Moonflower Murders Filming Locations | Where was the BBC drama filmed?

This means that the new season begins in a much hotter climate, as Susan now runs a boutique hotel in Crete with her boyfriend Andreas. But when a couple from England arrives and asks her to help find their missing daughter, she accepts their offer.

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Like “Magpie Murders,” “Moonflower Murders” was filmed in Ireland, but a completely new location was also used for the production of this series. Discussing the main changes from the book, Manville said: “It started with the scripts and the fact that Anthony does this fantastic thing: ‘Let’s marry these two worlds and see if we can connect them’.”

“There were wonderful shots of my red car speeding through the Suffolk countryside and then the little old 1950s Morris Minor with Pünd and his mate, played by Matthew Beard, speeding in the other direction and then taking the story away with you.”

But where exactly was “Moonflower Murders” filmed? Read on to find out.

Moonflower Murders filming locations

When we first meet Susan in Moonflower Murders, she is living in Crete, that’s exactly where Lesley Manville and the team filmed this part of the story.

On how they made this possible, series producer Suzanne McAuley said: “First we had to find a Greek production company to work with. I knew that I wanted to have a boutique company in Crete, not unlike my own company (Salt Films) in Ireland, that we could work together, rather than with a large company not based in Crete.

“That was immediately key to finding the right chemistry with the people we would be working with there. Then we informed them, went out and spent eight days working with probably the nicest, most talented, most loving, hard-working people in Greece who knew what we wanted and who knew how to show it to us. This gave us a feel for what we were looking for.

That led them to the Hotel Trifilli.

“We literally found this hotel that couldn’t have been more perfect for the script,” McAuley said. “He (Anthony Horowitz) was then able to see the geography in which we wanted to shoot many of our Greek scenes. We were able to modify the script to actually fit it, and it became more and more fun.”

The different locations combined with the different time frame also gave the team the feeling of “making three different shows in one,” McAuley added.

“We turned off time at the beginning and said goodbye to the world of time, then we came to the modern world, and now we go to Greece. It’s a very enjoyable experience.”

Howth Castle in Dublin was another location for Moonflower Murders..

It doubled as Branlow Hall, the modern Suffolk hotel owned by the Trehernes, where a man is murdered on the day of their daughter Cecily’s wedding before she goes missing.

Set designer Justine Wright said of the difference between the two hotels: “We wanted Moonflower and Branlow to look very different and that had to be obvious to the viewer.”

“For Branlow we referred to Kit Kemp, who designs hotels in the UK and New York. I was inspired by her work. Using lots of interesting textiles, pops of color and art inspiration from around the world, it combines traditional furniture with whimsical colors. It’s also a practical space for hotel guests. That’s where the look came from and so we turned it into a luxurious, modern boutique hotel.”

Regarding the historical setting, Wright added, “We knew that the historical part of the filming schedule was at the beginning of the schedule, so we immediately jumped into 1930s movie references and old Hollywood hotels and references like that.”

“There was a lot of looking at beautiful old Hollywood houses – Mae West and Errol Flynn – and just putting together different elements of real Hollywood houses.”

Moonflower Murders continues on Saturday December 30 at 9:15pm on BBC One and iPlayer. All episodes are now available to stream on iPlayer.

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