BritBox’s new mystery thriller After the Flood takes audiences to an English town hit by a devastating flood. Secrets are exposed as the water recedes when an identified man is found dead in a lift in an underground car park, police assume he became trapped as the waters rose.
As the investigation unfolds, PC Joanna Marshall, played by Sophie Rundle, becomes obsessed with discovering what happened to him and why.
The TV Watercooler had the opportunity to speak with Sophie Rundle, whom audiences may be familiar with from her previous roles on Happy Valley (as Kirsten), Ada on Peaky Blinders, Alice on Jamestown, Vicky on Bodyguard, and Ann on Gentleman Jack.
Sophie shares with us what it was like putting on a police uniform following Kristen’s tragic end in Happy Valley, what production was like (Wet! Cold!) and offers us insights into Jo.
As the flood waters recede, secrets are exposed. When we meet Joanna, she’s training to become a detective. She becomes highly involved in searching for the truth about the man who was discovered in the underground car park’s lift. What can you share about the ambitions that Joanna has at work and how it relates to her personal life as her husband is a detective, as was her father?
When we meet Jo, she’s just coming to the end of her time as sort of a police officer on the street and she’s about to start her detective training, which she’s always wanted.
As you said, her dad was a detective, and she has had him on a pedestal. He’s been a role model [for her]. She’s thrilled when people say to her, “You’re so much like your dad.” And that’s also where she met Pat, her husband. They sort of work together, but she’s kind of been stepping into this new world.
Although she’s been within the [police] force, it’s very different from the world that she’s coming from, and where she’s been in, among the community, and she’s proved herself to a be a great cop. She knows the streets. She knows the people. She’s hands-on and not afraid of getting involved. She’s got a good nose for the detective work! She’s got good instincts, but I think she just needs to learn how to manage them and needs to learns from that the detectives’ room is a very different environment than what she’s used to.
I think that Pat is kind of trying to tell her all that in a very clumsy way. It causes friction between the two.
Yes, there’s the whole family dynamic which gets thrown in.
Yeah, she’s living under the banner of her dad! You know, for better and for worse. I think that she loves it, but she then starts to realize that she actually needs to make her own name for herself.
Across the world, our weather is getting warmer, wilder, and wetter. Climate change is here. Was the subject matter something that appealed to you for this new project?
Yes, I think what this project does really well is that it has these fundamental elements and balances itself between them. It’s the murder mystery, Jo’s pregnancy, and there’s the climate change element.
I really like how [the series] tackled it because we have to start talking about this. It’s such an intimidating thing to broach. It’s certainly an intimidating subject matter to make a TV drama about, because how do you start having those conversations without it being too enormous, or too overwhelming, or too browbeating, or too off-putting? You know, it’s huge. So, I think it’s a very clever thing that [creator] Mick Ford has done, which is to distill it down into what this community [is dealing with] and how has climate change directly impacted them? You take away all the big figures, the noise and the headlines, with what does it actually look like when we meet climate change? What the looks like isn’t tropical weather in the south of England, it’s flooding in peoples’ homes. And then what is the kind of political response to that?
So, it’s a really smart way of broaching these difficult subjects while still making entertaining, compelling drama.
What was production like – did they flood the streets? How much of it was CGI?
It’s so much fun, which seems like a mad thing to say when I look back on the fact that they did just hose us down with water. It was just a wet and cold performance! I went on holiday at the end of it! We went to Spain for a fortnight just to warm my bones up!
But no, we filmed up in Manchester, which is, you know, arguably one of the rainiest cities in the UK anyway. And then we added our own rain, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to do it, because I was so intrigued as to how they were going to make that work. Some parts of [the production involved] people being incredibly clever with all this technology and these new techniques – and then some parts of it, was two guys with a big hose standing on a ladder, spraying you down!
It was really, really, fun to do, and really impressive to watch the departments come together to make that happen. They built the façade of this street – kind of what you picture a Hollywood studio to be like, and then they flooded it, and it was great.
It was so impressive. At times there’d be like a DP who had the camera in a little dinghy boat who’d just kind of be sailing down the street. We’d all just have wages on under our costumes up to here [signals to under the neck]. So, it was really fun to be in a project like this where I got to be the one getting in amongst it all, and getting my hands dirty!
I can feel the coldness and the wetness just from hearing all that and picturing it! I would definitely want to vacation somewhere warm after filming that.
The whole way through, as I was sort of shivering, and I was sort of shivering, and the water would come down my back, “Okay, I’m just going to go and look at another villa in Spain [on my phone] and mentally put myself there!”
Is this your first police role since Happy Valley?
I think it is! Yeah! Certainly, in all that kind of gear and that jacket! I think it was quite ghoulish for people because that really had an impact on people that watched the show!
Yes, it hit me hard as I had flashbacks of Kirsten’s tragic death. You were on Happy Valley for just three episodes and then BAM! It was over. It’s so nice to see you back in uniform.
It was kind of strange. It was so sad! I was so young then when I did that. I was so much younger! Then it’s quite ghoulish to see her come back, and what she would have been probably.
Yeah, Kristen got in the wrong place at the wrong time!
You’ve been on some monster hits like Happy Valley, Peaky Blinders, Bodyguard, and Gentleman Jack, what was different about this role for you that really made it appealing?
Well, it was a real privilege to lead something and very intimidating! It was exciting to have a character that you are with the whole way through and kind of follow her and see her in all these different situations. So that wasn’t ever the plan, but it came along, and I thought, “Oh yeah, let’s try that!”
I just really like that she has an element of grit about her that I think I like to find in a lot of the characters that I play, which is already there in the writing. The character that I played in Gentleman Jack is a world away from the character in Peaky Blinders, but they have this element of robustness to them, and I really like seeing that in my characters on screen.
Not only the ones that I play but also the characters that other people play. I think that Jo has this [in After the Flood.] She’s kind of earthy, bootsie and gutsy. She reminded me a lot of the women that I meet. I film a lot and a lot of the women that I meet are AD’s or in their in the crew, and they’re cool! They’re strong and she reminded me of them, which is always good. If you read a character and they make you think of women that you come into contact with, then that’s a good sign.
Peaky has had such a big global following thanks to Netflix. Bodyguard was huge because of it as well. As British TV lovers living outside of the U.K., we are finally being introduced more easily to shows closer to their airtimes in the U.K. What’s it like working with streamers and getting to see the reaction from these shows worldwide?
It is really wild actually. The reach that it enables the shows to have and then the scale changes. It’s just great. We’ve become more international as a planet. It’s really nice to be able to connect with people, not just in the U.K., but from everywhere!
It’s really exciting, isn’t it? It’s why BritBox is so great, it just gives you access to all this! I love watching shows from all around the world, so it’s great being able to explore what other countries are watching. You [get to] learn from them. So, I think it’s great!
After the Flood premiered on Monday, May 13 on BritBox. New episodes will drop each Monday until the May 27 finale.
