Byker Grove graduate Jill Halfpenny’s has moved on from soap and reality dance to battling crime in Danny Boyle’s new show and couldn’t be happier, as Keeley Bolger finds out

FOR someone who’s worked in showbiz for more than 20 years, Jill Halfpenny still has bags of enthusiasm. But then, when you’re cast in Babylon, Danny Boyle’s new comedy drama for C4, all-out enthusiasm is a given.

“Danny is one of the nicest directors I’ve ever worked with,” says Halfpenny of the legendary Trainspotting director and creative brain behind the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

“He’s so welcoming and involved, it’s a pleasure.”

The new series sees Gateshead-born Halfpenny star alongside James Nesbitt, Peep Show actor Paterson Joseph and rising Hollywood actress and writer Brit Marling. Written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, who penned Peep Show and Fresh Meat, it takes a wry look at the people and politics of London’s police force.

This is a world apart from Halfpenny’s modest beginnings, as fresh-faced teen queen Nicola Dobson in BBC1 children’s drama Byker Grove.

After playing nurse Rebecca in Coronation Street, in the late 1990s, she spent three years in Walford as the beau of burly EastEnders bruiser Phil Mitchell, before leaving the confines of soapland and starring in West End productions of Abigail’s Party, Calendar Girls and Legally Blonde The Musical.

Yet it’s her early days on the Grove that Halfpenny thinks have helped to shape her career most.

“Maybe my naivety when I was young has stood me in good stead, because I always thought an actor did everything,” says the actress, who has a five-yearold son, Harvey, with her ex-husband.

“They do TV, theatre, radio, film – so I’ve never limited myself, or maybe I’m just lucky.”

Whether it’s luck or sheer hard work, Halfpenny has also landed roles in Waterloo Road, Peak Practice and Wild At Heart.

“For the first ten years of my career, I purposely didn’t do musicals because once you do one, everyone goes, ‘Oh, she’s that one who sings’, and you go, ‘I did it once’,” she says.

Halfpenny showed she could sing and dance by appearing in Legally Blonde The Musical in the West End, but is relishing the challenge of playing an officer in the Territorial Support Group (TSG), which is “basically the riot police”.

In preparation, she met real-life TSG officers. “We went to Kent and watched the officers do their riot training,” says Halfpenny of the pilot, which is being shown tomorrow with a series following later.

“They built a mini village and had to create a riot situation with petrol bombs. Danny said he likes to throw actors into situations where you’re like, ‘Oh God, what’s going on?’ He likes to give you a real flavour of what it’s like and with that job, there’s a lot of waiting around and a lot of the time, nothing’s happening,” she explains.

“Some people in the TSG are glad nothing’s happening and some of them want something to happen.”

Boyle’s research and, attention to detail made a deep impression on Halfpenny, who waltzed to victory in the second series of Strictly Come Dancing.

“There was one really basic scene where the TSG are in a cafe, and there’s a guy who follows us around, films us and he’s outside on the phone chatting to his boss. That’s it,” she recalls.

“So we turn up at the cafe, which has black and white tiles, and Danny says, ‘Right, everyone take your coats off’. So we’re all in our stab vests and white shirts and Daniel Kaluuya, who plays the cameraman, is standing in front of the cafe with a dark jacket on with this bright orange hood. And Danny says, ‘It’s going to look like a black and white shot except for this big orange hood of Daniel’s’.

“It’s essentially a scene which is five seconds long, but visually, he made it so beautiful. I love the way he thinks so much about every single thing he does. It’s inspiring.”

It’s clear that Halfpenny, who’s also filming a new BBC1 drama In The Club, has taken a lot from her time with Boyle. She’s also pleased that, so far, she hasn’t felt a drop off in roles as she’s got older – not that she wants to sing and shout about that, mind.

“I haven’t found that to be the case yet,” she says.

“I’m 38, and maybe if you ask me in ten years’ time, I may have a different answer.”

  • The pilot episode of Babylon airs on C4 on Sunday, 9pm