Television

The Interrogation – Channel 4

Filming has begun on Channel’s 4 The Interrogation starring Daniel Mays and Steve Pemberton (Inside No. 9 and Daniel’s recent co-star in Sky Arts Bill Grundy vs. The Sex Pistols). Daniel Mays will portray DC Stuart Peters and Steve Pemberton will portray Tony Martin.

From Channel 4 Press:
Specialist Factual has commissioned from Story Films a 1 x 60 mins ground breaking factual drama The Interrogation (working title). Inside No 9 star and BAFTA winner Steve Pemberton (Happy Valley, Whitechapel, Benidorm) will play Tony Martin who was sentenced to life after shooting dead 16 year old burglar Fred Barras.

Alongside Pemberton will be Daniel Mays(Line of Duty, Born to Kill) and Stuart Graham (The Fall, Thirteen, Hunger). The drama is written and directed by David Nath for Story Films. Nath is the award winning filmmaker behind BAFTA-winning documentary The Murder Detectives and C4 drama The Watchman.

The Interrogation (working title) will offer up an account of the three days of police questioning following his arrest for shooting two burglars who broke into his farmhouse in 1999. At his trial Martin argued he had used reasonable force to defend himself and his property. His conviction provoked public outcry and the case became a national cause celebre.

Martin successfully appealed against his conviction. As a result it was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and he was released from prison after serving three years.

Executive Producer Peter Beard said: “This is the missing part of an extraordinary story that captivated and divided the country. Finally we will hear exactly what Tony Martin told detectives in the confines of a police interview room just hours after he was arrested. For the first time it’s his own account in his words.”

Acting Head of Specialist Factual Rob Coldstream added “This thought provoking film sheds new light onto the Tony Martin story, illuminating an issue that touched a raw public nerve at the time and – as events surrounding the recent burglary case in London’s Hither Green demonstrate – continues to do so today.

Steve Pemberton continued; ‘”This is a fascinating story which divided public opinion at the time – and is currently even more poignant. Now we finally get to hear the account directly from Tony Martin, I’m looking forward to being part of such a ground breaking drama.”

Daniel Mays tweeted from the rehearsal room in London:

Commissioning Editors: Rob Coldstream and John Hay|
Producer: Kate Cook (The Watchman, Unspeakable)
Executive Producer: Jonathan Smith (24 Hours in Police Custody)Peter Beard
Production Company: Story Films

Also reported in The Sun on 23/4/18.

We will have updates on this new project soon!

Follow Daniel Mays on Twitter @DanielMays9

©DanielMays.co.uk

Line of Duty Series Three: First Promo Photo and Additional Casting 
 BBC Two has released the first promo image from Line of Duty series 3!
With filming well under way for Line Of Duty series three, the BBC has today unveiled the other officers in the Armed Response Unit joining Daniel Mays’ (Mrs Biggs, Public Enemies, Made In Dagenham) character Sergeant Danny Waldron. 

Will Mellor (Broadchurch, The Street) plays PC Rod Kennedy, Arsher Ali (The Missing, Silent Witness) plays PC Harinderpal ‘Hari’ Bains and Leanne Best (Ripper Street, Fortitude) plays WPC Jackie Brickford.

Jed Mercurio, writer and creator of Line Of Duty, says: “Sergeant Danny Waldron appears to run a team of crack firearms officers, but hidden tensions simmer beneath the surface. We’re all hugely excited that Will Mellor, Arsher Ali and Leanne Best have agreed to play these pivotal roles.”

The commissioner for BBC Two is Kim Shillinglaw, Controller of BBC Two and BBC Four, and Ben Stephenson, Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning. The executive producers are Jed Mercurio (Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Critical) and Simon Heath (The Great Train Robbery, The Fear and The Bletchley Circle) for World Productions, and Stephen Wright for BBC Northern Ireland. With support from Northern Ireland Screen.

The producer is Peter Norris (Nylon, Between The Lines). Michael Keillor (Critical, Silk) will direct episodes one to three and John Strickland (Bodies, Prime Suspect 2) will direct episodes four to six.

Courtesy of BBC Two

Courtesy of BBC Two

Daniel Mays Joins BBC Two’s Line of Duty

Daniel Mays Official Twitter

©DanielMays.co.uk

Filming News: Line of Duty

 

 

Filming on Line of Duty series 3 has begun!

Speaking about the role, Daniel Mays says: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining the unbelievably talented cast of Line Of Duty series three. Jed Mercurio has once again delivered a thrilling and emotionally raw script, which I feel incredibly honoured to be a part of.”

Daniel Mays will play Sergeant Danny Waldron, the highly proficient leader of an Armed Response Unit whose unpredictable behaviour is becoming a threat to colleagues and suspects. When AC-12 are called in to investigate Danny’s conduct, even they could find themselves in the firing line. Mays joins returning cast Martin Compston as Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott, Vicky McClure as Detective Constable Kate Fleming and Adrian Dunbar as Superintendent Ted Hastings. 

