Sally Lindsay on her new series, The Madame Blanc Mysteries

Virgin Radio

14 Oct 2021, 10:49

The actress and writer and joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about creating, writing, executive producing and starring in a brand new six-part Channel 5 thriller series.

Sally plays Jean White in The Madame Blanc Mysteries, which begins on Saturday 16th October at 9pm. She told Chris, “Jean White is Madame Blanc, obviously. She’s basically a very normal person but she’s got this superpower. She’s massively observant and she’s got this photographic memory for antiques. She’s obsessed with antiques. Has been since she was a little girl, and that’s her thing, that’s the love of her life. And she had this wonderful, gorgeous shop in Cheshire, and she was very happy, and her husband used to go over and drive to the South of France, to the markets there, get all the lovely stuff, come back and sell it.

“So Jean has this wonderful life, but unfortunately her husband, in the first scene, he dies in a car crash on the way home from one of these trips, but then she finds out, unfortunately, that all was not what it seems, and her husband has basically shafted her, and has another life in the South of France, and has basically spent all her money, and used her expertise. So therein lies the story. So, she has to go to Saint Victoire, and start living this life in the South of France. She doesn’t know a word of French, she’s absolutely rubbish! Terribly British!”

Whilst set in the South of France, The Madame Blanc Mysteries was filmed in Malta and Gozo. When discussing the exotic location, the actress explained: “I wanted an hour of sunshine. I mean, I was filming Cold Call, and it was raining and I was in a car park in Manchester, and I went, ‘There’s got to be something better!’ I just thought, ‘Can I just film something in the sun for once?’"

Sally created the series with co-writer and Shameless actress Sue Vincent, who also appears in the show. “My pal, Sue Vincent, who writes the show with me, she’s gorgeous Gloria, the mechanic,” she said.

When speaking about the two writers’ relationship, Sally told Chris: “I’m obsessed with Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle, so that was my bit, the plot construction, and hers was all about antiques and how do you kill people. And then we just sort of merged together really, so it’s quite a winning combination... of murder!” 

Talking about who else is in the cast, Sally enthused: “We’ve got the amazing Robin Askwith and Sue Holderness, who play our expat couple, and they’ve got the biggest house, they’ve got the chateau on the edge of the village.

“You know these couples that move to a different country and just don’t bother learning a word, and then have all their food shipped in by Fortnum & Mason!”

When discussing what viewers can expect from the six-episode series, Sally explained that each episode is relatively self-contained amid a broader story arc: “It grows as a piece. I’m a bit old-fashioned. I like to have an ending in one hour, because I’m busy! 

“There is an overriding arc. There’s a big sort of answer to who the other woman is at the end, but you have a story within every hour, a complete story, and I like that.” 

Speaking more about why she came up with the show in the first place, Sally said: “It’s basically what I want to watch on telly. That’s it. That’s basically it, and we’ve created it, and I’ve had this amazing team around me, so I’ve been so lucky. We cried laughing from the minute we started filming until we got off, because we just get on really well.”

Sally’s husband Steve White, formerly a drummer with The Style Council, wrote the score for the series with his bandmate Chris Hague. “It’s a family affair as well, because my husband did the music, my husband and his band, Hague and White, they did the entire soundscape,” the former Corrie actress confirmed. 

“We couldn’t have afforded him, if he wasn’t my husband, let’s put it that way!” she laughed. “So I was very lucky. It was really funny, because whenever I wanted a piece of music in a reference, I’d go, ‘Steve, do you remember when we were on holiday and there was that singer that sounded like Barbara Streisand but wasn’t, and I really liked that tune? Do you remember that?’ And he’d just go, ‘Yeah.’ And he’d just ring Chris up, and he’d go, ‘She wants this, that and the other!’” 

When Chris asked Sally whether she could speak French, she told him: “I did GCSE French, and I just scraped a C, so the irony of me doing this show is hysterical!”

Episode one of The Madame Blanc Mysteries is on Channel 5 at 9pm on Saturday 16th October.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.