He's not interested in parties or premiers any more. Actor Robson Green would rather concentrate on making his North-East -based production company a huge success.

These are tough times for TV top names. No longer do their names automatically mean huge ratings. Former EastEnders actor Ross Kemp's police drama Without Justice flopped and his latest SAS adventure Ultimate Force was nicknamed Ultimate Farce by its critics, although ITV has commissioned a second series.

Sarah Lancashire's popularity seems to be dipping in the light of the unenthusiastic response to Rose and Maloney the other week. Pauline Quirke and Michelle Collins are others who've seen new series fail to fulfil expectations.

And, of course, there's the North-East's very own Robson Green. At one time he could do no wrong, but there's something almost gleeful in the reporting of the poor response for his last series Close And True.

This doesn't mean that the former star of Casualty, Soldier Soldier and Touching Evil is short of work. He no longer has a golden handcuffs deal with ITV, but has three other projects in the pipeline apart from his new series Wire In The Blood, beginning next week.

There was a moment when both that ITV series and his BBC drama Trust, in which he plays a high-flying lawyer in London's financial centre, were earmarked to start the same week. The Beeb backed off at the last moment leaving the way open for Wire In The Blood, based on Val McDermid's books and with Green as clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill.

The series is the latest to emerge from Newcastle-based Coastal Productions, which Green runs with executive producer Sandra Jobling. His approach reflects a desire to concentrate on acting rather than the frills that go with it.

"The success of acting is the preparation, the focus on the job," he says. "I don't want to do the premieres or parties any more, and I do everything I can to prepare myself for my work. I've been acting for 17 years and think I'm doing all right, thanks to hard work and a bit of luck.

"I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth but Coastal has been a dream to me. A lot of people thought it probably wouldn't work to set up a company in the North-East, but we've had success. We've got a lot to look forward to in the future with ITV and the other channels."

His fans may be shocked by the gritty realism of Wire In The Blood, especially the first story, in which Hill is brought in to help the police catch a serial killer on the loose in the fictional Northern town of Bradfield.

It's strong stuff,and not for the faint-hearted, with scenes showing the killer torturing victims. Green feels they're justified. "Val doesn't hold back on the horror of what happens. Hopefully we show what these destructive acts do to the relatives and the loved ones of the victims," he says.

"You have to get the balance right because the killer is a tortured soul too. There is a dichotomy. Do you solve anything by hanging somebody, or do you try and find the reasons behind their behaviour?

"In no way am I sympathising with these terrible acts of destruction, but we have to try and understand this sort of behaviour in order to find a solution, or else we just become witch hunters and that doesn't solve anything."

Before Trust or Me And Mrs Jones (in which he plays a newspaper columnist investigating the female Prime Minister in the run-up to the general election) are shown, 37-year-old Green is taking on the young singing stars dominating the charts.

He's releasing an album of cover versions called A Moment In Time on December 2. He was approached to make the album after recording the theme tune to Me And Mrs Jones.

And we all thought we'd heard the last of Robson the singing star after he had three number one singles with Soldier Soldier co-star Jerome Flynn in the 1990s.

Their cover version of Unchained Melody was one the of top ten best-selling singles of all time. "I was asked to sing the signature track for Me And Mrs Jones and a couple of other tunes for the soundtrack. A record company picked up on that, so I said yes," he explains

"I don't see this as a comeback, singing is just something that I do every now and then. It's just a series of cover songs, I'm giving my own interpretation of some well-known songs.

"I was a singer before I was an actor. I supported acts like Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and The Flying Pickets at London's Royal Albert Hall."

He's full of praise for Pop Idol Gareth Gates who recently took yet another version of the same song to the top spot. "He has a great voice and his song was structured beautifully. His version is wonderful. I hope he's been well paid for doing it."

Green jokes that his two-year-old son Taylor might be following in his father's footsteps and have his sights set on a musical career. "He's got his own spin on Old Macdonald Had A Farm. He loves that song," says the actor.

"I'll sing, 'And on that farm he had a...' and Taylor sings 'cow', then I say 'with a' and he replies with 'a duck, duck here and a pig, pig there and everywhere a dog, dog'. He's a bright lad."

Taylor is the first child for Green and his partner, former model Vanya Seager. He even admits to taking time out from acting work to be with his family.

"It's great fun being a dad. I didn't think it would ever happen. The best thing is experiencing the sort of love you get from your child, it's unconditional," he says.

"I deliberately stopped working because I had been doing one series after another and I needed to invest some time and effort into my family. Taylor knows what I do now. When they ask him at nursery school what his daddy does he tells them I'm an actor.

"He's a bit of performer but he doesn't crave any attention. That's because he gets plenty of it at home."

*Wire In The Blood: Thursday, ITV, 9pm.

Published: 09/11/2002