Filming took place in Hungary, Austria and Romania. For the monastery, they used an amalgam of the gothic-style Hunedoara Castle, in Transylvania, and Kreuzenstein Castle, a medieval palace outside Vienna. I meet the young cast on location near Budapest, where they’re filming in a purpose-built warehouse featuring Shardlake’s home and Cromwell’s office. They’ve clearly had a ball socialising in Budapest’s ruined bars, eating chicken paprikash. Lifelong friendships have been formed.
Indeed, one of the pleasures of the show is the slow-burn relationship between the cerebral Shardlake and his handsome sidekick Jack Barak (played by Anthony Boyle of Masters of the Air fame), who may be Cromwell’s spy. “When we screen-tested Arthur with Anthony, it was electric,” says Lee. “They are enormously good friends now, but at first it was similar to their relationship on screen.”
There was indeed rivalry, Boyle laughs. He and Hughes both attended the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, where Hughes was adored by the tutors. Boyle remembers them saying to him, “If you can be as good as Arthur Hughes…”
For all his intelligence, Shardlake has terrible luck with women, like Morse. He looks on enviously as Barak flirts with love-interest Alice (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, the daughter of Lorraine Ashbourne and Andy Serkis). “Shardlake is quite a lonely man,” says Hughes. “So when he’s in a situation with someone who’s kind to him and pretty, like any human being, he entertains the possibility of, ‘Well, why couldn’t I have that?’”
It’s usually women who panic about their bodies not being up to scratch, so it is moving to witness Shardlake’s vulnerability. “There’s something which Arthur brings, which is a kind of wound,” Lee agrees.