Amanda Burtons talks about The Commander @ Memorable TV

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AMANDA BURTON INTERVIEW

UK / ITV1 Network / The Commander Series 4 - July

Born and raised in Londonderry , Amanda Burton is one of Britain 's most respected and popular actresses, starring in a range of shows from Silent Witness to Peak Practice and is now set to reprise one of her most famous roles as Commander Clare Blake. Discussing her on-screen persona, Amanda describes how it feels is to be back in uniform.

“It’s always very interesting to see what effect it has on both men and women. It is such a powerful image I think, to see a woman in a high ranking police uniform. I find it does have immediate impact in terms of authority and how people react to me when I’m wearing it there’s no doubt about that.   It’s very empowering actually as you feel very wrapped up in authority when it’s on, which is great as really I don’t have to do very much at all! If you were walking down the corridor and saw someone like Clare stalking towards you in that uniform I would imagine that people would scatter. It’s quite extreme body armour and is a very powerful image.” Given that there are only a handful of high ranking female police officers in the Met, does Amanda feel that it is still difficult for women on the force to climb through the ranks?

“I’d like to think that it is easier now, but to be quite honest I can’t say, hand on heart that I have a working knowledge of that, but I would imagine that it is quite tricky. I remember meeting Commanders two years ago, and I was told for instance that the hand-guns they were using were made for men’s hands, so that they couldn’t handle them as well or as easily as their male counterparts.   It’s just little things like that; all those little things add up and become quite undermining. I’m sure that the situation will have changed quite a lot now and it is now more common-place to see women in senior roles. People’s attitudes to women who have become successful is always changing and improving. But there are still some barriers and bad attitudes in a lot of industries no matter how far times have moved on. I would imagine that in a particularly male orientated profession such as the police things could still be difficult.” It’s been a year since Commander Clare Blake’s last investigation in Blacklight, and things have changed somewhat in that time. At the start of this brand new series, Commander Blake is waiting to see if she is still on course to take over the Murder Investigation Unit. So while Blake waits to hear the outcome of the review, she is temporarily moved to Diversity Directorate to head up projects concerning mental health issues. When DCI Doug James (Mark Lewis Jones) opens an investigation into the discovery of small child’s body stuffed into an oil drum in the basement of a psychiatric hospital, the case comes under her remit.

As she assumes control of the investigation, the two police officers come into contact for the first time. Relations are initially frosty between the pair but how would she say their relationship evolves over the course of the three films? “I would say that he de-frosts her so to speak” Amanda laughs. “He definitely changes her because they are so utterly different. He is in no way fazed by her and makes absolutely no concessions to the way that he is as a person or a police officer and I think she likes that, though she would obviously never admit to that of course! I think for Clare, having to work alongside a DCI who is in no way, shape or form similar to her in terms of mind space, in terms of manners, or in terms of standing, softens her, brings out a different side to her.

That said she pulls rank horribly with him in The Devil You Know and he’s so incredibly taken aback by the way she acts towards him that you can’t imagine this pair of individuals ever being able to sing off the same hymn sheet. But over the course of the three films you do see them relax into each other, but then she has to work within a team again too.

We see in the first episode that like a great big cuckoo Blake moves into Doug’s nest and chucks all of his things out of his office. But then of course when he is promoted, he revels in the fact that he can re-claim his space and do exactly the same thing to her. And her reaction is great actually because she holds her hands up and sort of says “fair enough – I put in a good word for your promotion, so I should have expected this”. As a result, Blake becomes office-less, and is left on the floor with the rest of the team. And I think that has been very good for her character, to see her lightening up really. Blake is working more as a unit with him, rather than being a solo presence, and I think is no bad thing.”

Obviously a new returning character means a new actor on set for Amanda to work with, how did she find working with Welsh actor Mark Lewis Jones?

“It was delightful. Absolutely delightful and I’d do it again in a shot! We’ve never worked together before, but it was one of those very happy conclusions I think. It has been one of those times when you meet someone, and you instantly click. I knew when I initially met Mark that it was going to work, which was just really, really nice.

