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Series one introduction - Radio Times, January 2006 |
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A present-day policeman finds himself transported back to 1973. It's a programme pitch that was once dismissed as silly, but now the time-travelling cop series is facing the audience's verdict. James Naughton meets its co-creator and stars.
On the show
"Even though we knew we didn't
want to do a normal cop show, we realised
that that was actually what people
wanted. So we talked about our ideal
cop show and we all agreed it was
The Sweeney. We agreed we couldn't
really do The Sweeney again, so that
was when we came up with the idea
of taking a cop from today and
throwing him into that programme."
MATTHEW GRAHAM, co-creator
"When people ask me what it's about, I tell them it's a cross between Back
to the Future and The Sweeney. I really wanted to
do something different. This is definitely different."
JOHN SIMM, actor
"Paul Abbott [State of Play,
Shameless] gave this
lecture recently [The RTS
Huw Wheldon Lecture] where he said, for
God's sake, television has got to
start thinking out of the box a little
bit and taking some risks. What
we've tried really hard to do is
make a show that's accessible. It's
not a weird show. It's odd, but it's
never Twin Peaks; we just wanted to
do something different. What's
great is that the BBC have utterly
supported us. They've said all along,
'To hell with it. We're not going to
compromise.' "
MATTHEW GRAHAM, co-creator
On the character of old-school copper Gene Hunt
"He's not John
Thaw or Regan at all. I see
Gene more as a kind of Brian Clough
figure. My take on Gene is based on
that famous interview Clough did,
where he was asked what he did if
someone disagreed with him. He
said: 'We sit down for 20 minutes,
talk about it and then decide that
I was right.' The relationship that
Gene has with Sam is like star pupil
and teacher, the old and the new."
PHILIP GLENISTER, actor
"I do want people to
like Gene, and secretly I think a lot of
people wish we could still operate in
that way. He has a sense of morality,
but he just sees himself as a tough
bloke who has to do a crap job."
MATTHEW GRAHAM, co-creator
"When Gene goes around
beating people up, he does at least
keep it in-house. It's like the gangland
idea, the Krays' thing, where they'd
only beat up their own. It's very
admirable in a way. There's
something quite stylish about it."
PHILIP GLENISTER, actor
"When I showed our police adviser
the
scripts, I thought
he'd say: 'Oh no, you've gone too far,'
but he just said, 'Oh yeah, that's right.
We did all that.' They would just beat
people up in the cell to get the
confessions. It was a lot worse than
we imagine. Back then, if the police
wanted to, you could be arrested,
interviewed, charged, tried, sentenced
and imprisoned in three weeks. They
didn't have to make notes; there were
no tapes, and they didn't have to give
you a lawyer. It was shocking."
MATTHEW GRAHAM, co-creator
**
Now take a look at our full Life on Mars guide.
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