Death in Paradise fans were left devastated earlier this year after Joséphine Jobert bowed out as detective Florence Cassell after four years on the show. Jobert was not the only one to have departed after Danny John-Jules made an exit after the previous series as Dwayne Myers. Fans of the BBC series are now wondering who could be the next person to leave the ratings hit.
Will JP Hooper leave Death in Paradise amid Florence Cassell exit?
No, is the short answer. In a recent interview, Tobi Bakare confirmed he wasn’t planning to leave the series any time soon.
The 30-year-old actor, who is most recognisable as the affable police officer JP Hooper, said: “Who knows! I’m here now.”
He said he respected Jobert’s decision to leave the show, saying: “It’s a great job to do but you spend so much time away and there’s understanding when people decide to move onto something else. Despite how great they treat you out there.”
Bakare went on to reflect on the future of his character: “I’m too sure. We have to look at the scripts and that. You can only go with the scripts but I’d be looking forward to seeing a bit more spike from JP.
“He has a history of being quite sweet and cute, but I want to see some spike. He started getting there last season.
“There’s been a few times he has to tell Jack off and try to control the whole station and get everyone’s mindset right, tell Ruby off a bit as well.”
He added: “So hopefully we can build on that as well [and] his desire to be perfect which is intense.”
This year saw JP stepping up as he had to fill Dwayne’s shoes as the most senior officer in the station and train up new recruit Ruby Patterson (played by Shyko Amos).
Ruby, who is the niece of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington), proved to be quite a handful for JP after she joined the team in this series.
On JP’s growth as a character, Bakare explained: “He very much is working on the other side of the table in the sense of trying to mentor Ruby to a degree and putting her through her paces at times and I think that was quite interesting.
“You saw a different side of JP, the side that gets frustrated when he’s not getting his way. The side that kind of gets suppressed when he was under Dwayne’s mentorship. So, it was nice to explore that.”
So has JP managed to train rookie Ruby? “Just a bit more. I can’t imagine her becoming an A star student in this next season,” he joked.
The London-born actor continued: “But hopefully we can build on that awkward relationship where one person’s going one way and the other person’s going the other way and doing the opposite and someone has to give in.”
Bakare, who has previously starred in the likes of The Shadow Line and Kingsmen: The Golden Circle, is going to be returning to filming in a matter of weeks.
Each series of Death in Paradise takes six months to film with episodes shot on location in Guadeloupe, which stands in for the fictitious and deadly island of Saint Marie.
When Bakare isn’t filming on Death in Paradise, he runs an actors’ coaching company where he mentors up-and-coming stars.
He also admitted he’d like to return to theatre at some point in the future, admitting he was “itching” to tread the boards again.
Death in Paradise series 8 is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now on Amazon