We’ve had a whole lot of fun and even on the heavier stuff as both of us have really enjoyed upping the ante and doing what I feel is some good work together. I really hope that will come across on screen. It’s always quite hit and miss as you never know how it is going to be with someone new, so that has been a really big plus this time round.” One of the central motifs of the first film is a large set of incredibly life like china dolls. And judging from her reaction, Amanda didn’t feel as kindly towards them as she did towards her new co-star. “Oh god, they’re horrible things. I’ve never liked things like that. I don’t like puppets either. I always think they come alive when you leave the room. They are quite disturbingly awful, and I just wanted to pack them all in a taxi and send them off to Stornaway, never to return!” As with the vast majority of La Plante films, the role call of guest actors involved in the new series is incredibly impressive with everyone from Greg Wise (Number 13, Trial and Retribution) to Gerard Kearns (Mark of Cain, Shameless). But there is one actress whose presence on set clearly excited Amanda:

“It was just fantastic to be able work with Celia Imrie. I’ve always been a great admirer of her as an actress, but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with her until now. Celia is a truly formidable talent. She’s the ticket!” Lynda’s scripts can be quite hard hitting so does it help to have someone like Mark around to talk through the more emotional scenes? “I think so, but it’s not just that. Filming is like any job really, it has moments when it can be a very arduous process, or it can be extremely monotonous. If you have people you are working with whose company you genuinely enjoy and who make you laugh it makes your job so much easier.” We always have a particularly lovely crew and also that really helps when our guest actors come in. The schedules are so crazy nowadays and I think it must be jolly hard for people to come onto a set cold, as they have to be ‘on’ straight away. There’s no time for ‘getting to know you’s’ but I like to think we make up for it in other ways. I hope people see us a pretty welcoming bunch. It’s not at all unheard of for us all to be sitting around crying with laughter.” Something which is not hard to imagine as Amanda starts to giggle uncontrollably as she describes one of those moments on set when the entire cast and crew became unable to film a certain scene, so crippled were they by fits of laughter over a certain word.

“We were filming a scene in the interview room for the second film Fraudster, and it was just one of those times when Blake was required to be even more serious than normal, and none of us, myself included, couldn’t stop laughing. It was so inappropriate but that’s often the way isn’t it. Basically we were discussing the post mortem of the murder victim, and in the pathology report it states that his stomach contents had contained something which looked like a quiche. And every time anyone said the word quiche that was it. Game over. It might have been the way I said it or perhaps it was just the idea of opening someone up and pulling out a quiche, but it just set us off terribly. So we were “right, come on, let’s be grown-up about this, no more laughing any more” but you could see the crew’s heads shaking with laughter. We were in a room which was about 12” by 3”, trying to shoot this big interrogation scene and I was actually pinching my sides, just to try to stop myself from even thinking about laughing. It was awful. People were dropping like flies.

Normally there would be quite a lot of people in the room, but we were down to a skeleton crew because people just couldn’t stop laughing. I can’t imagine what our guest actress must have thought. There she is arriving on set expecting us all to be professional and serious and there we all were, braying like donkeys! We went to about 16 takes!” In Windows of the Soul, Commander Blake’s investigation into the particularly brutal murder of a local priest leads her and her team in to the world of amateur boxing. And it seems that the entire set became immersed in the sport; the vast majority of the supporting actors were boys from local boxing clubs; both Toby Kebbell and Gerard Kearns trained with a boxing coach prior to the shoot and ex-boxer Gary Stretch takes one of the lead roles. Based on her experiences on set, what is her view on a sport which is adored by so many and dismissed by others as mindless violence?

“I’ve been involved with a boys’ boxing club before when I made a film a few years ago in Ireland called Precious Blood. So I have been around it before, but certainly not to this extent. I found the whole experience an incredibly interesting one if I’m honest. The level of commitment to the sport I saw from all these young boxers is just unbelievable. They are extraordinarily fit, and train extremely hard to maintain that level of fitness – even the really young ones. The passion and dedication to the sport went beyond my expectations; everything they do revolves around boxing, from what they eat to when they sleep. The level of discipline it requires, made me so full of admiration and I have to say, it was hugely energising to be around. Obviously there is a lot of machismo involved but there is a real code of honour amongst boxers. To see the way they were when Gary was around was a real testament to that.”

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