THE stars of top TV dramas get all the limelight. But they’re usually among the first to credit the production teams who bring them to the screen.
Read the closing titles for Life On Mars and you’ll realise just what a team effort the BBC1 hit is.
So there was much sadness when stunt co-ordinator Peter Brayham died in December.
One of the world’s top stuntmen over the last 40 years, he worked on five episodes in the first series of Life On Mars and a number in the second.
John Simm told me: “He was a lovely guy who worked on both series and was brilliant at stunts. He was also a stunt guy for The Sweeney. It’s a tragedy.”
Author: ianwylie
SPENT some time yesterday with John Thomson talking about a new ITV1 conspiracy thriller called Mobile.
More of that on another day. First a couple of tales to relate about John’s recent brushes with both Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Alan Sugar.
John is pictured as businessman Sir Alan Prentice in this Sunday’s Kombat Opera Presents: The Applicants.
It’s the first of a series of BBC2 comic operas inspired by TV shows, starting with Alan Sugar’s The Apprentice.
“The look is just uncanny, really. It’s great. I feel like I’m a proper character actor, because it doesn’t look anything like me,” said John.
YOU might know him as former beat cop Tony in Shameless or killer Kenny in last year’s Cracker revival.
Now Anthony Flanagan is about to take the lead as a detective hunting a serial killer in new two-part ITV1 thriller Instinct.
But he’d just filmed an altogether different role when we met earlier this month.
Stockport actor Anthony plays an engineer called Orin in episode seven of the new Doctor Who series.
Not that he has any ambitions to fill David Tennant’s shoes when the moment comes for the Time Lord’s next regeneration.
“It’s almost like Coronation Street,” he told me. “You’re just living nine months doing the same sort of thing.”
A man walked up to Liz White when she was on location filming Life On Mars in Manchester.
“Tell that Gene Hunt he’s got it spot on,” the bystander informed her. “I was a policeman in Manchester in 1973 and that’s exactly what it was like.”
I met up with Liz , who plays WDC Annie Cartwright in the BBC1 drama, twice last year.
Once was on set with John Simm and Philip Glenister in Manchester. The other time was in London for the launch of Jimmy McGovern’s The Street, in which she also appeared.
Filming Life On Mars was a long slog for the cast and crew, who also had to contend with a studio filled with dry ice for many of the scenes at the police HQ.
THERE’S been a bit of a fuss about a scene to be screened in Coronation Street this Friday.
Sean (Antony Cotton) and Sonny (Pal Aron) get up close and personal as part of the bisexual love triangle, which also involves an unsuspecting Michelle (Kym Ryder).
Now I have news of another affair, this time involving Weatherfield’s Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne) and Michelle’s brother – factory boss Liam Connor (Rob James-Collier).
Or rather two other characters played by actors Chris and Rob in the second series of New Street Law, which begins on BBC1 this Wednesday at 9pm.
Chris is back as gay Manchester legal clerk Al Ware (pictured above), alongside John Hannah, Lisa Faulkner, John Thomson and co.
THAT would be the Camberwick Green episode in the new series of Life On Mars.
The freeze frame button on my remote is worn out after watching episode five, which sees Sam Tyler tripping the light fantastic.
Among Sam’s white light visions is a mystery face, possibly from his 1973 future. And wouldn’t you just know it, there’s something strange on the TV.
There are also plenty of potential clues for fans searching for the answer to the central mystery at the heart of the BBC1 series.
THREE major TV dramas, six interviews and some serious swooning.
The Mayfair Hotel in London was the venue yesterday for the launch of ITV1’s new Jane Austen season.
We saw chunks of Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion before talking to the stars of each adaptation.
Billie Piper plays Fanny Price in Mansfield Park with Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
But I suspect the biggest screen impact may involve the spirited Sally Hawkins and Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones.
HAVE you been following The Comedy Map of Britain?
The Saturday night BBC2 series reaches Manchester this weekend with more revelations about comedy locations and the people involved.
There’s never before broadcast footage of a TV pilot starring Caroline Aherne as “Mrs Murton”, interviewing Rochdale brother and sister radio hosts Andy and Liz Kershaw.
Eamonn Holmes, who knew Caroline as a secretary from the time they both worked at BBC Manchester, talks about her ambition to get on screen.
MY first encounter with Kevin Whately was on a dark and wintry night the best part of 20 years ago.
He and Manchester star John Thaw were promoting a new series of Inspector Morse films. It was to be one of many meetings with the pair.
Never quite at ease at being interviewed – well, who in their right mind would be? – Kevin nevertheless always answers questions as openly and honestly as he can.
He still misses his former co-star and friend John, who died of cancer in February 2002.
I spoke to Kevin again at a service to remember the Burnage-raised actor later that year, when he recalled Thaw’s “mischievous sense of fun”.
The Geordie actor was naturally nervous about returning to the role of Oxford detective Robbie Lewis for a pilot film last year, this time as the leading man.
LIFE On Mars star Philip Glenister confirmed tonight for the first time that he is set to return in sequel Ashes To Ashes.
Appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends, he was asked if it was true that the Gene Genie would appear again in the new project, set in the 1980s.
“Yes…possibly,” replied a cagey Glenister, being interviewed in the studio on his 44th birthday.
“I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t want to detract from this series.
“But there is talk that DCI Gene Hunt might return Miami Vice style.”
Life of Wylie 