Nicola Walker - the least starry of stars

In little over two decades, Nicola Walker has crawled deftly and diligently under the radar up into the Premier League of TV drama. To have done so without flashy starring roles, a parallel career in the movies, hackneyed fashion shoots or the spotlight of tabloid celeb columns is quite remarkable. But it is thoroughly deserved. Researching this, I hadn’t realised how many of her series I had missed – from Chalk to Babylon, River to Torn – but luckily there are so many I have been privileged to watch. 

Probably the first time Nicola came to my attention was in 1999 when she had a major role as an MoD scientist trapped in a railway tunnel with cryogenic gas and a miscellaneous bunch of passengers in The Last Train. I won’t deny I was initially hooked by the idea of a mystery set aboard a train but this apocalyptic sci-fi serial proved an entertaining mix of drama and fantasy. A year later she was another young mystery woman in a Dalziel and Pascoe episode: is she who she says she is, and will her past come back to haunt her?  I forget the answer to the first but am pretty sure the second can be answered in the affirmative. 

Around the same period, Nicola also began to win roles as police officers, and this particular career thread continues to this day. Fortunately she has specialised not as a stereotypical all-action, bed-hopping maverick but as a competent but angst-ridden detective with recognisable human frailties. I doubt there was much to sink her canines into as a WPC (that’s what they were still called back then) in a 1998 Jonathan Creek but in Paul Abbott’s excellent Touching Evil she was swiftly raised to a plain-clothed Inspector alongside Robson Green. In 2004 she was transferred to the army as an unglamorous horsey Major in the BBC’s Red Cap before a police promotion to DCI beckoned in Prisoners’ Wives, a hard-hitting drama a far cry from other, more salacious series featuring the ‘Wives’ moniker. 

Only last month, she was back in hometown London for the fourth series of ITV’s ever-watchable Unforgotten. While the budget is clearly substantial enough to attract superb supporting casts, and Sanjeev Bhaskar as a sidekick, the programme’s heartbeat is Nicola Walker as DCI Cassie Stuart. She doesn’t get to smile much, unsurprising given the often gruesome scenes she witnesses or the mental anguish arising out of family problems such as her dad’s descent into dementia. However, we are treated to her full array of subtle facial tics, nervous smiles and gestures, as she carries us on her journey with Bhaskar’s ‘Sunny’ to solving a cold case. Regarding the latest series conclusion I won’t risk a spoiler…. 

Her best roles are those when her character is torn between the job and family or personal relationships, and they don’t have to involve the police force. Another recent hit drama is BBC One’s The Split. It’s not a thriller, there are no bodies. Instead, Nicola portrays a fair-haired divorce lawyer who sometimes finds herself brokering reconciliations while her own marriage to the oh-so-nice Stephen Mangan goes down the tubes. Such family dramas don’t always hold my attention for long, but even I have been enthralled by its two series, and I’d expect there to be more. 

So far, so standard middle-class fare. But very occasionally, Walker steps into left-field territory. In 2018’s Collateral, a convoluted thriller featuring the likes of Carey Mulligan, John Simm and Billie Piper, she played a lesbian vicar. Best of all, when I finally caught up on the first series of Luther, I was delighted, shocked even, to find her in the role of working-class wife whose bloke turns out to be a murderer. Blimey! 

Nevertheless if there is one character which has defined Nicola Walker more than any other, it’s probably Ruth Evershed in Spooks. She joined the cast in series two way back in 2003, making an ignominious entrance into MI5 as a bit of a clumsy hippy-dippy transfer from GCHQ but went on to become one of the best loved characters. Ruth was not one of the good-looking stars running around shooting suspected terrorists but harvested the intelligence for our heroes to act upon, an ideal part for Walker’s unflashy style.

Occasionally Ruth was allowed out into the real world, even managing to let her hair down and find herself in a spot of bother then, following Nicola’s real-life maternity break, she made a popular return to ‘The Grid’ in series eight. Hardcore Spooks fans seem more fixated on her ‘will-they-won’t-they?’ relationship with boss Harry, equally shy and inept in matters of expressing feelings. However, for me Spooks was never supposed to be romantic fiction but, in my view, the professional v personal quandary enabled Nicola Walker to turn in some of her finest acting.

