‘It's NEVER dull!'

Mark Benton and Jo Joyner on new cases, mistaken identity and big hair…

- STEVEN PERKINS

SHAKESPEARE & HATHAWAY

NEW MONDAY-FRIDAY / BBC1 / TIMES VARY / EPS 1-5 of 9 / DRAMA

Spilled secrets from a tech start-up, a cursed ballroom-dancing school, and a Cluedo-inspired mystery at a spooky mansion can only mean one thing: we’re back in picturesque Stratford-upon-Avon for more baffling adventures as BBC1’s popular daytime crime series Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators returns for a fourth outing.

But while unorthodox sleuths Lu Shakespeare and Frank Hathaway operate on very different wavelengths to each other, the opposite is true of stars Jo Joyner and Mark Benton, who get on so well that they often finish each other’s sentences!

Here, in an exclusive interview, Jo, 44, and Mark, 56, chat to TV Times about their new caseload, some unusual fan experiences and forming a Shakespeare & Hathaway band!

The first case of series four, If It Be Man’s Work, is…

MARK About a mole at a tech company. Spider [Frank and Lu’s computer-expert friend] comes back to help us, which is always good fun because Darren Evans, who plays him, is lovely.

JO There’s a sub-story where Spider has a crush, which is very sweet.

Filming the episode set in a dance school was…

MARK Nerve-racking! I did Strictly [in 2013], so I felt a bit of pressure. Our guest stars Ruthie Henshall and Danny John-Jules did this amazing dance, then the pressure was on us to perform.