Shetland star Alison O'Donnell speaks out on 'risky' season eight choice
26.10.2023 - 22:13
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Shetland star Alison O'Donnell has opened up about the risky decision bosses made when making the eighth season of the hit BBC drama.
Following on from Douglas Henshall's exit as Jimmy Perez, it was announced that Ashley Jensen would be joining the cast as Met detective Ruth Calder. The new officer returns to the Shetland Isles on the trail of a vulnerable witness and joins forces with Tosh, played by Alison.
Shetland follows Ruth's return to the island after thirty years away following Ellen Quinn, who is the scared witness to a London gangland murder. In Lerwick, Tosh pauses her investigation into a string of sinister animal deaths to help Calder find Ellen before it’s too late.
Ellen’s family are the influential and notorious Bains, led by dominant matriarch, Grace. Calder and Tosh discover her mother Stella and father Kieran haven’t seen her since she left for London six months ago and are surprised to hear that she’s back in Shetland.
Matters are made worse when armed hitmen Howell and volatile Nowak arrive on the Isles on a mission to silence Ellen. Speaking to Radio Times about the dramatic six part season, Alison said that while she always worries about how fans will respond to the new season, she's "particularly" anxious about this one.
"We had a screening on Saturday, the cast and the crew all got together to watch the first episode, and I was just vibrating at such a high frequency," she said. "I'd seen it myself already, thank goodness. I wasn't watching my own performance for the first time in front of all of those people, but I was so, so desperate for them all to like it."
She continued: "Afterwards, I was going round to everybody going, 'What did you think? Do you like it? Please tell me you like.' Because