This article contains spoilers for Harry Wild Season 4 Episodes 1-3 and teasers for Episodes 4-6.
AcornTV is diving deep into whodunits this month with Murder Mystery May. Out of all of the new releases this month, Harry Wild Season 4 emerged as the standout show that GBH Drama fans will love.
Harry Wild is an Irish twist on the amateur detective trope most recently showcased by MASTERPIECE in The Marlow Murder Club and Magpie Murders/Moonflower Murders. Jane Seymour stars as the titular character Harriet “Harry” Wild, a retired English professor from Dublin who turns sleuth after a run-in with a local teenager, Fergus (Rohan Nedd). After resolving their initial conflict, Harry and Fergus team up to form a private detective agency. Several cases have either covert or overt literary references, which gives Harry an edge on finding suspects and motives. Fergus is tech-savvy and perceptive. And of course, Harry loves meddling and one-upping whenever she can. As an added twist, their combined ability to gather evidence that hasn’t been noticed by the Garda (Irish police), causes problems for Harry’s police detective son, Charlie (Kevin Ryann).
Season 4 so far features a serial killer who flips a coin to decide his next steps, a murder at a convent, and a deadly feud at the race track. GBH Drama interviewed Jane Seymour to discuss what fans can expect from Season 4’s cases, how Harry rebels against ageism, and teasers for future episodes.
GBH Drama: What sets Harry Wild apart from other Irish and British mystery dramas?
Jane Seymour: I believe what makes the series different is this relationship between these two. It’s not a romantic relationship. He’s 16, I think, or 15 when we begin, and by now a little bit older. It’s intercultural, it’s interracial, it’s intergenerational, and it’s a kind of relationship that you never see in this genre of television. We have the most amazing crimes the writers come up with, and there’s a comedic element to it. Jane’s son, Charlie, is supposed to be the detective, supposed to know what he’s doing, but the police are all fairly inept, and they don’t see the obvious, which is what I see, which is that it is connected somehow quite often to literature or history.
I‘ve traveled all over the world and I keep meeting people who tell me why they love Harry Wild so much. There’s a lot of women who look at her and just go, “wow, I wish I could be like that. I wish I could be fearless, intelligent… fearless about relationships.” Harry is very much her own woman. She’s not owned by, or held down by, anyone else. She’s exciting and she is practical, but in a very natural kind of way. Kind of sexy and glamorous too, but without trying at all. I mean, she’s in her jeans and boots, and she’s on the job doing what’s got to be done. Then once in a while, she lets her hair down and you’ll go, “woo, she’s also a woman,” and I like that about her. She’s got a lot of facets, Harry. I also really love that when she finds the perpetrator, she is as compassionate about the victim as she is about the person who committed the crime, because there is always a reason why somebody does it. However cockamamie and ridiculous it is, there’s something psychological that made sense to that person at that time. And maybe something happened in their past. Whatever it is, I think it’s human. It’s not, “oh, this is a serial killer who just kills for the sake of it.” There is some psychological empathy that she finds for those people, and I find that very interesting.
GBH Drama: Which has been your favorite piece of literature on the show so far? Or is your favorite yet to come?
Jane Seymour: What makes the show fun for the viewer is that whether you’ve never read a classic, or you’ve studied history or literature in your life, you learn something through it without realizing it, because it’s part of solving the crime. A lot of people have told me that they’ve suddenly got interested in reading one of the novels, or at least the Cliff Notes. “Is that real? Is that how that works?” If I haven’t read the book for some reason, I also immediately look for the summaries.
It’s hard for me to pick only one, but I do love the connections. My favorite literary reference was last season, and Harry had a quote-off with Harry B before he thought he was going to get to kiss her, but she closed the door on him. I just thought that was so brilliant. My real-life nephew-in-law wrote that one. Jo and Dave, who write Harry Wild, they sometimes ask him for extra help in the literature world, and that’s his world. I refer to him as the David Attenborough of literature. He worked for Penguin Classics and he’s got podcasts and booktoks and stuff, and he is who I imagine Harry Wild would be. We pick his brain.
I also liked when we referenced Wuthering Heights, that he loved Cathy so much, he dug her out of the grave to hold her and to find her again. Fergus goes, “Oh, yuck. That’s disgusting, that doesn’t happen, does it?” “That happens in the book.” Then Rohan says “Wow, I got to read that book.”
GBH Drama: Harry and Fergus have a fantastic bond. What is your working relationship with Rohan Nedd like?
Jane Seymour: It’s fantastic. I mean, that is the secret ingredient, I believe, when you have chemistry. And what’s interesting, this is not the kind of chemistry you normally see: romantic chemistry, or any kind of a relationship that would be anything other than a young guy and a much older woman who come from completely different cultures. Somehow, they need one another, they support one another, their banter is amazing, and they learn from one another. In real life, I would have to say that Rohan Nedd is a phenomenal actor, and we play off each other so well. Sometimes if I feel, “oh, gosh. How am I going to get through this?” He’s up there and knows all my lines. He’s amazing and tells me that I teach him every day, I teach him stuff, which I can’t even imagine. He is so much fun to work with. I could not have a better partner if I could even imagine one. I love the guy.
