THE first press images of Sky One’s new drama Delicious, which was filmed in Calstock, have been released ahead of the show’s airing next month.

Sky One has revealed the first images of Dawn French, Emilia Fox, Iain Glen, Sheila Hancock and newcomers Ruairi O’Connor and Tanya Reynolds in Delicious, a new four-part drama for Sky 1. Airing this December, Delicious stars Dawn and Emilia as two women who go head to head after being betrayed by the same man.

The show has been written by Dan Sefton (Mr Selfridge, Secret Diary of a Call Girl), directed by Clare Kilner (The Wedding Date) and made by Bandit Television for Sky One.

Dawn French plays passionate cook Gina, who was once married to Leo Vincent (Iain Glen), a successful entrepreneur, chef and hotel owner in Cornwall. Leo owes much of his success to Gina’s exceptional cooking, but since leaving her for the glamorous Sam (Emilia Fox), his business has continued to thrive.

When Sam has suspicions that Leo is having an affair she confides in Gina, confident that she’ll recognise the signs. Only to later discover that it’s Gina herself who is the ‘other woman’. The secrets and scandals that spill out are proof that sleeping with another woman’s husband is never a good idea - even if he was your husband first. As Sam and Gina try to fix their broken families, will a friendship rise from the ashes of betrayal or will they tear each other apart? 

In an interview with the Times recently writer Dan Sefton said the producers for Sky One were looking at doing a show about a hotel based in Cornwall but he had nothing much more to go on than that: ‘The characters came out of nowhere but they seemed very real,’ he said. ‘I wrote all this stuff and everybody seemed to like it. I was really interested in the food aspect. I especially like Italian food.

‘We all put our ideas in, the director, the producer and so on — it’s always a collaboration and the final product ends up in a much better place than when it was just me involved. It’s greater than the sum of any one of its parts. That’s what’s wonderful about it. I wasn’t that involved in the casting but the actors are brilliant.’

When looking for locations Dan’s wife had spotted Pentillie Castle near St Mellion on the internet as a possible ‘hotel location’ and whilst staying there they were told that the nicest village around was Calstock.

‘We wanted to go to a local pub and we ended up going to Calstock on recommendation,’ said Dan. ‘We thought it was the perfect location for Delicious. We wanted to film somewhere fresh — Doc Martin is filmed on the north coast and Poldark has its Cornish cliffs and horses, St Ives is also used quite a lot but Calstock is different. It is a beautiful place, it’s quirky and original but it is also somewhere where you feel real people live and go about their business. We did not want something too chocolate box. We also felt the viaduct was a great thing to film around — it is visually very interesting.

‘It was all very serendipitous finding the location really but we are so pleased with it. Being from Plymouth, Dawn French is a local girl anyway so she felt it was like coming home and the rest of the actors really enjoyed being there.’

Delicious will air on Sky One in December 2016.

Pictured are actors Iain Glen and Emilia Fox and Sheila Hancock.