ALEX Drake finally made it back to the present day this afternoon.
Or rather Keeley Hawes, who played DI Drake in Ashes To Ashes.
She appeared at a London press launch for her new six-part ITV1 drama series Identity.
But only after getting stuck in traffic on the day the Queen was just down the road at Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament.
“I feel like I’m in terrible trouble,” she laughed. “That was quite unbelievable. Can’t they just open it normally?!”
Just days after the nation said farewell to Ashes, Keeley was asked about that “Goodbye Guv” kiss between Alex and Gene (Philip Glenister).
This was her reply – click on the arrow (Audio MP3 file):
We had already seen the first episode of Identity – due on screen this summer – plus a showreel of clips from future stories.
Keeley described the new series as having some of the feel of Spooks about it.
The BBC1 drama that, of course, both she and husband Matthew Macfadyen starred in.
Also there for the Q&A were her co-stars – The Wire’s Aidan Gillen and Waking The Dead actress Holly Aird.
Identity features Keeley as Det Supt Martha Lawson, the head of an elite police unit formed to combat the explosion of identity-related crime.
She has spoken before about how she and Matthew have past experience of identity fraud.
Keeley detailed the story again at the press conference when the cast were asked if they had been surprised by the identity fraud portrayed in the drama.
“I have been a victim of it myself, so it wasn’t that much of a shock,” she replied.
“I have had people take my credit card and that sort of thing. I think most people have, which was what was interesting to me about it in the first place because it’s something that everybody can ‘identitfy’ with…see what I did there!” (laughter)
She explained: “It’s so boring. It would make the worst episode of anything, ever seen. Just somebody that worked in my house came and took our credit cards and spent £7000 in Tescos.
“How do you do that? That’s quite good, isn’t it? I was quite impressed with it, actually, when it all came out.
“I got a call from the bank and somebody who knew the culprit for some reason wanted to tell everybody about this. So they had got in touch with my bank.
“And my bank got in touch with me – it was like a joint account, so it was actually quite clever because, you know, I’m often spending (laughs), pretending not to…
“So actually it was a much cleverer thing to do than go for one or the other of our accounts.
“So that bank was contacted and also the police were contacted. And they set up this thing to arrive at my house and catch these people, by which time, of course, they’d found out. So it didn’t really come to anything.
“You tell the bank and because of the insurance or whatever, it just get put straight in and nobody seems to pay very heavily for it.”
I also took part in a small embargoed round table interview with Keeley after the main Q&A, which is where the above top photo was taken.
More on Identity nearer TX.
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