New Tricks Cast Criticise Writers

The stars of long-running BBC One detective drama New Tricks have criticised the writers of the TV drama – for making it “bland”.

Amanda Redman, Alun Armstrong and Dennis Waterman, who play police who have been brought out of retirement to investigate unsolved crimes, have just finished filming the ninth series of the show.

But Redman, 55, told the Radio Times: “It’s more bland now. The characters are not being as anarchic as they used to be, which I think is a huge shame.”

Armstrong, 66, told the magazine: “My character has got saner. Which I’m not too enamoured with.”

He joked: “It’s about time Amanda’s character got her leg over,” and added: “I don’t know. Maybe the writers have become more concerned with the investigation.”

Waterman, 64, added: “I don’t think it has become just another police procedural, but there was a danger.

“It’s partly because of dealing with cold cases. We’re always talking about history and some writers – not all of them – can go on and on about that, repeating themselves.

“You have to remind yourself that people aren’t as stupid as writers think. But that’s the way things are going in the industry.

“Basically,” he said, referring to the success of Danish TV dramas such as The Killing and Borgen, “we all want to move to Copenhagen to get to do some really extraordinary television.”

Armstrong said of the drama’s directors: “We have never tolerated anybody - and we’ve had the odd one – who will come on to the set and say: ’You will do this’ or ’You won’t say that’.

“They get short shrift or there’s an almighty battle until they’re forced to collaborate.”

August 21 2012 - waveguide.co.uk

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Michael J Fox Returns To Television

Michael J Fox is returning to television to star in a new sitcom, twelve years after giving up full-time acting to focus on fighting Parkinson's disease.

The Back to the Future star will play a father of three dealing with the degenerative nervous system disorder.

NBC television called Fox "utterly relatable, optimistic, and in a class by himself".

The new 22-episode sitcom marks his first long-term commitment to a show since he left political comedy Spin City in 2000.

"I have no doubt that the character he will create - and the vivid family characters surrounding him - will be both instantly recognizable and hilarious," said NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt.

Fox made his name in the 1980s TV comedy Family Ties, winning three Emmy Awards for his role as Nixon-loving, Reagan-worshipping teenager Alex P Keaton.

Filming for the new sitcom, loosely based on Fox's own personal life, will start this year with the rest of the cast still to be announced.

The actor said he was "extremely pleased" to be working on the show.

The as-yet-untitled series will be broadcast from autumn 2013.

August 21 2012 - waveguide.co.uk

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Richard Herring Historical Sitcom

Stand-up comedian Richard Herring is developing a new historical sitcom for the BBC, which will blend together elements of Blackadder, ‘Allo ‘Allo and Baron Munchausen.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin will take place in pre-revolutionary Russia and feature the ghost of The Mad Monk giving an unreliable account of his life, set to the clod-hopping rhythms of a mitteleuropan discotheque circa 1978.

Through the show, Herring will attempt to draw parallels between the failings of Tsarist Russia - with its hard-partying aristocracy, squeezed proletariat, corrupt newspaper bosses, even more corrupt police chiefs, greedy bankers and out of touch monarchy – and the problems of our own era.

August 21 2012 - waveguide.co.uk

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