Taking steps to lose weight

VIEWERS who fell in love with gritty crimedrama The Wire based on a less-than-elite task force in Baltimore, are once more getting caught up in that compelling world of longsuffering heroes and villains.

As before, it centres on Baltimore’s inner-city drug scene, as witnessed through the eyes of the dealers and law enforcement officers.

But this time, the baddies are badder and the corruption trail goes all the way to the top.

One of the reasons it was so credible was because for every key character, there was a real life alter ego.

“Most of us had characters; people they could go to,”

explains Clarke Peters, aka model-making crime buster Lester Freamon.

“There really is a Bunk; there are characters who are McNulty. I didn’t find out who Lester was until about the second season.”

Even co-creator Ed Burns wasn’t sure of Lester’s strongest real-life influence. “I asked Ed one evening when we were shooting a scene, and he looked at me and said, ‘I thought he was me’,” says Peters.

“I was hoping it would be because he’s such a wellgrounded man.

“ It wasn’t until the very last day of the shoot I met the man who coined the phrase, ‘Follow the money’.

I’m kind of glad I didn’t meet him until then because we look very much alike.

“He’s as bow-legged as I am.

“He’s a sheriff now, but he was a man who followed the money and followed it all the way to the capital before they shut him down.”

Peters, who’s based in London, admits The Wire has attracted more than a few fans on this side of the pond.

“Going round Tesco, I think, that’s the third time I’ve passed this couple.

“Then they get enough courage to say, ‘I really like you in The Wire’.”

He’s currently one of the hottest actors on the box, with the high-profile drama Endgame (in which he plays Nelson Mandela) and slick legal drama Damages boosting his profile. It’s all light years away from his early days as a jobbing actor.

He got one of his earliest breaks in 1981 playing a bad guy in sci-fi thriller Outland.

What was it like beating up Sean Connery’s character? “Wonderful,”

he laughs.

“When we did that scene, I called my mother up in the evening and said: ‘I’ve just had a fight with 007.’ “She said, ‘What are you talking about?!’.”

He may be much in demand in the TV and film world, but admits feeling most at ease on stage in projects such as Chicago or The Witches of Eastwick.

With three more series of The Wire to be shown on BBC2 and 2010 TV drama Treme in the pipeline, there’s little sign of him dropping out of the public eye just yet.

ONE person who has been away from the TV cameras is former Steps member Claire Richards. My Big Fat Wedding chronicles her attempts to slim down for her big day.

During her time as a member of the Nineties pop group, she was a size eight. Now, more than seven years after the quintet disbanded, a steady increase in weight has seen her become a size 20.

This documentary reveals the former pop star’s struggle to shed the pounds in time for her wedding, a task that sees her attend a bridal boot camp, and face an intimidating e n c o u n t e r with the paparazzi at a red carpet e v e n t .

Chances are she’ll be a beautiful bride, though viewers could be forgiven for hoping that just for once, this kind of show asked the husbandto- be exactly how he felt about saying goodbye to his beloved’s curves.

WHAT’S this – Frank Gallagher in the confessional booth in Shameless? His family finally rebels and throws him out of the family home. He takes refuge in a church confessional, where he becomes an agony aunt of sorts and is unwittingly drawn into a secret world of murder, intrigue and lust when he hears his neighbours’ shocking confessions.

Armed with a shed load of juicy gossip, Frank struggles with a conundrum – to tell or not to tell.