Set and shot in Bristol, The Crow Girl lands on Paramount+

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 the city’s Film Office.

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 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.

Tony Wood, Co-CEO of Buccaneer, says: “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.”

Producer Andy Mosse adds: “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."

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 3^rd 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.”

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.