Remake of Nordic noir drama Before We Die filmed in Bristol

Before We Die, which begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday, is set in Bristol but might not feature too many particularly recognisable locations.

For while our city often doubles as everywhere from London to Mars, this time much of the drama was filmed in and around Brussels, with the Belgian capital made to look like Bristol.

Before We Die is a remake of the 2018 Swedish series of the same name and stars Lesley Sharp as a murder detective who has a dysfunctional relationship with her son and gets caught up in a Croatian crime gang.

Her co-star, Vincent Regan, says that when he first read the script, “it felt like a Greek drama masquerading as procedural police show”.

Exec producer Jo McGrath, said that he wanted to set Before We Die in a port city, as that is important to the drug trafficking storyline.

He said: “We were looking for something a little less familiar and Bristol is one of those cities that actually has been used as a backdrop for filming a lot, but you wouldn’t know it because a lot of series are filmed there but not set there.

“Bristol is such a visually interesting city and editorially it fitted with our storyline. Belgium also features in our drug trafficking storyline.”

Director Jan Matthys added: “For me, part of the challenge was making Belgium match with the other scenes in Bristol, which was interesting.

“We became specialists in ‘Anglifying’ Belgium. It was simple things such as putting double yellow lines on the streets which made it instantly Bristol.

“I love the magic of my craft and this was a good way to bring the series to life.”

Lesley Sharp plays a detective inspector with the South Western Police’s organised crime unit in Before We Die – photo: Channel 4

In Before We Die, Sharp plays a detective inspector who is fiercely resisting a transfer to desk duties as retirement approaches.

The series press pack says that “she has become a by-word amongst her colleagues for hard-core parenting, having engineered the arrest of her son, Christian, which led to him serving a 21-month prison sentence for possession with intent to supply”.

Having watched the original Swedish version, how does the UK version compare for Sharp?

“You’re immediately in a world of noir when you’re watching shows like The Bridge or The Killing,” says Sharp.

“I think that the aspiration for the show is that it doesn’t look or sound like a UK cop drama. European shows are unafraid of investigating philosophical questions on behalf of their characters or elevating imagery or letting moments play out.

“I think that whilst there will still be those elements of ‘who did what’, in our version, hopefully the audience will get engaged with the psychology of these characters, invest in them and want them to find resolution and forgiveness.

“We shot a lot of the show in and around Brussels, but the setting is Bristol. There’s a marriage of winter in the UK with the euro lowlands and the aspiration is to make the UK landscape look as troubled and bleak at times as the world our characters are trying to move through.”

Main photo: Channel 4

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