New Tricks: Roy Mitchell interview
Take Grumpy Old Men. Now mix it with Waking the Dead, add a dash of feminine charm (courtesy of Amanda Redman) and you've got New Tricks – one of the warmest and most enjoyable crime series of recent years. But what inspired the series – and why was co-creator Roy Mitchell surprised to find himself doing it? Read on for our chat with the man himself.
How did you get into the business of creating hit TV shows?
Well I actually trained as an actor to begin with, which led to some theatre work. But of course it's a notoriously unsteady kind of career, so I bailed out and did other things for some years – including training as a chef.
But I felt the pull of the theatrical world and I returned to the fold – this time as a playwright rather than an actor. I established a bit of a reputation, got myself an agent, and wound up writing scripts for a number of cop shows like The Bill and Thief Takers. In fact, I did so much crime stuff that I made a resolution never to write another one – and then New Tricks happened!
So how did you end up creating New Tricks?
Well it came down to a strange kind of coincidence. My colleague Nigel McCrery and I both happened to read the exact same article in a national paper. The article was about how police forces were setting up special units made up of retired coppers, whose job it is to re-investigate old cases. It makes sense for the police to do this, because it's cost effective, saves having to train fresh officers, and utilises the great expertise of these veteran detectives.
Nigel – who happens to be an ex-policeman himself – immediately saw the dramatic potential of this real-life story, and I agreed. So much for not writing a crime series again, eh!
How did you get such big stars together?
Well Nigel and I developed the idea and approached the BBC, who actually weren't too sure to begin with. Perhaps they felt saturated with cop dramas. Anyway, in the meantime we also sent the script to actors we thought were ideal for the parts: Amanda Redman, Alun Armstrong, James Bolam and Ian "Lovejoy" McShane.
They all loved it, and their endorsement persuaded the BBC to greenlight the project. But then Ian McShane landed his big role in the American series Deadwood (which has made him a huge name over there), so the role ended up going to Dennis Waterman. Of course, it's hard to imagine the show without Dennis now.
Has filming the series been easy?
Most of the series is filmed around West London, apart from recognisable touristy landmarks which lead us into the centre, and it's pretty much been a breeze – except for the very first day of filming the first edition.
I turned up on set in the morning, nervous and excited as you always are when you're embarking on a brand new, untested project. But then I noticed everyone was looking a bit worried, and then they told me that the make-up and costume trailers had been burnt down in the night! Would you believe it, an arson attack on the very eve of filming our first ever episode! What followed was a mad flurry of phonecalls to arrange for the quick arrival of a new trailer – thank goodness we managed it before panic attacks started happening all round!
It’s a very varied programme. How do writers come up with ideas for each of the stories?
Well Nigel and I look over the scripts and add our own bits here and there, but on the whole we give our writers the freedom to explore any themes and subjects they like. Obviously they do get some inspiration from daily news stories, but what we really do is encourage them to think of "worlds" to explore. Which means one episode will be about the army, another will be about the circus, and still another will be about TV chefs. It's what keeps the series interesting – as well as being a crime show, it also reveals the strange inner workings of starkly contrasting worlds.
Well I actually trained as an actor to begin with, which led to some theatre work. But of course it's a notoriously unsteady kind of career, so I bailed out and did other things for some years – including training as a chef.
But I felt the pull of the theatrical world and I returned to the fold – this time as a playwright rather than an actor. I established a bit of a reputation, got myself an agent, and wound up writing scripts for a number of cop shows like The Bill and Thief Takers. In fact, I did so much crime stuff that I made a resolution never to write another one – and then New Tricks happened!
So how did you end up creating New Tricks?
Well it came down to a strange kind of coincidence. My colleague Nigel McCrery and I both happened to read the exact same article in a national paper. The article was about how police forces were setting up special units made up of retired coppers, whose job it is to re-investigate old cases. It makes sense for the police to do this, because it's cost effective, saves having to train fresh officers, and utilises the great expertise of these veteran detectives.
Nigel – who happens to be an ex-policeman himself – immediately saw the dramatic potential of this real-life story, and I agreed. So much for not writing a crime series again, eh!
How did you get such big stars together?
Well Nigel and I developed the idea and approached the BBC, who actually weren't too sure to begin with. Perhaps they felt saturated with cop dramas. Anyway, in the meantime we also sent the script to actors we thought were ideal for the parts: Amanda Redman, Alun Armstrong, James Bolam and Ian "Lovejoy" McShane.
They all loved it, and their endorsement persuaded the BBC to greenlight the project. But then Ian McShane landed his big role in the American series Deadwood (which has made him a huge name over there), so the role ended up going to Dennis Waterman. Of course, it's hard to imagine the show without Dennis now.
Has filming the series been easy?
Most of the series is filmed around West London, apart from recognisable touristy landmarks which lead us into the centre, and it's pretty much been a breeze – except for the very first day of filming the first edition.
I turned up on set in the morning, nervous and excited as you always are when you're embarking on a brand new, untested project. But then I noticed everyone was looking a bit worried, and then they told me that the make-up and costume trailers had been burnt down in the night! Would you believe it, an arson attack on the very eve of filming our first ever episode! What followed was a mad flurry of phonecalls to arrange for the quick arrival of a new trailer – thank goodness we managed it before panic attacks started happening all round!
It’s a very varied programme. How do writers come up with ideas for each of the stories?
Well Nigel and I look over the scripts and add our own bits here and there, but on the whole we give our writers the freedom to explore any themes and subjects they like. Obviously they do get some inspiration from daily news stories, but what we really do is encourage them to think of "worlds" to explore. Which means one episode will be about the army, another will be about the circus, and still another will be about TV chefs. It's what keeps the series interesting – as well as being a crime show, it also reveals the strange inner workings of starkly contrasting worlds.
Select your bookmark
What is social bookmarking?