Adrian Scarborough (Killing Eve) and Sonita Henry (Krypton) star in Acorn TV’s The Chelsea Detective, a four-episode crime drama created by Emmy Award winner Peter Fincham (The Lost Prince) set to premiere on Monday, March 7, 2022. Adrian Scarborough stars as Detective Inspector Max Arnold and Sonita Henry plays Detective Sergeant Priya Shamsie. Together, they’re a talented team capable of piecing together clues to catch murderers in Chelsea.
DI Arnold lives on a houseboat and is separated from his wife, and Scarborough describes him as a born-again melancholic. Scarborough believes having him live on an island in the middle of the Thames on his little houseboat was the perfect way to establish the loneliness of his character.
“And starting the show with him splitting up from his long-term partner, played brilliantly by Anamaria Marinca, was a really, really smart and sharp thing to do because I think it sets him up very, very brilliantly,” said Adrian Scarborough during the 2022 Television Critics Association winter press tour. “But what’s wonderful […]is because he has a fantastic partner in the shape of Sonita Henry…they simply couldn’t exist without one another. And for all of his sort of downtrodden, slightly depressive ways, [on] the other end of the spectrum he has somebody who’s bright, go-getting, very, very sharp, very, very quick on their feet, as well. She can run considerably faster than he can.”
Scarborough revealed DI Arnold has an unusual process for putting together the pieces when attempting to solve a crime. “I think he uses his piano skills very much to sort of get into the world of the crime. And he’s looking at his pinboard and he’s trying to work things out, and the cogs are whirring in there while he’s playing a little bit of Beethoven at the same time. Which I actually did for real, as well,” said Scarborough.
Sonita Henry recalled she and Adrian Scarborough weren’t able to be together for a chemistry read, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, they had to see if they clicked via Zoom.
“And then we had a brief phone conversation, and then we had a socially distanced, six feet apart coffee along the Thames, and then we were on set,” said Henry, laughing. “It was the weirdest thing. Luckily, he’s all right, as men go. He’s fine.
He’s all right. But we got on. Don’t tell him I told you this, but I actually love Adrian Scarborough and I think anyone that meets Adrian Scarborough falls in love with Adrian Scarborough. So, he made it very easy to play his partner. And I think because Max and Priya are on such opposite ends of the spectrum that they complement each other in their weird way.”
Henry added: “I remember when I booked the show and my reps were saying, ‘Oh, you should probably watch a lot of crime partner shows, and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to base my character on any other character that had been there before. I wanted my and Adrian’s relationship to dictate how Max and Priya got along. And I think that comes across in the show, because that’s the one thing that people have mentioned constantly is our relationship on the show.”
During the TCA panel The Chelsea Detective stars were asked why it is that the British are so good at creating mysteries. Scarborough admitted he doesn’t know but thinks America also does a terrific job with the genre. He was actually a big fan of Columbo, as well as the UK series Inspector Morse starring John Thaw.
“I think there’s just something very wonderful about the writing on the show,” said Scarborough commenting on The Chelsea Detective’s appeal. “And there’s something about the English sense of humor which is quite dry and droll on it, I think, which I really, really like. It means that we can have a bit of a dry laugh together, even though there’s something as serious as murder in the pipeline.”
Scarborough believes part of the appeal of Inspector Morse was that audiences wanted to know more about the private lives of the characters. He thinks the same holds true for The Chelsea Detective.
“[Inspector Morse] was just really, really fascinating and interesting. It’s an interesting point as well. I think that what we were saying there essentially is that the private lives of these people is as interesting as the cases that they’re on, and I think that’s the way it should be. And that’s definitely the case on The Chelsea Detective. You desperately want to know more and more about Sonita’s private life with her partner and her new child in exactly the same way that you want to know about Max’s ongoing scenario with his ex-wife,” said Scarborough.