Daniel Mays official Twitter 

 BBC Two Line of Duty

©Team Daniel Mays

Daniel Mays Interview: Guardian

Lovely interview with Danny Mays in The Guardian
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Daniel Mays is telling me about the periwig. For his role as the diarist Samuel Pepys in a new four-part ITV drama, The Great Fire, based on the true events of the fire that swept through London in 1666, he wears an extraordinary Gaga-esque confection of auburn curls. “Oh man, this thing was waiting for me in the makeup truck,” he laughs. “It’s one of those things where you have to leave your vanity at the door and embrace it…

The Great Fire Begins Thursday 16 October at 9PM on ITV

The Great Fire begins on ITV at 9PM Thursday 16 October.

Episode one:

It’s the summer of 1666. Thomas Farriner is the King’s baker, supplying bread and biscuit for the Navy, who are currently at war. A widower and single-father, Thomas works alongside his daughters Mary and Hannah, with a little help from his sister-in-law, Sarah Farriner, in his Pudding Lane bakery. 

 
Times are hard and Sarah’s wayward husband (and Thomas’ brother) has been missing at sea for many months. Although she’s unable to move on, there’s no denying the crackle between Thomas and Sarah as she departs to prepare for the return of her employer, the Duke of Hanford. 
 
Thomas heads off with the Navy delivery and when he arrives at the Navy yards, it quickly becomes clear he’s not going to be paid for all the work he’s done. Thomas discusses his lack of payment with Navy official Samuel Pepys and is dismayed to learn there is no hope of payment due to the expense of the war. However, Pepys is able to help Thomas in another way and he sends him away with a letter confirming the fate of Will Farriner.
 
Across the city in the palace of Whitehall, the King is at a stately dance, enjoying his many spoils and women in full view of his wife, the Queen. Amidst the reverie a terrifying assassination attempt is foiled by the King’s Intelligence Officer, Lord Denton. Under interrogation, the assassin reveals he’s a Catholic fanatic and a former employee of Sarah’s boss, the Duke of Hanford, who Denton has under surveillance. Is there some kind of larger Catholic plot in the works? The King registers concern but surprisingly his brother, James Duke of York, stands up for Hanford. 
 
Samuel Pepys enjoy a game of Pall Mall with the King but returns home to find his wife Elizabeth with her dance teacher. Jealous and hurt, he slips away to visit a prostitute. 
 
At the bakery, a troubled Thomas leaves his daughter Hannah in charge and heads to his sister-in-law with a heavy heart. Meanwhile, Sarah is visited by a ‘Mr Wickes’, supposedly a kindly man from church, but who reveals himself to be Lord Denton. He asks that she act as an informant on her employer, Hanford. And gives her a couple of hours to decide. Seeing Denton from afar, Thomas assumes Sarah is courting the so-called ‘Mr Wickes’ and decides against delivering her the letter from Pepys. 
 
Thomas returns home to Pudding Lane to find the bakery ablaze and his two daughters asleep upstairs, blissfully unaware of the fire below. Thomas scrabbles to get the girls out, only just escaping the flames by climbing across the roof, before his home is completely consumed. He sends the girls to Sarah’s lodgings while he attempts to contain the fire. But upon receiving them, Sarah goes to look for Thomas. Out on the street, she is snatched by Denton’s men and thrown in the back of a prison carriage…

The Great War: The People’s Story – Episode 2 ITV Player

Episode 2 of ITV’s extraordinary The Great War: The People’s Story is now available on ITV Player.

The series continues the real-life stories of Reg Evans (Daniel Mays), shot in the face in the trenches, as he undergoes  pioneering plastic surgery – and of Alan Lloyd (Matthew McNullty), who has swapped life with his new wife and baby son for the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme.  But it also explores war on the Home Front – through the diaries of fashionable celebrity cook and restaurateur Hallie Miles (Alison Steadman) and suffragette Kate Parry Frye (Romola Garai), as they see the old Edwardian world crumble around them, opening up ever more opportunities for women, as ever more men – including their own loved ones – and sent to fight and die at the Front.  

Available for the next 30 days.

Episode 1 is available for the next 3 weeks.

The Great War: The People’s Story

Tune in tomorrow evening at 9pm for episode one of ITV’s The Great War: The People’s Story.
The 4 episodes tell the real-life stories of soldiers, from privates to officers, their wives and girlfriends left behind, and people from Britain’s villages and cities. They are portrayed by a cast of actors including Alison Steadman, Daniel Mays, Claire Foy, Brian Cox, Romola Garai, MyAnna Buring and Matthew McNulty, who speak their words as they were written in their diaries and letters.

These moving accounts, revealing their intimate thoughts and feelings offer a raw insight into the profound impact of being caught up in a conflict that would change their lives – and Britain – forever. Sourced from archives and libraries across the country, selected in partnership with Imperial War Museums, which provided much of the material, and brought to life by actors – each story conveys the hopes, fears, heroism and tragedies of countless ordinary British people… made all the more powerful by the fact that every word is real.

Daniel Mays stars in episodes 1&2.

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