成人快手

How would you describe ?

Ted is an ex-copper with a lot of experience of the world, both in and out of the service. He’s a complicated man who doesn't suffer fools gladly and is driven by a sense of fairness and justice. Ted is old fashioned officer of the law but who, in life, has moved with the times.

What attracted you to the role?

I hadn’t done a big TV acting role in about six years - so it was time to get back in the saddle.

Did you have to do any research?

I spoke to a retired Met officer I've known for years. There’s obviously certain liberties taken with the truth when dramatising real jobs for television, but he gave me a sense of how the police think, what the protocol is in different cases, and what tricks they have up their sleeve to get the truth out of tricky subjects - all of which helped me to prepare for the role. Ted’s been in the force for years so I wanted to make sure I got in the right head space for it.

What dynamic do you think Ted brings to the UCOS team?

A lot of physical energy - he's getting on but he's not slowing down. He’s a bit on the eccentric side – on the one hand he dives feet first into his first case and gets and up and out, following different lines of inquiry, but on the other he brings to the job an acute instinct for police work and relies heavily on little superstitions to avoid jinxing the case.

He has a knack for knowing when someone’s not telling the whole truth and is able to coax it out of them - either gently or with a bit of role play to take them back to the scene of the crime. Either way he gets results. UCOS are a bit down in the dumps with gone and in recovery from an accident, but Ted is the driving force that gets them all up on their feet again and back on the job - reminding them that ultimately, that’s what ties them all together.

The show has had a hugely loyal fanbase throughout its run. What do you think its appeal is?

A completely different take on a well-studied theme. A lot of crime dramas are very slick, where all the police officers are dressed impeccably and you don’t often get to see the nitty gritty of the actual police work, or much about their personal lives apart from the odd love affair. With , they’re not trying to be something they’re not - they’re a bunch of retired cops who come alive on the job, but still can’t be bothered to do paperwork - and I think that a lot of the audience can relate to that.

Is there a particular episode that you enjoyed filming?

As the new boy each one was an adventure but my second episode – episode four - is probably my favourite. It involves Ted trying to infiltrate an old boy’s club of ex-City brokers who got up to all sorts of after hour activities back in the debaucherous 80s. He’s got to try and force a confession out of their top dog, but with secret hand signals and his ‘in’ flaking out on him, threatening to reveal that he’s a cop, he’s walking on thin ice.

What’s next for you after New Tricks?

Back to doing what I've been involved in since and : a lot of informative non-fiction television.