-born Laura Donnelly was delighted to return to Scotland to play DI Monica Kennedy. The award-winning actress trained at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire before forging an acclaimed stage and film career.
She said: “I love working in Scotland. It’s very much a home away from home for me. It’s such a beautiful place even more so when it’s rainy and misty and looks damp, you can tell everyone is damp. It really matches the atmosphere we were hoping to create in this. It makes it harder to exist in this.
“People in a nice warm office in London and people in Scotland made costume decisions, and I was always fighting for more layers. But I can’t imagine this story taking place anywhere else.”
And while The darkness has yet to air, Mark is already hoping viewers will clamor for more. The series is based on the first of the Monica Kennedy novels, which means there’s plenty more source material to come.
He said: “I hope we get a second series. The second book is set in the sunshine. At the moment the birds are singing in the highlands, it’s so green and alive and the tourists are happy.”
For Cold Feet star Helen Baxendale, taking on the role of Bethany Morgan meant stepping outside her comfort zone. The actress, 56, who lives in London with her husband and three children, admits murder dramas aren’t usually her thing – but the script proved impossible to resist.
The series follows Bethany and husband Barclay, played by Emun Elliott, as they continue to struggle with the disappearance of their eldest son when the police arrive at their farmhouse with concerns about their younger boy.
Bethany is seen carrying a shotgun as she breaks into a social worker’s house, convinced it may hold answers. She said: “You couldn’t make a deck of the home. It was a real farm that had been counted on for 300 years. People battled the elements and got away with hard work. Life has dealt Bethany a terrible deck of cards.
“I don’t usually see a lot of these serial killer-type things, but this was poignant. It really seemed different.”
●The darkness coming soon to STV and ITV, and will also be available to stream on STV Player and ITVX.
