The Madame Blanc Mysteries series 4: Emmerdale baddie Samantha Power guest stars in episode 1

The Madame Blanc Mysteries series 4: Emmerdale baddie Samantha Power guest stars in episode 1

By Dave Golder |

Identifying The Madame Blanc Mysteries guest stars each week is one of the joys of every new series of the Channel 5 drama.

Each episode a familiar - and often forgotten - face from the world of soaps, sitcoms and serial dramas pops up among the regular cast. And episode one of series 4 doesn't disappoint.

It features Emmerdale actress Samantha Power, Miranda actor Dan March and The Bourne Identity's Nicky Naudé.

Titled Beach Club, the returning episode's murder investigation is centred around the discovery of a body in a boat - the victim has two rare coins in his eye sockets!

Samantha Power, who played scheming Tina Dingle in Emmerdale, guest stars in The Madame Blanc Mysteries as Marilyn (Credit: Channel 5)

Emmerdale’s Samantha Power guests stars as Marilyn

Lancashire-born Samantha Power plays Marilyn in latest The Madame Blanc Mysteries.

Marilyn is the freelance marketing guru for the company owned by the episode’s murder victim.

Last year, actress Samantha stirred up all kinds of trouble in Emmerdale, when she took over the role of Tina Dingle, black sheep of the Dingle clan.

The character, previously played by Jacqueline Pirie from 1994 to 1996, shocked everyone when she unexpectedly turned up at her father Zak’s funeral.

She didn't stick around for long, carted off by police after trying to sell the family's cottage from under their noses.

Samantha played another jailbird in Sky comedy drama Brassic between 2023 and 2024 – the unpredictable and psychopathic Donna McDonagh, sister of the McDonagh brothers.

And in 2017 she had a memorable run as drug addict mother Simone Booth in the school-based drama series Ackley Bridge.

Other guest credits include Whitstable Pearl, Doctors, Shakespeare and Hathaway and the children’s supernatural series Wolf Blood.

Dan March plays Nicolas in the opening episode of the new season of The Madam Blanc Mysteries (Credit: Channel 5)

Dan March guests stars as Nicolas

The place you’re most likely to have seen Dan March recently - and he jokingly apologises for it on his website - is in adverts for Purple Bricks.

If you have children you may have heard him as well, providing various voices in the Netflix children’s cartoon series Bad Dinosaurs.

Other TV guest appearances include Miranda, Pramface, So Awkward and Innocent.

He has also performed Off Broadway in New York with his sketch group, The Real MacGuffins in Instructions For American Servicemen In Britain.

In The Madame Blanc Mysteries series 4 episode 1, Nicolas is the business partner of Antoine, the body found in the boat.

Nicky Naudé plays this episode’s murder victim, Antoine, who appears in significant flashbacks (Credit: Nicky Naudé)

Nicky Naudé plays Antoine

Nicky plays the episode's murder victim Antoine, whose body is found in that boat with those aforementioned coins in his eye sockets. We later see him in flashbacks.

The Canadian-born French actor boasts some big-screen credits.

His biggest role was in The Bourne Identity as Castel, a bad guy who tries to kill Jason Bourne in Rome.

Nicky can also be seen in the films Hitman and Brotherhood Of The Wolf. Also a skilled kick boxer and kung fu artist, he was a stunt coordinator on Babylon AD.

The actor has a colourful online biography claiming to be the son of a mafia gangster who fled to Mexico after a bank robbery, but as Wikipedia is fond of saying, “citation needed”.