The Coroner

The Coroner is a BBC Birmingham drama series starring Claire Goose as Jane Kennedy, a coroner based in a fictional South Devon coastal town. Matt Bardock stars as Detective Sergeant Davey Higgins.

On 2 March 2017, the BBC announced that the series had been cancelled after two series.

Synopsis
Jane Kennedy returns to Lighthaven as the local coroner. She works with Davey Higgins, a Detective Sergeant in the South Dart police; they were childhood sweethearts until he broke her heart. They investigate any sudden, violent or unexplained deaths in the South Hams district of South Devon. Also featuring are Beth, Kennedy's 15-year-old daughter; Judith, Kennedy's mother; Judith's boyfriend, Mick Sturrock; and Clint Holman, Coroner's Officer.

Cast

 * Claire Goose as Jane Kennedy, Coroner
 * Matt Bardock as Davey Higgins, Detective Sergeant
 * Beatie Edney as Judith Kennedy, Jane's mother
 * Ivan Kaye as Mick Sturrock, landlord of The Black Dog
 * Oliver Gomm as Clint Holman, Coroner’s Officer
 * Grace Hogg-Robinson as Beth Kennedy, Jane's daughter

Development
Sally Abbott created The Coroner from an idea by Will Trotter, executive producer and head of BBC Drama Birmingham, about a woman coroner aged about 40 and in a location such as the Cotswolds or Devon. The series would have self-contained stories with drama and humour; a formula successfully used in Father Brown from the same production team. The characters, Jane and Davey, were based on Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Adam's Rib with the unresolved sexual tension between them. Abbott wrote the Davey character with Matt Bardock in mind. She created four other characters to complete the cast.

According to the BBC, the series is not inspired by M R Hall's "Jenny Cooper" novels, including The Coroner. Hall stated he was "unhappy" about the "enormous similarities", but the BBC say any resemblance with his books – also about an unusually pro-active, Land Rover driving, forty-something female solicitor who after a failed relationship returns to the West Country (albeit in different areas) to take up the post of coroner – are purely coincidental. The novels would later be made into a Canadian television series.

Production
The production office was located at Dartington where some interior scenes were filmed. Filming began in mid-April 2015 for 15 weeks. The episodes were divided into blocks of two with the same director, assistant director, and director of photography.

Locations included Hope Cove, Dartmouth, Torquay, and Broadsands Beach, Paignton. The Mansion, now a community building, in Totnes was used as the Coroner's Court. A brass plate was attached to the brickwork. The exterior and interior of Oldway Mansion is used as Lighthaven's town hall. The Old Customs House in Bayard's Cove, Dartmouth is the location of the Coroners office.

The set for The Black Dog Inn is the derelict Crooked Spaniards Inn, Cargreen, Cornwall. The tower at Gribben Head, Cornwall featured in the first episode.

DVD
Both series are available on DVD in the UK. They have also been released in Germany and Australia. All of these releases are PAL format. NTSC format DVDs will be released in the USA in 2018. Although being one of the first BBC drama series to be shot in 4K resolution, there have been no blu-rays released in either 4K or high definition in any region to date.