Kris Marshall's 'difficult' living situation after leaving beachside home 4 hours from family

Death in Paradise star Kris Marshall revealed he lived in a separate home from his wife and pre-teens for five months of the year due to a busy filming schedule. 

The 52-year-old actor moved his family from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, where the detective show was filmed, to Bath in 2017, stating he wanted his children, Thomas and Elsie, to be educated in the UK.

First settling in Bath, Somerset, the family then headed to the New Forest, where they set up their current family home. "My wife and I moved back to Bath when we had kids, but we relocated to the New Forest last year, basically as a lifestyle choice," he told The Bath Magazine. 

Kris, who has been married to his wife Hannah for 14 years, also added that he was keen to spend more time with his family after he stepped away from the exotic location. 

However, it appears the opposite may have come true as he was offered the chance to star in the series' spin-off Beyond Paradise in 2023, which is filmed in Devon and Cornwall, meaning he was to spend considerable time absent from the family home. 

The star revealed he films his show from Monday to Friday for 14 hours a day and rents the same place every year in a "wonderful village" on a local beach not often visited by tourists, four hours' drive away from the house he shares with his family. 

He explained: "I love it. I get the beauty of see­ing my fam­ily every other week­end, but then I also get the solitude I enjoy at the end of a really hard work­ing week." 

Kris continued telling the Daily Mail: "I rent the same place every year in a won­der­ful vil­lage. It’s on a beach that isn’t touristy because it’s quite rocky, but it’s got a won­der­ful little surf break there. There are fish­er­men. I feel assim­il­ated into the com­munity. I go surf­ing with the loc­als." 

While he kept the exact location of the village a secret, the Cornish fish­ing town of Looe is used as a backdrop for the fic­tional Shipton Abbott, where "a film crew of 100 people turn­ing up with 30 trucks" causes some issues, but for the most part, is welcomed. 

© BBC/Red Planet Pictures/Joss Barratt

Kris's double life 

Having wrapped series four, the father-of-two returned to the New Forest to swap his Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman hat for his dad hat and revealed the transition has been "difficult". 

"You have to relearn each other’s ways. It’s dif­fi­cult. Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s an extremely blessed job when you’ve got your own show, you’re looked after, and solitude is something you turn to," he told the publication. 

© Getty Images

Kris continued: "Time on your own, not hav­ing to do school drop-offs and all the things that come with fam­ily life. But you always have to remem­ber how to be a par­ent when you come back, which is dif­fi­cult because to me it is all about a light touch on the tiller." 

He previously told Best Quality Designer Handbag about how filming in Cornwall impacts how much time he can spend with his children. "Now my kids are at an age where they have their own lives and so they don't want to be moved wherever I'm filming.

"They want to stick with their mates, and so I still have that thing where I live away from home during the week, but it's closer to home [than Guadeloupe]."