Wendy Craig - Perennially Harassed Housewife

I can’t with any honesty proclaim Wendy Craig to be one of my favourite TV actors but for longevity she is hard to beat. She also has a special place in my own history of live entertainment. At the age of seven I was taken up to London for a post-Christmas treat: Peter Pan, the first pantomime I can actually remember. I still recall the awe I felt sitting in the Circle watching ‘Peter’ flying above the Scala Theatre stage. Yes, flying! And who was in that green pixie costume? Yes, Wendy Craig. 

A little research reveals that her co-star – presumably as Captain Hook - was the great Alastair Sim, but it’s only the title character’s aerial exploits I remember from that matinee performance. Even at such a tender age I knew Craig very well from the telly. While most of the situation comedies on British TV at the time seemed to be awful American imports, one exception was the BBC’s Not In Front of the Children. Watching this clip more than five decades later, the memories all come flooding back: Wendy’s Sixties hairdo, Ronald Hines as her hubby and the two young daughters. Suddenly I’m transported back to 54 The Meadows on a Friday evening, ‘Cinderella Rockafella’ at number one and facing bedtime before The Troubleshooters comes on. 

Not… ran for four series before Wendy Craig switched to ITV in 1971 for another Richard Waring suburban family sitcom And Mother Makes Three. She was once more in harassed mum mode, which she subsequently reprised, now remarried, for the sequel And Mother Makes Five, although I don’t think that series was in the Smith household’s repertoire. Not only could she probably play that role in her sleep but she wrote a number of episodes, too. 

Wendy’s pseudonymous scripts were also in evidence later in her career but I’m pretty sure writing responsibilities for her next major role, possibly the one for which she is best remembered, was Carla Lane. As with much of her work I have mixed memories of Butterflies. There were some lovely lines but nothing much ever happened and there was a tad too much rambling philosophising for my liking. However, it got off to a good start. 

Craig portrayed Ria, yet another slightly ditsy but devoted housewife, this time in leafy Cheltenham. Husband Ben was a likeable but conservative dentist played in inimitable style by Geoffrey Palmer, happy with his lot. Ria, however, was not, and strayed into the arms of suave, wealthy Leonard. I know that the adultery was a crucial part of the set-up but this old-fashioned eighteen year-old felt sorry for Ben and hated Ria’s businessman bit on the side. Ben was not entirely happy with everything; his wife’s consistently disastrous cooking was a constant bone of contention and hilarity, not only with Ben but also their adolescent sons. It was notable that the male family members were rarely moved to use the oven themselves, but of course the microwave had yet to be invented! I also quite liked the scenes where Wendy’s Ria lost the plot, taking revenge on the kitchen and her tedious existence, much to the amusement of Nicholas Lyndhurst and Andrew Hall. 

She co-wrote and starred in another sitcom, Laura and Disorder, in the late Eighties. Her name was enough to attract my attention but based on the series opener, for all Wendy’s efforts, I considered it dreadful. I wasn’t alone. Her following dramatic roles were in series more suited to Mum’s tastes than mine. I think I saw the occasional episode of Nanny when at home from uni but never watched her in the Noughties Heartbeat spin-off The Royal. The closest I came was on a September break to Scarborough when I almost had an altercation with a giant cherrypicker used to film the panoramic North Bay opening sequence. 

In 2010 I was willing to give the BBC revival of Reggie Perrin a go. It wasn’t a patch on the David Nobbs original but Martin Clunes made a fair fist of playing the grumpy Reggie, careful not to try and emulate the wonderful Leonard Rossiter. One new character was Reggie’s mother, who it transpired was none other than Wendy Craig whose comedy timing was as ever impeccable. 

In the last decade, it’s been a pleasure just finding her cropping up in unlikely places. I’m no aficionado of Emmerdale but even I pricked up my ears when in 2018, aged 82, she made an entrance in the soap as love interest for the even older Freddie Jones. Sadly it wasn’t destined for an extended run. In any case, Freddie himself died the following year. Wendy also popped up in the second series of ITV’s superior cold case crime drama Unforgotten. 

