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Actress and writer Sally Lindsay returns to the South of France for the fabulous crime series, The Madame Blanc Mysteries ...
Set against the backdrop of the stunning French village of Sainte-Victoire, star and creator (former Corriestar – Sally Lindsay) reprises her role as antique dealer Jean White. With her growing reputation as a mystery expert with a penchant for solving crimes, Jean teams up again with her best friend and trusty sidekick Dom Hayes, alongside local police chief inspector André Caron, who has become reliant on Jean’s expertise when a rare antiquity is involved.
Here, the 50-year-old Lancashire-born star reveals how proud she is of the crime series, why she thinks it’s so popular, and how she gets some of her best ideas when walking the dog…
We all love Jean – for anyone who hasn’t come across her yet, what’s she like?
Jean is a very normal person with an extraordinary gift – she has a retentive memory and amazing observational skills and she uses those to solve crimes in the French village where she lives. As a bit of background, she is a very, very clever antiques dealer. She’s been obsessed with antiques since she was a little girl and has grown up wanting to learn about history – she was a bit of a geek at school about it – so she has all this knowledge swirling around.
The drama is set in the fictional French village of Sainte-Victoire, how did Jean come to be there?
Sainte-Victoire is one of these places that relies on antiques for its money, where dealers go to buy and trade. Her husband used to travel over a lot then he died in a car crash on his way home from a trip to bring back a ring. Jean then found out her husband had been unfaithful and had lost all this money.
She is there initially to sort things out and ends up staying – using her skills to become a consultant for the local police chief, who’s rubbish with antiques. As all good stories go, she falls love with Sainte-Victoire and it becomes home.
Now in series three, she has her own antique shop and she’s very settled and very much part of the community.
How would you describe her relationship with Dom?
Dom picked her up on the very first day she arrived – when she was very vulnerable and now they’re very close friends.
They’ve played this middle-aged dance of ‘will they, won’t they?’ for a while, but it’s tricky. Dom had a very forceful ex-missus who keeps coming back to haunt him and Jean doesn’t know if she’s in the friend zone, but there are sparks, so who knows? I like the fact they’re middle-aged so the romance can dawdle on, in your 40s if you meet someone there’s no big rush is there? So it’s an interesting exploration.
