Actor Sanjeev Bhaskar on the complexity of ITV hit series Unforgotten
PH 'I didn’t work out whodunnit when I was reading it'
Sanjeev Bhaskar has a confession to make. He is as baffled by the labyrinthine plot of drama series Unforgotten as the rest of us. The 53-year-old actor explains that he pored over the script for the second series of Chris Lang’s gripping crime thriller for a long time and couldn’t make head nor tail of it. “I didn’t work out whodunnit when I was reading it – it was the same as last time!” he says. “My guess would change every 20 pages. I’m still not absolutely sure that the guilty party did it in the last series.”
I didn’t work out whodunnit when I was reading it Sanjeev Bhaskar
But that very complexity is what makes Unforgotten so compelling. The drama, which was a big hit when the first series was broadcast last year, returns to ITV this week with the same two central characters, DCI Cassie Stuart (Happy Valley’s Nicola Walker) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev). This time round, the drama investigates the ramifications of another historical murder case.
In 1990, a man named David Walker went missing. He left behind a wife, who has since married again, and a thirtysomething son. When Walker’s body is discovered, a large group of suspects are implicated, and as more and more dark revelations about the past emerge, the characters are deafened by the sound of skeletons rattling in their closets. Once again, the high quality of Unforgotten has attracted a stellar cast, with Mark Bonnar (Line Of Duty), Charlie Condou (Coronation Street), Peter Egan (Downton Abbey) and Rosie Cavaliero (Prey), among others, starring in the six-parter. As well as the complex whodunnit, viewers have also responded to the strength of the relationship at its heart – between Cassie and Sunny. According to Nicola, who has also had leading roles in River and Last Tango In Halifax, their closeness develops as a result of common ground.
PH Unforgotten, Thursday, 9PM, ITV
“The relationship between Cassie and Sunny works so well because they both have messed-up personal lives,” she says. “Neither of their partners is around. They have an intimacy with each other at work that they don’t have at home. That work intimacy is quite unusual. “Cassie and Sunny spend a lot of time together. They care about each other and trust each other very much. She trusts his opinion and feels he will pull her up if she is going in the wrong direction.” But Nicola, 46, believes that the relationship between Cathy and Sunny should always remain strictly platonic. “The characters think a deeper relationship would be a bad idea and I think they’re right,” she says.
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“Don’t worry – it’s not going to go in a 50 Shades Of Grey direction!” Unforgotten also works because it steers clear of the traditional cop-show tropes. Sanjeev, who has also starred in Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars At No 42 and The Indian Doctor, observes that, “Most police dramas are plot driven, but Unforgotten is character-driven. It focuses not on the ‘people of interest’, but on their families. It feels like a Scandi drama in that respect, but it’s done in a very British way.” Nicola adds that, as a nation, we have an obsession with crime stories that shows no sign of abating.