Marble Hall Murders star Tim McMullan on overcoming the odds with rare genetic condition: 'My looks weren’t the disadvantage everyone thought'

It’s another warm day during our extraordinary summer as I sit down with Tim McMullan at his home in south-west London. We are enjoying his beautiful garden, crowned by a fig tree he tells me has produced more than 60 fruit this year. He promises to pick me one later.

We’re here to talk about Marble Hall Murders, his third outing as Atticus Pünd, the post-war detective at the centre of Anthony Horowitz’s mystery-within-a-mystery series that began in 2022 with Magpie Murders, followed by Moonflower Murders two years later. The unassuming, all-seeing Pünd is McMullan’s first lead TV role, but it only came about after a bigger name had to depart the show.

“Tim Spall was originally Atticus, but then he had some scheduling issues,” McMullan recalls. “I’d worked on Foyle’s War with Anthony and Jill [Green, the producer and Horowitz’s wife] and they thought of me. I’d just had a shower, came back to seven missed calls from my agent, and it was a case of, ‘How soon can you get to Ireland?’ It was very exciting.”

In the series, Pünd is the fictional creation of bestselling writer Alan Conway. As well as solving crimes in the past, Pünd appears as an ethereal sounding board for Conway’s present- day editor, Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville). “What I love about him is how he comes to life in Susan’s imagination, but he has a wonderful self-knowledge; he knows he’s only going to last as long as there’s someone to write him. It’s a lovely thing to play, and to be aware of.”

This third series is even more complicated than the previous two. But Horowitz’s original books form a trilogy, so does this also mean Pünd signing off? “I don’t know, but I hope not,” says McMullan. “It’s not my call. That’s an actor’s life.”

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This actor’s life began in north London where his father was a publisher and his mother a housewife. Following his parents’ divorce, a teenage McMullan moved to the Midlands, where he discovered a huge love of theatre, heralding nearly four decades of work on the stage, including more than a dozen appearances at the National Theatre.

The office at the back of the garden is where McMullan’s late wife Gale ran her travel business. The couple met at university and were together for 35 years until her death in 2019, following an ovarian cancer diagnosis in 2010. He looks over the garden. “Of course, it’s incredibly difficult. Everybody’s experience is different, but I’ve found it becomes something you learn to live with; it becomes part of who you are.”

With two grown sons living nearby and a new partner currently out walking the dog, he is clearly grateful for everything he has, but it could have all been very different if he’d heeded the brutal directive of an acting coach following an early audition for Rada: “One of the supervisors happened to be next to me on the Tube. She said, ‘A piece of advice – you’ve got a nice voice, so maybe think about radio? I don’t think acting is for you. You’ll never be cast as anything, because of your eyes’.”

She was referring to the fact that McMullan’s eyes appear semi-closed, due to his being born with the rare genetic condition blepharophimosis syndrome (BPES). Although his vision is not affected, his distinctive appearance hasn’t always made life easy for him, particularly in childhood. Now, his bigger screen profile has led to a readiness to speak about the condition, and he has recently become an ambassador for the charity Through Our Eyes. This is the first time he has spoken publicly about the challenges he has faced.

When I was about 11, I used to pray I’d wake up in the morning looking like everyone else,” he recalls. “Facing scrutiny – or just curiosity – as a child makes you incredibly self-conscious. When I first went on stage, I felt I’d finally escaped for a couple of hours. It took me out of myself. But some family members were doubtful I’d make it as an actor, because of my eyes.” And the lady from Rada? “Stubbornly I thought, ‘Well, I don’t think she’s right, and I’m going to find out.’ The obstacles you face can have defining positive value. Jill says I look otherworldly, which is why they cast me as Pünd.”

He’s had three corrective operations, two as a baby and one later – he remembers asking, “Please make me look normal” – and now seems perfectly content with his appearance. “You sort of grow into your face,” he smiles. What would he say now to the parents of a child with BPES, or a young person growing up with the condition?

“Don’t let anyone prevent you doing whatever you want to do. My looks didn’t turn out to be the disadvantage everyone told me they’d be. Also, there’s your imagined life and your real life, and the latter is so much more interesting and unexpected. So, take the knocks and see what else life brings you.”

And with that he reaches out, as promised, to collect me a fig from the tree.

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Marble Hall Murders will premiere on Saturday 3 October on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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