GBH Drama: Several perps have tried to evade Harry and Fergus’ investigations. How challenging is it to film the chases and other action scenes?
Jane Seymour: I absolutely love all that. And they keep looking at me, especially Rohan, who runs like an Olympic sprinter. The crew and everyone look to me like, “should Jane be running?” and I go, “watch Jane run.” In the very first series, I fell in my second week of filming and smashed my kneecap. It was bad because it was so painful. The good news was that the doctor said, “leave it alone for six weeks. It’ll heal.” I was in a cast and crutches and everything, so everyone in the crew thought, “oh my gosh, she’s going to quit. This series is over. We picked the wrong show to be on because now we’ll be unemployed.” But little did they know, I’m a bit like Harry. Nothing stops me in my tracks. We managed to finish filming, and I’ve watched the whole of season one, and you can’t tell that I actually could not do it. Now my knee is completely fixed. I’ve been fine. I’ve been running and jumping and doing all those kinds of things, and I really like the athleticism of it.
I like showing people that a woman of a certain age can do anything. I think that’s great. I think so many people give up. It’s almost like women hide themselves under a rock at a certain age and just go, “okay. Well, I did the kids. Maybe even my husband’s gone. Who knows? But I’m now hiding under a rock. I don’t exist. I’m invisible.” I think this is showing the world that I am not invisible. I am, as an actress, I think, doing some of my best work, certainly getting some of my best material. I’m working all the time, and I am thriving on it.
GBH Drama: There have been quite a few guest stars on Harry Wild. Who has been your favorite to work with so far?
Jane Seymour: Harry Benedict/Harry B. who is played by Lochlann O’Mearáin, is fantastic. I cannot even talk about Harry Wild without talking about Glenn Talbot, played by Paul Tylak. Glenn is a savant who hasn’t been to school, but thinks he’s brilliant. In some ways, he’s kind of our fool, but also he’s our wise fool. I love that character.
We’ve had so many good guest stars playing suspects and supporting characters. I think the coin toss guy is really eerie. The dance thing, of course, is always fun for me because I was a dancer so I love anything to do with that, and that was really weird and wacky. She was really good in that one. They’re all really good. The horse racing one, Harry B.’s father, was terrific. The best thing about shooting in Ireland, because originally we were going to do it in England, is that there’s never, to my knowledge, been a series that actually is Contemporary Ireland for Ireland or Ireland for Contemporary Ireland. You see Ireland as England, or somewhere else, but never where it really is. Never Dublin as Dublin. And we have the most incredible actors here. I mean, the talent here in Ireland is phenomenal because they have such an amazing theatre culture. So you get these extraordinary theatre actors, and of course they act beautifully on film too. The casting on this is magnificent, really.
GBH Drama: What can fans expect from the rest of Season 4?
Jane Seymour: Oh, you have no idea how good season four is. No idea. Every time I think, “oh, it’s got to go downhill,” it just goes better and better and better. It’s so brilliant because we don’t actually know who Charlie’s father is. All we know is that Harry never married him and he’s never been around, and she wants nothing to do with him. And she thinks he’s dead and then finds herself going, “actually, I feel some sort of emotional response to this guy,” and then of course he taps her on the shoulder and there he is. He’s alive. Not only is he alive, but he’s in trouble, and he’s going to get her into deep, deep, deep trouble because that’s what he does. He’s a problem. He’s gone, but maybe not quite so gone, and maybe he needs my help.
I also don’t want to give too much away, but Harry B. has plans. I think Harry B. really wants Harry to quit and travel around the world with him. So the question is, is that something Harry wants to do, or not. I really like that Lochlann shows Harry B. to be sexy and so nonchalant, and so you never know whether to trust him or not. He’s just got sort of a lightness, and at the same time, he’s not quite tangible. That’s what I like about him. I never really know what’s going to happen with Harry B., but I would vote for more Harry B. if I could.
Just wait until the viewers meet Marcello! Marcello is in debt to someone, and I have to negotiate to save his life. I don’t want to give too much away, but I remember that as being a really lovely scene that I got to play. I spoke to Jo and Dave, and I said, “how do you do this? I mean, how do you make it better all the time?” And also, they love ideas, so we all get to throw ideas in, which is great. I used to do that on Dr. Quinn, by the way. We wouldn’t write the scripts, but we’d give the ideas to Beth Sullivan and her team, and sometimes they’d incorporate them in the shows. We are a very egoless group, actually, on Harry Wild. I think also the amazing thing is that socially we all choose to spend weekends together when we’re not even shooting the show, when we’re months and months and months where we’re not even shooting. We have bonded as a kind of Harry Wild family. We see each other all over the world.
Harry Wild Seasons 1-4 are streaming on AcornTV, with new episodes released weekly.
