New contemporary psychological thriller The Crow Girl is now available as a box set exclusively on Paramount+, after filming entirely in and around Bristol last year, supported by our Film Office team.
Adapted from Erik Axl Sund’s international best-selling novel, the gripping six-part drama set in Bristol dropped on the streaming platform on 16th January. It stars Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly and Dougray Scott and is produced by Buccaneer, the Emmy-winning creative team behind hits Irvine Welsh’s Crime and Marcella.
The Crow Girl’s 12-week shoot began at the start of February 2024, and was coordinated from a production base at The Courtyard office complex in Bradley Stoke. Bristol Film Office supported the production team to create police headquarters called ‘Bristol Metropolitan Police’ inside The Old Bank of England building on Wine Street in the centre of the city.
Other filming locations included the nearby Castle Park, Queens Square, Princes Wharf on Bristol Harbourside, Welsh Back, The Gold Bar on Corn Street, Sunshine Café on Bedminster’s East Street, Greenbank Cemetery in Easton and The Royal Hotel on Gloucester Road in Avonmouth. Further afield, filming also took place on Brean Downs and Brean Beach in Somerset. The majority of The Crow Girl crew were from Bristol and the South West.
When replacing Stockholm, the home of The Crow Girl in the novel, Bristol was always such an obvious choice. Its maritime past, historical importance, strong local socio-political identity, and the brilliant aesthetic diversity all played brilliantly into our story. And shooting in the city was a delight. The largely local crew was exceptional, allowing us to produce a high-end drama on a pretty-tight budget.
Tony Wood, Co-CEO of Buccaneer
We worked with a first-class crew from Bristol and the South-west who are some of the best in the country. We also had a huge amount of help from the Bristol Film Office, making the job of planning a shoot across the city in multiple locations as painless as it could be.
Producer Andy Mosse
In The Crow Girl, DCI Jeanette Kilburn (Eve Myles) and partner DI Lou Stanley (Dougray Scott) hunt for a killer after bodies of unidentified young men show up around Bristol, beaten and full of the anaesthetic lidocaine. Jeanette and her team piece together the connections between the killings as she enlists the help of prime suspect Carl Lowry’s psychotherapist, Dr Sophia Craven (Katherine Kelly), who offers a fresh but troubling perspective on the case. With the killer inching ever closer to home, Jeanette and the team are in a race against time to untangle the web of secrets to solve this mystery.
Writer Milly Thomas, who studied languages in Bristol, adapted the series for screen. Speaking to Drama Quarterly about moving the action from the book’s original setting of Stockholm to Bristol, she explained that among her chief aims was to put the culture of Bristol and its people at the heart of the story. “Something I find particularly interesting as a writer is our British sensibilities when faced with the most horrible things. That’s something that’s so important for me… that you can have a laugh and on the same day receive the worst news you’ve ever received. That’s sort of how life works, and that’s there in the novel. But there’s a grandeur, there’s a caustic nature to it, which leans into that Swedish sensibility, which wouldn’t necessarily translate when put, say, in Bristol in 2024. So that’s the process for me.”
The production team provided placements for ScreenSkills trainees from the local area across various departments, and a group of students from Bristol Film School, Boomsatsuma also gained work experience as extras and spent time with the Producer, Director and 3rd AD to further understand their roles.
Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, who is an Executive Producer of The Crow Girl and has also contributed to its soundtrack, paid a visit to the production in April 2024, meeting with cast and crew at the police station sets on Wine Street and causing a stir amongst the local public when he dropped in at nearby independent coffee shop and music venue Dareshack. Slash says: “I managed to go over to Bristol one day during my tour, because I was playing in England. And so, I managed to get to the set and hang out with the crew and then meet the cast present at the time. It was really, really cool, and everybody in the production was great. I’ve been on a lot of sets, and there was a great sense of professionalism and camaraderie and passion for the project.”
Here’s what the rest of the cast and crew had to say about filming in Bristol:
The ambition level was really high. So, first of all, we saved money by moving the action from London to Bristol, and I’ve shot in Bristol quite a few times, so I knew it had a big TV industry there. This is one of the best crews I’ve worked with – I was super impressed with them. And the other thing we decided to do was cut the filming time. So, typically, you would shoot something like this allowing 12-13 days per episode, but The Crow Girl was shot with 10 days per episode. So that was hard, to shoot each episode in three days less than I typically shoot something. It was a good idea, because shooting is expensive and that’s how they made their budget work. We didn’t build any sets either, so everything was shot on location, it was a case of creating a world by finding locations which are going to tell this story as visually impressively as we could, while also fitting this quite tight schedule!
Director Charles Martin
When I trained in drama school, my housemate was a Bristolian, and we were best friends, so I always felt like I had a bit of Bristol with me. And then I did a series years and years ago, a lovely series on the BBC called Frankie. It was based in Bristol, and I had a lovely time. What’s wonderful is that it’s a city that’s small enough to be intimate and yet it’s got such grandeur in terms of the architecture. It’s also got stunning countryside and such lovely people. It’s this little pocket in a big land. A little magical pocket, an unusual place that’s just tipping into the sea, which is kooky and unusual. And I got to go home every night, which is just unbelievable. For any actor, to be able to work from home is a major treat, just coming back to your family at night and to be in your own bed. I was so grateful to Bristol for that.
Eve Myles (DCI Jeanette Kilburn)
I love Bristol, I think it’s a great community, it’s very artistic, and it has a much slower, more chilled pace than London. We were filming at a time in the year where it was really rainy and grey, but our base was on the harbour, so it was a serene, peaceful environment. I enjoyed being away from London for a while.
Elliot Edusah (DC Mike Dilliston)
Our costume designer and I worked together to try and find something that we could use to anchor Madeleine… because there’s so little freedom in her life and we wanted to have something that she could have as her own. He came up with this really gorgeous idea. There’s a cool, Bristolian jeweller called Diana Porter who makes these dog tag-style necklaces in metal and engraves words on them. You’ll see me wearing the necklace in some of the episodes, and the word I chose was courage. I think that really sets us up to understand where we find Madeleine and where we’re going to go with her.
Chloe Sweetlove (Madeleine)
Milly Thomas created the series for screen, writing four episodes as well as executive producing with Charles Martin and Rebecca Rycroft both serving as directors. Tony Wood and Richard Tulk-Hart are executive producers for Buccaneer and Andy Mosse is the producer for the series. Eve Myles serves as executive producer alongside Slash who also provides additional music. Book author Erik Axl Sund is also executive producer alongside Niclas Salomonsson and Federico Ambrosini.
The Crow Girl was commissioned by Sebastian Cardwell, Deputy Chief Content Officer, UK, and Paul Testar, Commissioning Editor for Paramount+. The series is produced in association with and distributed by ITV Studios.
The Crow Girl is available to watch now exclusively on Paramount+.