Old gems

North-East stars Alun Armstrong and James Bolam are certainly enjoying the experience. Viv Hardwick reports.

BEING an actor is the perfect preparation for playing a neurotic detective, says North-East star Alun Armstrong. He and fellow North-East star James Bolam are returning as not-so-retired tecs on BBC1 next week in a six-part series called New Tricks - following the show's successful pilot showing last year.

Armstrong, 57, and Bolam, 65, join former Minder star Dennis Waterman, 56, as three former policeman, unused to 21st century crime-fighting methods, recruited by Amanda Redman's Superintendent Sandra Pullman to reinvestigate unsolved crimes.

The craggy-faced Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS) is now a well-tried TV format, but the new spin is the screen time offered to three of Britain's favourite character actors.

Armstrong plays Brian Lane, a brilliant detective who suffered a breakdown when a suspect died in custody.

Armstrong says: "All actors are paranoid, it comes with the job. Brian Lane is a mixture of acute pessimism and hopeless optimism and swings from one to the other. So he's just like an actor, really."

Of playing Lane he adds: "He's a great character and I enjoy it the most when he's really barking and losing it a bit."

The actor has previously been seen as one of the policeman who hunted down the Yorkshire ripper, which he describes as another dark and moody role.

"My character was sent loopy with the pressure of it, so he and Lane have that in common. But Lane is tolerated and even supported by his team so he's in good hands. "I imagine that being a detective must be quite an interesting job with different areas of life to be investigated all the time. You can be trained at all sorts of things, but it comes down to intuition in the end as to whether you're any good at it or not - how you develop your ability to read people is very important."

Despite guest appearances from the likes of Cherie Lunghi, Anthony Head, Robert Bathurst, Isla Blair, Robert Pugh and Christine Kavanagh, Armstrong reveals he felt most threatened by his canine co-star, Scruffy, who plays Lane's dog. "He was starring in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End at the same time as filming New Tricks so we had to arrange the schedule around him. I've been in musicals so we sang the same language. But he was better and more experienced than me and I'm sure he was paid more."

The actor can be seen in the forthcoming film Van Helsing and his other starring roles include Between The Sheets, Carrie's War, The Mummy Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Sparkhouse, David Copperfield, Our Friends in the North, Messiah II, Breaking The Code and Goodbye Cruel World.

He is currently working on a BBC drama, When I'm 64, and his son, Joe, is an up-and-coming actor who appears in Passer By on BBC1 next week.

Bolam returns as dedicated ex-detective Jack Halford, who is haunted by the death of his wife after a hit and run accident.

He believes New Tricks works well because it's a combination of a good script and an original idea - the clash between the old police system and the new."

The former Likely Lads star says of his character: "Jack's wife Mary is dead and it's very painful for him. In his heart, he really wants to find out what happened to her and being back in the police force might give him an opportunity to do so. That's always in his mind.

"Jack still talks to his wife and discusses cases with her. He probably gives more of himself away talking to her than he does to anyone else."

The series also stars Bolam's real wife, actress Susan Jameson, who plays Esther Lane, wife of Halford's UCOS colleague Brian (Alun Armstrong).

"We're both in it but we don't really meet. There's a dinner scene when we're all together, but not much more. It's in my contract that I don't work with her! Seriously, though, it works out quite well because we've got dogs and cats at home, so when she's working I can look after the place and when I'm working she can." Halford is not afraid to pull a punch or two, which meant Bolam rather reluctantly doing some stunts.

"I have to hit someone in one of the scenes. I do what I have to but that's it. I don't particularly like action scenes and I'm not into driving fast cars. Dennis Waterman can have all the stunts he wants!"

One thing he does share is Halford's love of golf. "I play golf when I can but I've been working so much that I've hardly played at all recently. Dennis has a charity day which I went to last year, then we both went to Portugal in February for Jimmy Tarbuck's event."

With in-demand Bolam also currently starring in BBC1's Born and Bred on Sunday nights, it seems unlikely the Sunderland-born actor will be reducing his golf handicap in the near future.

* New Tricks, BBC1, Thursday, 9pm.

Published: 25/03/2004