This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Sally Phillips may be new to the world of crime-solving, but she’s been a detective for decades. “When you’re acting, you are basically a detective for the character,” she explains. “You’re given your clue, which is your script – and you have to construct the character from that. But there’s something about playing detectives that can be quite difficult for comedians, because it’s neither gritty nor really funny. There’s still a murder. Someone’s still dead.” Somehow, though, comedy stars keep ending up at crime scenes. Two of the past few years’ biggest murder mysteries – Ludwig and Bookish – are fronted by Peep Show’s David Mitchell and The League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss – not to mention Phillips’ good friend and Austin co-star Ben Miller, who’s played not one but two TV detectives in Death in Paradise and Professor T. Has he passed on any detection tips? “No, we didn’t really talk about that,” she laughs. “He just talked about how lovely it is filming in Belgium…” …