Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators

Plot

Ex-detective inspector (DI) Frank Hathaway, now a debt-laden private investigator, meets Luella Shakespeare when she employs him to investigate the fiancé she met online. Hathaway and his assistant Sebastian Brudenell discover that the fiancé is a con man. They report back to Luella, but she is reassured by her fiancé, and the wedding goes ahead. When her new husband is killed at the reception, Luella is suspected of murder by local DI Christina Marlowe, who had been Frank's junior.

Luella is thrown together with Frank and Sebastian to crack the mystery of what has happened. After her name is cleared, she uses her recovered savings (and her late husband's estate) to buy into Frank's business; she effectively becomes Frank's partner in order to save him from the bailiffs. Their only employee, Sebastian Brudenell, is a young aspiring RADA-trained actor who uses his skills when undercover investigations are required. He lives above a theatre costumier run by Gloria Fonteyn.

Cast

Jo Joyner as Luella Shakespeare

Mark Benton as Frank Hathaway

Patrick Walshe McBride as Sebastian Brudenell

Amber Aga as Detective Inspector Christina Marlowe (series 1–2)

Tomos Eames as Detective Sergeant Joseph Keeler

Roberta Taylor as Gloria Fonteyn (series 1–3)

Yasmin Kaur Barn as Police Constable Viola Deacon (series 3–4)

Aruhan Galieva as Bea Gardiner (series 5)

Episodes

International broadcast

In Australia the first series began airing on ABC on 8 June 2018, and on 9Gem on 2024. In Italy, the series began airing on RAI 2 on 4 August 2019.

In Germany, series 1 started on 5 April 2019 on ZDFneo, with series 2 following from 12 June 2020 onwards, also on ZDFneo. In the United States, the first series began airing on PBS on 12 January 2019, with the subsequent series being run and rerun on various PBS stations; the fourth series was exclusively released on BritBox on 19 April 2022, then aired on PBS stations later in 2022. The series has also begun broadcasting in the Republic of Ireland via RTE One.

Home media

A Region B-locked Blu-ray of Series 1 was released in March 2019 and Series 2 was released on both DVD and Blu-ray in the UK in April 2019.

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Reception

In a review of the first episode The Daily Telegraph called it "a nice, cosy drama" but found "plenty to dislike" about it, criticising in particular what it saw as an abundance of cliches, the character of Sebastian and the "crassness" of using the last names of William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, as the names of the detectives, and as the title of the series. The review stated, however, that daytime television, where the series airs in the UK, "is not really the place for complexity or grit". It also found that "the first episode of Shakespeare & Hathaway did at least set up two leading characters you'd want to see more of", and praised Benton and Joyner for their performances.

The Sunday Express found the programme "difficult to fault [...] well acted, nicely written—with decent jokes—and beautifully shot around Stratford". It compared the show favourably with other, grittier fare on offer in television drama schedules.

Reviewing the first episode of the second series in 2019, i newspaper praised the "easy chemistry" of Joyner and Benton, as well as "a strong supporting cast [that] includes nice turns from Roberta Taylor and Patrick Walshe McBride in particular". Overall, it says, "this is drama with the ham in the oven and turned up to ten. And yet somehow, it actually works". Paying special attention to the writing of creators Jude Tindall and Paul Matthew Thompson, it goes on to say that "the real appeal of this show lies in a gentle if arch charm, decent plots and a sense that if we're going to spend time in territory adjacent to Midsomer Murders, then you might as well have fun with it".