I don’t remember whether or not she, or even her daughter Holly Aird, was a murderer but hers was a welcome addition to the cast, even if the days of playing stressed-out mums in domestic sitcoms are well behind her.

Goodness Gracious, Sanjeev Bhaskar....

I can’t believe it’s more than two decades since word-of-mouth recommendations enticed me to BBC2 for the new TV sketch comedy series, Goodness Gracious Me. I’d missed out on the Radio 4 original but, like millions of others, was immediately hooked. For all the outrageous subversion of Asian stereotypes like the competitive mothers, Bollywood stars and fake yogis, the humour was undeniably British, which is why it had such widespread appeal. Along with producer Anil Gupta, the co-writers were the then virtually unknown pair of Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar, who also performed alongside Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir. 

While largely forgotten now, back in 1998, Ghir was the only one I’d recognised, as he’d been in dramas like Howard’s Way. However, it was Bhaskar and Syal who just about stood out from the excellent ensemble team. In particular, Sanjeev proved a master at so many characters, notably the middle-aged dad convinced that everything is “Indian!”. He also led the group of young Indians ‘going for an English’ which in my humble opinion comprises four of the funniest minutes of British television in the last thirty years.

Although it has been revived as one-offs since then, GGM ran for only three series on TV but very swiftly Syal and Bhaskar moved onto another ground-breaking comedy series The Kumars at No.42. Ostensibly a sitcom, it was also part-chat show because Sanjeev’s character (called Sanjeev!) was a budding TV presenter with a studio built on to the multi-generational family home in Wembley which welcomed all sorts of celebrities through the front door. Meera’s hunched granny got most of the funny lines, especially when flirting with male guests such as Donny Osmond and Nigel Havers. The interviews were usually improvised, to which the best guests responded with gusto. 

The Kumars also presented Sanjeev Bhaskar with a Comic Relief number one single and a live Top of the Pops appearance in 2003 when the group contributed to a Bhangra-tinged version of ‘Spirit in the Sky’. ‘Tis a pity that contemporary heartthrob Gareth Gates stole the lead vocals, but I suppose the enterprise would never have succeeded without the ‘Pop Idol’ runner-up. 

The success of these two series presented my Treasure with amusing guest slots on Have I Got News For You and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. In 2010 he was also an amusing raconteur getting into the spirit of things in an early edition of Would I Lie to You? Although no larger-than-life personality, Sanjeev is just so likeable as an apparently humble bloke with an easy-going demeanour whom any mother would wish their daughter to marry. In 2005, millions of them would have their hopes dashed when he married Syal who was already forging a parallel career as screenwriter and best-selling novelist. 

Her book Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee was adapted into a three-part serial starring – surprise, surprise! - Meera and Sanjeev as a married couple in their thirties. It wasn’t a laugh-out-loud gagfest but a heart-warming tale of friendships laced with sadness, as any great drama should be. I was unimpressed by Bhaskar’s pilot episode introducing ITV’s Mumbai Calling but maybe I should have given it a second chance when it had a full series. 

Nonetheless I always feel cheered by his appearances in any comedy or drama. He has turned up in superior programmes such as Silent Witness and Love Soup but my current favourite is the police thriller Unforgotten. Whilst his DI character Sunny Khan plays second fiddle to Nicola Walker’s DCI, he is a vital cog in what over three series has become one of the best crime dramas of recent years. Based on cold case investigations, they’re long enough to lure you in and maintain your interest to the denouement, aided by a formidable array of supporting talent, from Tom Courtenay and Alex Jennings to Frances Tomelty and Mark Bonnar. 

I often find myself suffering pangs of guilt watching Sanjeev Bhaskar in such star-studded productions. Unforgotten’s Nicola Walker is the undoubted star, and deservedly so, and there are times when I wonder whether this erstwhile Hounslow schoolboy and marketing graduate is a tad out of his depth amidst a top-notch cast. And yet that is part of his charm. He seems comfortable in the skin of an unflashy Indian family man doing a good job for his boss and, especially if comic timing or an impeccable raised eyebrow or two are required, Sanjeev Bhaskar is your man. Indeed a role doesn’t demand to be of Asian descent; this actor can, in a typically understated way, make it his own. Goodness, gracious me!