“I’D always resisted bringing Cold Feet back.

“I didn’t want to revisit something and go along that well-trodden path where things are resurrected and then don’t have the strength, innovation or the voice they had originally.

“But when I read the scripts I thought they were very good. We slotted back into it really well but there was no complacency.

“We did feel under pressure and so it was lovely that people took to it.”

James Nesbitt talking to me about last year’s return of Cold Feet.

Ahead of series seven which begins on ITV this Friday (Sept 8) at 9pm.

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“YOU start thinking, ‘Is this going to be about small town cops investigating a brutal murder?

‘Or is it going to be something more than that?’

“And it turns out to be something far more than that.”

Robert Glenister talking to me about new eight-part ITV drama Paranoid, made by the Red Production Company.

A truly gripping story filmed in Cheshire and Germany starting at 9pm this Thursday (Sept 22).

Starring Robert as veteran cop Bobby Day, Indira Varma and Dino Fetscher as police colleagues Nina Suresh and Alec Wayfield, Neil Stuke as their boss Michael Niles and Lesley Sharp as murder eyewitness Lucy Cannonbury.

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“IT is by any measure an extraordinary drama.”

Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys talking to me about Code of a Killer, a heartbreaking, powerful and brilliant TV production written by Michael Crompton.

Revealing the story of how DNA fingerprinting was discovered and then used in a double murder investigation.

It was a real honour to be asked to write the ITV interviews for this moving 2 x 90 minute drama, which begins at 9pm on Easter Monday.

Including an unforgettable day in the very same laboratory at Leicester University where Sir Alec experienced that ‘Eureka Moment’ on September 10 1984.

Rob James-Collier as Aidan.
Rob James-Collier as Aidan.

MOVING On is back with a Scandinavian twist.

Created by Jimmy McGovern, the fourth series of BBC1’s daytime drama has the usual impressive cast lists.

This time including actors from The Killing, Borgen, Wallander and Lilyhammer.

Emily Watson as Janet Leach and Dominic West as Fred West

“THIS is a true story. What follows is based on extensive research, interviews and published accounts.

“Some scenes have been created for the purpose of dramatisation.”

So begins Appropriate Adult, ITV1’s two-part Fred West drama.

Or rather the story of how trainee social worker Janet Leach was plunged into the nightmare world of serial killers Fred and Rose West.

I watched both 90 minute instalments of the two-part production in one sitting earlier this month and was hugely impressed by the way it had been handled.

John Simm as Moose

“IT feels a lot harder now than when I started,” said writer John Fay.

“There’s definitely more writers and actors out of work. There’s less getting done.

“And I do think that comes down to money. If people aren’t investing in it, then it’s not getting made, is it?'”

Nicola Walker as Ruth

THE interview notes are buried somewhere in my archives.

I first met up with Nicola Walker back in the late 1990s when she starred in The Last Train and Touching Evil.

She is, of course, now best known as Ruth Evershed in Spooks.

While still finding time for stage roles, including another at the National Theatre in London this Christmas.

I spoke to Nicola again recently for the new series of Spooks.