Interview: Miss Scarlet’s Tom Durant-Pritchard
Who’s the star behind Miss Scarlet‘s newest leading man, Detective Alexander Blake? In January, 2025, actor Tom Durant-Pritchard chatted with MASTERPIECE in an all-new interview and shared insights into his character, what it was like joining the tight-knit cast for Miss Scarlet Season 5, fun facts about him you may not expect, and more.
What can you tell us about Inspector Blake and how he fits into the world of Miss Scarlet?
When we meet Inspector Blake, he’s an ex-military man, he used to run the police department down in Bristol. And then after the departure of Wellington, he comes and takes over at Scotland Yard, and tries to reform the police force and get things heading in a new direction.
How does Inspector Blake plan to run things at Scotland Yard differently than the Duke did?
I think the big difference between the way Blake runs things and the way that Wellington ran things is that Blake has absolutely no inclination or desire to work with private detectives. He’s done it in the past and it’s never gone particularly well. He meets Eliza pretty early in Episode 1 and makes it abundantly clear to her that he has absolutely no intention of using her services. She’s trying quite hard to get him onside to try and prove her worth and he’s really not falling for any of her nonsense at all… [But] she grinds him down with a bit of perseverance. The frustrating thing I think for him is that she talks a good game, but she does get the job done and she is very good at what she does. So he ends up having to respect that.
You’ve talked a little bit about the relationship between Eliza and Inspector Blake. She has to start all over with Blake. What’s different about their dynamic?
One of the main differences [in their dynamic] is that when Blake and Eliza meet, they haven’t met each other before, they don’t know each other, so you are watching a relationship from its very start. They’re strangers, and I think as the [season] goes on, you just get a real sense of two people getting to know each other a little bit and all the complexity that comes with that. They are both thrown into this world where they’re having to deal with each other on a very regular basis. And that does have its pitfalls, because they’re a little bit older, Eliza’s gone through a lot in the last however many years, so you’re seeing her this season matured and slightly battle-scarred from past experiences. You’re meeting these two characters who have a bit of life experience behind them and they’re not maybe as reckless as they have been in their younger years. You’re also seeing the people who’ve been hurt sensitively trying to navigate a way through their own pain.
Even when they first meet, Inspector Blake is very clear about not wanting to work with private detectives, but never complains about a “lady detective” — it has nothing to do with her being a woman. We also know he has a young daughter, Sophia. Does that affect how Blake receives Eliza?
Sophia is Blake’s daughter, and you realize that for the last few years Blake has been raising her by himself. I guess in many ways that makes Blake quite a modern man by Victorian standards. Some people see it as feminism or progressive ideas. It doesn’t matter [to him] who’s doing a job, as long as they’re doing it well. That’s one of the exciting things, that that is never the issue when it comes to Eliza. It’s always about other moral issues and stuff about her crossing boundaries.
Can you tell us a little bit about how the other characters react to Blake’s arrival?
It’s a mixed bag of reactions. You’ve got [Detective] Phelps who has taken over as interim senior detective at Scotland Yard, and it’s a job that he sees himself as being the most suitable for. So when Blake comes in, [Phelps] feels a little bit that Blake is stepping on his feet and is trying to take his job. But I think we all secretly know that Phelps is not necessarily the most suitable character to be taking on a position like that. Then you’ve got young Fitzroy who is as charming and as delightful as ever. Blake takes him slightly under his wing and sees real potential in him. They’re the two Blake has the most interaction with, apart from of course, Miss Scarlet, and that is a relationship fraught with difficulty.
Plus, we have Ivy, who comes to work for Blake, as we saw in Episode 2.
I think one of the lovely things about Blake was that thing where you’ve got me the actor coming into a new job where everyone knows one another and trying to get a lay of the land, and you’ve got the character taking over a new job and getting to assess and suss everyone out. It’s really lovely actually because Blake sees Ivy for what she’s doing, what she’s going through, and she’s such a wonderful character. Where other people dismiss her slightly, Blake senses an opportunity and hires her at Scotland Yard. He sees potential in her and thinks that she is up to the job and really wants to push her and get her to fulfill her full potential.
