Miss Scarlet & The Duke

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Andrew Gower played Rupert Parker in Season 1 of the period crime drama Miss Scarlet & The Duke, the faithful companion to Miss Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips), the first-ever female detective in 19th century London.

Brought up by her widowed father Henry (Kevin Doyle), Eliza Scarlet is an educated, headstrong young woman living in Victorian London. When her father suddenly dies, she is left penniless and forced to pick up Henry’s business – a private detective agency – in a time where women had little to no rights at all. In order to hold her own in the male dominated world of crime solving, Eliza occasionally relies on the support of three men.

William ‘The Duke’ Wellington (Stuart Martin) is a Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard who as a young boy was mentored by Eliza’s father. He’s a gambler, a drinker and a womaniser but he is genuinely fond of Eliza who he shares an almost sibling like bond with but with an underlying sizzling attraction.

Also supporting Eliza are Moses (Ansu Kabia) and Rupert Parker (Andrew Gower). Moses works at a night club in Soho and has come to London from Jamaica for a new beginning. While their first encounter doesn’t make for a good start, they eventually form an unlikely alliance.

Rupert Parker is a wealthy young man, whose domineering mother is extremely displeased about her only son’s unmarried status and forces him to propose to Eliza. Clearly terrified of his mother, Rupert confides in Eliza that he doesn’t want to be married. The two bond over the fact that they both crave independence and quickly discover that there is a different way for them to form a partnership.

The series, which is described as a “Victorian Moonlighting” by Declan O’Dwyer in our exclusive interview with the director, was first announced to be in development on 26 November 2018 by Screen Daily. On 25 March 2019 Deadline then reported that A+E Networks International gave a formal series order. Pre-production started in June 2019 and principal photography began in early July in Dublin with the Irish production company ShinAwiL overseeing it. Rachael New is credited as showrunner and creator with Declan O’Dwyer directing all episodes of Season 1.

The series had its world premiere at Content London on 3 December 2019 and was released in 2020 in the UK. In our exclusive interview on 31 January 2020, Rachael New stated that she is currently working on scripts for season 2, possibly “wearing Miss Scarlet’s costume” (as Declan O’Dwyer speculated in October 2019). It was later confirmed by Stuart Martin in an interview with The Book of Man that they were “due to do a second series of Miss Scarlet & The Duke in September [2020] in Dublin”.

On 30 March 2021, one day before the show’s first broadcast anniversary, PBS Masterpiece confirmed Season 2 with Steve Hughes as the new lead director. Season 2 aired in 2022 with PBS overseeing international distribution after A&E International dropped out of the project.

Although Andrew Gower was originally confirmed to reprise his role as Rupert Parker, he sadly had to drop out of the series in August 2021 due to a scheduling conflict.

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Episode Synopses:

Watch some of Andrew’s scenes from Season 1 of Miss Scarlet & The Duke here: