Where was The Catch filmed and set and why the very different location in T.M Logan’s book was so key to the gripping storyline?

"Where was The Catch filmed?" is the question likely on many people’s minds - especially if they’ve read the T.M Logan book as the settings are one of the biggest changes. 

With so many thrillers the setting makes the show - from the Shetland Islands in Shetland season 7 to the North East in Vera season 12 and 11. The Catch is no exception and this gripping adaptation of T.M Logan’s book has a very distinct setting. The show follows the Collier family as protective father Ed can’t get over his feeling that daughter Abbie’s new boyfriend Ryan is bad news. So begins his investigation into Ryan’s life to prove his theory, though his obsession taints his relationship with his family. The locations in the Channel 5 drama and the original book are spectacular, but the settings couldn’t be more different. 

But where was The Catch filmed, what is the show vs book location and why is the novel’s setting so key to the gripping storyline? We’ve got you covered with what you need to know…

*Warning: Spoilers ahead*

Where was Channel 5’s The Catch filmed? 

For anyone who’s been asking themselves - where was The Catch filmed? - the answer is Ireland. The Channel 5 adaptation was shot in and around the city of Dublin and County Wicklow including at Balbriggan Harbour specifically which was no doubt an especially important location given that protective father Ed Collier is a fisherman. Opening up to RadioTimes.com, Ed’s actor Jason Watkins, who fans might recognize from his role as John Darwin in The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, explained how they “made the most” of the beautiful coastline. 

"It's surprising because you think Dublin is a city but it's actually sort of a seaside resort in some respects," he said. "It's surrounded by beaches, so when it was extraordinary weather it was 10 degrees hotter than it normally is at that time of year and it was sort of tropical.”

Jason added, "You did feel like you were in a capital city by the seaside, which I think is a really well-kept secret. I think most people think that you'd go and have a weekend as a cultural thing but actually when you spread out, there's the beautiful coastline, so we made the most of that in this."

His co-star Cathy Belton who plays Ed’s wife Claire Collier also shared that The Catch was filmed “around Bray, north and south of the city”. 

The real-life house that stood in as the home of Ed’s mother-in-law Phyllis (Joyce in The Catch book) is also apparently a very important location historically-speaking. Cathy said that the former President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery, used to live there once. 

"Phyllis's house was where the president of Ireland Paddy Hillery used to live many years ago," she disclosed. "It's now empty and is used for various film projects. That was filmed on one side of the city and the set designer put sand up by the door and around the house. And we shot all the beach scenes in the other side of the city. It was all around Dublin."

If you've been wondering - where was The Catch filmed? - you now know the answer. Though the Channel 5 drama isn't actually set in Ireland and neither is the book...

The Catch show vs book location 

As we’ve seen from everything from the Stay Close series location to where T. M. Logan’s earlier book The Holiday on Channel 5 was filmed, adaptations don’t always strictly keep the same setting as the source material. Though in The Catch this location change is quite major and it might’ve come as a rather huge surprise to The Catch book fans that the gripping drama is set in the south west of England. And not only the south west, but specifically the beautiful coastline of this region, where Jason Watkins’ Ed Collier is a fisherman. 

This couldn’t be more different from T.M. Logan’s The Catch book setting, where the Colliers’ hometown is Nottingham. That’s also not the only location that’s important in the novel, though, as Ed’s son-in-law Ryan’s hometown is Manchester and much of the epic final showdown and concluding events take place in the atmospheric landscape of the heart of the Dark Peak in the Peak District, on the moors.

Why is The Catch book setting so important? 

*Warning: Spoilers for The Catch book ending ahead* 

Though it’s not perhaps the biggest change that could’ve been made between The Catch book location and that of the tense new drama, it could potentially have an intriguing effect on the final episode sequence of events and twists. Yet to be aired on Channel 5, we don’t know exactly what lies in store and even the mystery could be changed. But the Peak District in particular couldn’t be more key to The Catch book ending.  

At the end of T.M. Logan’s chilling thriller, Ryan is finally confronted by Abbie who has come to suspect him of being involved in Ed’s “disappearance”. She had discovered the information dug up on the man she once loved, including that he’d been married before and that his first wife Lori and foster mother Eileen had both also gone “missing”. The big showdown took place in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District which is often considered to be the wilder part of the area.

Described by the Peak District National Park as being “famed for its desolate and exposed tracts of moorland top” this area is crucial for Ryan. He deliberately chose the area to dispose of his many victims - including Ed Collier, Lori and Eileen.

The serial killer described it in The Catch as “his” area - a place where he feels fully at home. There’s even a disturbing passage from his perspective which sees Ryan ridicule the idea that people would prefer burying bodies in the forest.

He believed that the roots cause issues and that you don’t know someone could be watching you until it’s too late. Ryan compared this to the Peak District’s moors where he stated that if you choose the right spot as he’d done, you could see someone coming before they saw you and the earth was also often soft enough to dig more easily. 

The Catch by T.M Logan | Amazon | £7.42

Abbie Collier might think that Ryan Wilson is "The One" but her father Ed can't help suspecting he's lying to them all. Unable to get the idea out of his head when Abbie and Ryan get engaged, Ed becomes obsessed with proving that his son-in-law isn't really a catch at all.

For him, his private burial ground literally couldn’t be anywhere else and that’s where he meets his own end and his victims are finally found by the end. The Peak District location is also significant in that this is where Ryan was actually going when he claimed he was visiting his mother’s grave in Manchester - something Ed suspected wasn’t true.

The whole time Abbie had believed he was making trips to Manchester, which Ryan also described as his “hometown”. Later he tried to justify his lie by suggesting that in a way he was visiting his mother’s grave as he’d come up to the moor where he buried his foster mother. 

Given the south west setting and stunning coastal areas where The Catch was filmed, if the show’s ending takes the same path in terms of Ryan being a serial murderer his burial site might have to change. In the book it’s not that far away from where the Colliers live in Nottingham, making it more believable that Ryan would be going up there regularly. 

To keep this believability, perhaps The Catch show would relocate his preferred area slightly closer to home. Or else, he could just be travelling further across the country to the Peak District anyway. We’ll just have to wait and see how the Channel 5 drama’s equally intense storyline twists and turns over the remaining episodes…

The Catch airs on Channel 5 on Wednesdays at 9pm and each episode will also be made available to stream on My5 after broadcast.