Dark Comedy Collides with the Macabre in Dead Still

John Morton, the creator and writer behind the Acorn TV Original Dead Still, talks to TV Drama about the darkly comedic Irish murder-mystery series set during the Victorian era of post-mortem photography.

Next Monday, June 15, marks the finale of the Dead Still. The darkly comedic Irish murder-mystery series is set during the Victorian era of post-mortem photography—a real-life trend in European mourning culture when the recently deceased were captured in commissioned portraits. The six-episode series, set in 1880s Ireland, follows a renowned memorial photographer as he investigates the murders of the dearly departed subjects.

The original idea for the series had a bit of a different form though, according to creator and writer John Morton. “I had an idea a couple of years ago for a murder-mystery story about a photographer who’s been pursued by a murderer,” he tells TV Drama Weekly. This photographer at the center of the story, with one of the first-ever cameras, was to have accidentally photographed a crime scene, and the idea involved what the first people to have seen the strange apparatus being used must have thought. “We kicked it up the road about 50 years,” Morton says of how that initial concept developed. “But it’s still in the same world of photography, murder and mystery.”

Morton said that research into the times and practice involved “a lot of looking at photographs of corpses and questionable Victorian photography. In terms of where [the idea] came from, it was something I was aware of as a practice. It’s still a thing that happens. In our times, it is something that happens behind closed doors. It’s not something we’re very aware of because it’s such a private thing. But we are aware of the Victorian version of that and how they dealt with death and their grief. There’s something morbid about it, so it seemed like an interesting angle from which to set a television show.”

The central character is renowned memorial photographer Brock Blennerhasset (played by Michael Smiley, Luther), who is famed for the manner in which he photographs the dead. “We meet him in the story at a point in the early 1880s when that particular trend of photographing the dead is kind of going out of fashion, as cameras become more accessible and people have photos of them when they’re alive,” Morton explains. “It’s on the wane, and he’s very much struggling with that.”

An injury forces him to hire an assistant. Enter Conall Molloy (Kerr Logan, Game of Thrones, Victoria, Alias Grace), who starts off as a gravedigger but has an eye for photography. Blennerhasset also gets assistance from his estranged niece Nancy (Eileen O’Higgins, Brooklyn, Mary Queen of Scots), who helps while he’s convalescing.

Morton says that a challenge, and the biggest liberty he had to take in regard to the actual photography practice, was in “trying to make it dramatically compelling. It’s not; it’s a very personal and poignant thing. Even when you’re looking at some of the more ridiculous versions of that in terms of the lengths they went to to make a person seem alive, a lot of that photography was still just people on their deathbeds, literally lying in bed. The biggest liberty, in that regard, is the character of Blennerhasset. He’s positioned them in more of an artistic way, where he poses the bodies in ways that make them look alive. He’s got great skill in terms of how he presents the bodies—it does make the person seem alive and makes the photo as realistic as possible. So he sees himself very much as an artist. A lot of the photographers who would have actually done that job wouldn’t have gone to the lengths he goes to in order to achieve realism and life.”

Alongside Blennerhasset’s story, it appears someone more sinister is getting in on the death-photography game. Detective Frederick Regan (Aidan O’Hare, Jackie, Dublin Murders) investigates a series of murders in Dublin’s criminal underbelly and concludes that the serial killer may be cashing in on a taste for a different type of memorial imagery: pictures of people in their death throes.

The storyline has mystery, drama, dark comedy and thriller elements, with touches of both the macabre and supernatural—though they are blended seamlessly. “There’s a lot in there; it’s a thick stew,” Morton says. “It was a case of making sure that those elements were supported by a strong story and by characters that people were invested in, and hoping that those elements work within that. There’s a lot of very heightened scenarios in the show, but the characters are pretty grounded and stay as close to history as possibly can.”

One of the deeper themes Morton wanted to explore was the development of technology and how fast that actually moves, he explains. “The early 1880s was a time when photography was becoming more commonplace. There was a massive boom in terms of amateur photographers because the technology became more accessible. It reminded me in ways of how mobile-phone technology functions now; how it’s constantly progressing and how what people can do with it is building and building. It felt like cameras were somewhat like that at the time. [It’s about] seeing how people dealt with those changes and things that were dying and things that were coming anew.”

RTÉ and Acorn Media Enterprises (AME) commissioned the series, with Dublin-based Deadpan Pictures and Toronto-based Shaftesbury co-producing, alongside ZDF Enterprises. AME holds all rights in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.; co-premiere rights in Canada; and secondary rights in Ireland. ZDF Enterprises distributes the series in the rest of the world.