Baby boomer

OUR Friends In The North star Gina McKee seems intent on ignoring the proverbial advice never to act with children and animals. Two recent projects have found her doing both. In ITV1's drama The Baby War, she plays a woman caught up in a desperate struggle to regain her adopted son after he's kidnapped by his biological father.

Adam, the son her character Lauren Armstrong wants to adopt, was played by twin girls. Then she found herself acting opposite four canine co-stars in a remake of the 1961 Disney feature film Greyfriars Bobby, the story of the legendary West Highland terrier.

The North-East born actress has nothing but praise for her child co-stars, Daisy and Phoebe, who took turns playing Adam in the 90-minute film The Baby War. "They were beautiful," she says.

"Their mum is a midwife and she has the most fantastically impressive relationship with her children. They were very calm, which was a great help. Given the filming schedules, we didn't have time to wait for babies to be happy. The twins were blissful.

"It shouldn't be a problem working with either animals or children. If you can work in a fairly flexible way, then it can be the best time. Obviously, there will be days when you've got to be more patient than you would normally be."

In The Adventures Of Greyfriars Bobby, she plays the wife of John Gray, whose faithful dog kept watch for 14 years on his owner's Edinburgh grave until his own death in 1872. "We had four Bobbies, though I think I only met three of them," she says.

All her patience was needed for an earlier film set in a zoo. "It was an amazing experience," she recalls of the shooting at a zoo in the Czech Republic. "All the animals were there the whole time, apart from the elephants which could only stay for four days because the temperatures were too low. Otherwise, you could hang out with all these primates, bears and Siberian tigers."

The Baby War also stars Steven Waddington as her husband and John Lynch as the high-ranking Irish politician determined to be reunited with the son he considers has been "farmed out to strangers". The drama is by Peter Whalley, who's written the screenplay from his own novel and is one of the most senior writers on Coronation Street.

McKee's last work for ITV was playing Irene in The Forsyte Saga. Another of her most recent roles was Lalla, nanny to Prince John in Stephen Poliakoff's The Lost Prince, two years ago. That was another costume drama. "I spent more than a year filming in corsets," she says.

But drama doesn't come much more modern than The Baby War. "The issues of IVF, Fathers for Justice and all the things to do with parenting are always in the news," she says. "Reading the other day about the 67-year-old mother, I read the whole story whereas I might once have skimmed it."

As part of the preparation, she and screen husband Waddington talked with director Jamie Payne about what efforts their characters, the Armstrongs, had made to have children, and what they had been through in terms of miscarriages and IVF treatment. "There would also have been the financial and emotional strain," she says.

When she finds her soon-to-be-adopted son has gone, it doesn't take long for her to catch a ferry to Ireland in search of him.

"I think Lauren looks at people in an authoritative position, whom she assumes might be able to help get Adam back, and realises they are up against a system which is going to take a long, long time - and may not have the outcome that she wants," she explains.

"The emotional element must inform her behaviour, that desire - almost chemical - to have a family is very strong for her."

When she comes face-to-face with the child's biological father, Pierce O'Carroll, she has to think again. "He has his needs and emotional attachment to the baby just as much as she does. It's no longer a clear-cut situation," says McKee. "She starts to question if she's doing the right thing once she has met Pierce, because she sees the wider picture. But when the story develops even further, clearly her initial desire to have this child in her life is still very strong." Until recently, McKee had never filmed in Ireland. Then she made three films North and South of the border - including a US movie with Angela Lansbury and Dianne West - and found herself surrounded by Irish accents in Wicklow and Manchester while filming The Baby War.

As a result, she found it hard to rid herself of her Irish accent. "I had to concentrate, I really did," she says. "I love filming in Ireland. It's a great place, I felt really happy there."

She can't remember the last time she used her native North-East accent in a role. Just before making The Baby War, she made a rare London stage appearance in a revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times at the Donmar Warehouse. But she admits to loving film work: "I do feel at home in front of the camera. I'm probably at my happiest when I'm working in that way."

* The Baby War: ITV1, Monday, 9pm.

Published: 10/02/2005