Guest appearance

ANEW face checks into Hotel Babylon as the series returns, although he’s an old face, as far as viewers of EastEnders are concerned.

Nigel Harman become something of a pin-up boy, as Dennis Rickman in the BBC1 soap.

He had a couple of old friends on hand to show him the ropes in Hotel Babylon, in the shape of co-stars Dexter Fletcher and Ray Coulthard.

“Dexter and I did a show together called Abracadabra at the Lyric Hammersmith, and he’ll kill me for saying this, but I was ten and he was a much older 17 or so. We were three school kids in detention – me, Dexter and Jenna Russell, who’s Ray Coulthard’s partner,” he recalls.

“Jenna and I later worked together in Guys and Dolls, in the West End, which is when I met Ray.”

Despite this, he admits to having some first-day nerves on the hotel set, which he mainly puts down to the show’s popularity.

“When a show is as established as this is, with a strong fan-base, then, make no mistake, the pressure is on,” he says. “Add to that the great chunks of dialogue I had to deliver on day one and, believe me, I was nervous.”

It wasn’t just the lines that caused problems, either. Due to the way the series is shot, actors will occasionally be asked to freeze mid-scene – and apparently, it’s more difficult than it looks.

“In my very first scene, I had to come striding through the revolving door and freeze everything from my expression to my briefcase, which is hard to do when you come swinging through a revolving door,” says Harman.

“Objects have their own momentum and I felt like a real plonker.”

Fortunately, it seems that while he may have occasionally felt a bit daft, he usually looked sharp as he got to wear lovely suits. It’s a far cry from EastEnders, where Dennis Rickman spent most of his time running around the Square in a tracksuit, but the actor insists he still has fond memories of his time on the soap.

He also thinks the public is ready to accept him in a new role. “Most people still recognise me from Eastenders, but they tend to call me Nigel now instead of Dennis, which is a breakthrough,” he says.

Now viewers can get used to calling him Sam, as he makes his Hotel Babylon debut. The establishment is due to be closed down, and Juliet Miller (Anna Wilson- Jones) has been given the job of winding it up, but Tony (Fletcher) is still hoping to organise a last-minute reprieve.

The hotel’s fate appears to have been sealed when a terrorist threat brings London to a standstill, but the staff are thrown a lifeline when a group of stranded airline passengers turn up looking for somewhere to stay – and one of them just happens to be Juliet’s ex-husband Sam.

Enter Mr Harman.

THE latest episode of Law And Order: Criminal Intent welcomes seasoned US actor Rip Torn to the cast, after almost 200 film and TV projects over the past half century. His roles have included everything from a lecherous tutor, in the David Bowie movie The Man Who Fell To Earth, to a no-nonsense producer, in The Larry Sanders Show.

He appears in Law And Order, as Goren and Eames investigate the poisoning of a well-known and successful historian.

The victim’s dysfunctional family has a good supply of skeletons in the closet, and the finger of suspicion points at his cash-strapped brother. Then he’s also found murdered.

MASTERMIND has been testing the minds of contestants and viewers since 1972, and tonight six contestants will be answering questions in the hope of carrying off the Mastermind 2009 title and the coveted cutglass trophy.

Specialist subjects include the Lewis and Clark expedition across America 1803-1806, Britain between the wars and the songwriting partnership of Rodgers and Hart.