Hannah Dodkin married the actor Kris Marshall on 4 February 2012, in a small civil ceremony at the Swan Hotel in Wells, Somerset. Snow was falling outside. Around thirty guests were there. No press, no big reception, and almost no record of the day beyond a few photographs taken in the cold.
That suits her. In the years since, as her husband became one of the most recognisable faces on British television through Death in Paradise and its spin-off Beyond Paradise, she has stayed completely out of view. No interviews. No social media. The couple have two children and live in Bath. Most of what is written about her online is either guesswork or wrong, including a birth date that has spread across hundreds of sites without a single source behind it.
Here is what the record actually supports.
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Name | Hannah Dodkin |
| Married | 4 February 2012 |
| Husband | Kris Marshall, actor |
| Wedding venue | Swan Hotel, Wells, Somerset |
| Children | Thomas (eldest, born approx. late 2012) and Elsie (born approx. January 2016) |
| Home | Bath, Somerset |
| Age / birth year | Not publicly known |
| Career | Not publicly known |
A Quiet Wedding in Somerset
The couple started dating in 2010, and Kris proposed in November 2011. He had clear feelings about how the wedding itself should go. Speaking in 2011, he said: “Just filming the scene with the white tables and speeches made me feel ill. Even pretending to get married like that was awful. Fortunately my gorgeous fiancรฉe feels exactly the same so we’re going to do things very differently.”
They kept their word. The ceremony at the Swan Hotel was a registrar, a garden room, and roughly thirty people. A hotel spokesperson confirmed the details to the Daily Mail afterwards.
One detail rarely makes it into the coverage. Four months before the wedding, both of them wore parts of their eventual wedding outfits to the UK premiere of the film A Few Best Men in October 2011. Kris turned up in the deep aubergine suit he would later marry in. Hannah wore the fur-trimmed cape from her bridal look over a black dress. On the day itself, that same cape went over a silver gown with embellished detailing on the bodice, and she wore her blonde hair in tight curls. The snow outside was heavy enough that the photographs of the two of them kissing have been the main public image of her ever since.
The Guadeloupe Years
In April 2013, Kris was announced as the new lead in Death in Paradise, taking over from Ben Miller. His first episode aired in January 2014. The series films on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, usually between April and September.
For the early seasons, Hannah and the children travelled out with him. Thomas, born in late 2012, took to island life so completely that Kris later joked the boy had gone a bit too Caribbean, refusing to wear shoes and living off coconut water and pineapple.
The arrangement changed once there were two children. Elsie was born around January 2016. When Kris flew out for Season 6 filming that spring, she was three months old, and Hannah stayed in England with a newborn and a toddler. Kris flew home every six weeks, a sixteen-hour round trip, for a few days at a time.
He talked about it openly in February 2017, just after confirming he was leaving the show. Speaking to The Mirror, he said:
“It was very hard as my daughter was only three months old when I left. In some ways it was easier for me than my wife, as I didn’t have the sleepless nights. I got to leave all of that behind. But it was tough being away from her every day and missing her. My daughter grew massively between visits. Thankfully, she still recognised me when I got back, so it was all right.”
The Daily Telegraph ran its own piece on his departure that same week, headlined “My wife had sleepless nights: Kris Marshall elaborates on Death in Paradise exit.”
Why Kris Marshall Walked Away from the Show
There are two versions of why he left, and they tell you something by their difference.
The one people remember came in 2020, on Lorraine, where Kris explained that Thomas needed to start school and was falling behind on maths and English while thriving on the beach. It is a warm, funny story, and it has done the rounds many times.
The version he gave in 2017, closer to the decision, is plainer about the cost. His wife had spent a season at home with an infant while he worked four thousand miles away and flew back when he could. He said himself that she had the harder end of it. He left after Season 6, which aired between January and February 2017.
By December 2019, the family was back in Somerset for good. Kris turned up that month at Twerton Infant School in Bath and was described as a local resident by Somerset Live.
Hannah Dodkin’s Children: Thomas and Elsie
Most articles about the family name Elsie as the older child. That is incorrect, and three separate sources across nearly a decade make the real order clear.
In February 2017, Hello! Magazine, citing The Mirror, described Kris coming home to “baby Elsie and four-year-old son Thomas.” Thomas was four. Elsie was the baby.
In March 2025, Kris told the i newspaper his children were “12 and nine.” That fits Thomas, born late 2012, at twelve, and Elsie, born around January 2016, at nine.
In March 2026, he confirmed it directly to Hello! Magazine, calling Thomas his eldest and describing him as a teenager.
So the order is settled:
- Thomas is the older child, a son born around late 2012. He was four when his father left Death in Paradise and is now in his teens.
- Elsie is the younger, a daughter born around January 2016. She was the three-month-old of the 2017 interviews.
The mix-up seems to trace back to a 2023 article that swapped the two children’s names and ages, after which the error kept getting copied.
Both children appeared briefly on screen in Beyond Paradise during its second series in 2024. Ahead of the fourth series, in March 2026, Kris told Hello! Magazine:
“My son, who is the eldest, is now a teenager and he’s starting to drift away, towards things like Stranger Things. But he watches it a lot when I’m away, which is kind of heartbreaking, but also I love it.”
The Things That Stay Private
A few claims about Marshall’s wife travel widely and none of them hold up. Her birth year is the clearest example. The date 1 January 1970 sits on website after website, yet it traces back to no interview, no record, and no named source. It reads like a placeholder that nobody ever checked.
Her age, her job, her schooling, and where she grew up are all genuinely unknown. None of it has come from her, and none of it has come from Kris. Neither of them keeps any public social media, and there has never been a sign that either intends to.
What can be said is small and solid. She married Kris Marshall in the snow in 2012, raised two children largely away from cameras, held the household together through the Guadeloupe years, and has never once spoken to the press about any of it. For someone whose name gets searched as often as hers does, that silence is the whole story.
Beyond Paradise returned for its fourth series on 27 March 2026, with Kris Marshall back in the lead and credited as an executive producer. The show films in Cornwall now, a long way from Guadeloupe, which means he is home far more than he once was. His son still puts the programme on when his dad is filming. His wife, as ever, is nowhere in the coverage, and by every indication that is exactly how she wants it.