Speaking of coming into a cast that’s been together for a few seasons now, what was it like joining a group that has been working together for years now?
Nobody spoke to me. Yeah, they were all horrible. And Kate Phillips was the worst, she was a nightmare [laughs]. No, it was really nice. Because it is a slightly intimidating thing, especially taking over from somebody who was so well-loved. I was very anxious about it, but the entire team rallied around me, gave me all the support that I needed. To be honest with you, it felt so normal after the first scene. I did one scene, which was right at the beginning of shooting, and it was me just stepping out of a carriage and looking up at a building, and that was the real moment of ‘shake it off’. Within minutes I felt like I’d been there for years… it all felt very organic and natural. And because it’s such a ensemble piece and we all get on so well as a group, it just becomes a thing where you finish work, we all go out for dinner, we’re all staying in the same hotel. You become a family unit very quickly… All the old timers were back and they all knew one another. It was great just to get to meet everyone, and everyone was very, very good to me.
Recently we announced the upcoming, new adaptation of The Forsyte Saga. What can the audience expect for the series and your role in it?
It’s a modern retake of the classic Forsyte Saga. It’s a retelling, we’re following different characters and slightly different storylines. It’s all been slightly re-imagined. I play the role of Montague Dartie, [who] is about as far away from Inspector Blake as you could possibly wish to get. He’s a womanizer, a gambler, and a serial cheat. [The series] is fantastic, it’s funny, it’s moving. And we’ve got the most incredible cast. We’ve got people from everywhere. We’ve got great cast from Australia, we’ve got some classic old English actors, and then we’ve got legends like Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey: A New Era), Jack Davenport (The Morning Show, Ten Percent), and Stephen Moyer (Sexy Beast, True Blood), actors that I’ve looked up to for ages.
On the topic of period dramas, you were in My Lady Jane, [set in the] 16th century, MASTERPIECE’s Tom Jones, which was 18th century, and now Miss Scarlet which is 19th century…a bunch of different eras! What is your favorite time period you’ve performed?
It’s a hard one. So much of it depends on the story, but you can’t beat putting on a good period costume. There’s that thing in period dramas where it’s more often the thing that isn’t said, especially when it comes to Victorian period drama, there’s that kind of Mr. Darcy approach to talking and dealing with emotions that I just love playing. And there’s something so quintessentially English, I think, about not being able to fully express your emotions that I really enjoy playing, because you know what’s happening underneath. But I don’t know, favorite time period? Victorian era is doing pretty well for me at the moment and I’m definitely enjoying it.
Tell us a bit about how your upbringing influenced your acting and your journey to becoming an actor.
I was born in London, but I went to boarding school when I was very young. And actually I was at boarding school in Wiltshire in the west country at a place called Marlborough College. I was in the same year as [British comedian ] Jack Whitehall. When I was at that school, we set up a drama club, essentially Jack and I and some various others. And that’s how we did our first play. We did a play by Alan Bennett called Habeus Corpus, which at the time felt very, very impressive, progressive, hardcore play. We’re not doing it as part of the curriculum, we’re doing it by ourselves. Looking back, it was quite tragically awful.
Then after that, I went to drama school, then did plays, got a few little gigs. But I earned most of my money by being a kids’ entertainer. I clocked up about a thousand kids’ parties, me and Grantchester‘s James Norton would be traveling around London with one of those parachutes, and you’ve got the kids going under playing cat and mouse or we’d be playing hide and seek out in the forest. I eventually got to the stage where I had done so many of these parties, and I was starting to do kids parties for friends of mine, their children. I ended up doing a kids party for the director of The Crown. There was something about getting dressed up like Darth Vader and doing a magic show for a well-known director’s children where I was like, “Think we need to nip this in the bud.” Luckily of late I haven’t had to do too much of that!
Do you have any fun facts about yourself that you could share?
I’ll tell you what people generally are quite surprised to learn is I have a tattoo of my favorite football club, Liverpool Football Club. Their motto is “you’ll never walk alone.” I got my tattoo and it says “you’ll neve walk alone”, which is a real shame, they forgot to put the R in never.
