Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
FROM HUNTER TO HUNTED
Philip Glenister, best known as maverick detective Gene Hunt in Life On Mars, plays a prison officer on the run while shackled to a criminal in the new series of Prey
Philip Glenister famously played detective Gene Hunt, the self- styled Sheriff Of Manchester, in hugely popular BBC thriller Life On Mars and its sequel Ashes To Ashes. Now, nearly six years on, it’s all change as Philip is the one being hunted by the police. In the new series of ITV’s pulsating and fastmoving thriller Prey, Philip is still in Manchester, but playing prison officer David Murdoch, who’s forced to go on the run across the backstreets of the city.
Handcuffed to a violent female criminal, Jules Hope (played by MyAnna Buring), Murdoch’s situation becomes increasingly desperate. As Philip explains, ‘Murdoch’s daughter Lucy has been abducted and the kidnapper tells him he has to deliver Jules Hope to an address in Manchester or face the consequences. That phone call changes his life. At the time he receives it he’s guarding Hope in hospital after she collapsed in jail and needed an examination.
‘Murdoch agonises over whether or not to call the police and tell them he’s being held to ransom, but decides to deal with the matter himself. So he goes AWOL with Hope, attempting to deliver her to the address where he believes his daughter’s being held captive. But on his journey his situation grows ever more desperate. He handcuffs himself to Hope to prevent her absconding, but then loses the key so they’re unable to escape from each other – both fugitives from justice.’
Series one of Prey featured John Simm, coincidentally Philip’s co-star in Life On Mars, as Detective Constable Marcus Farrow, a policeman on the run from his colleagues in Manchester after allegedly murdering his wife. Public reaction suggested plenty of sympathy for Farrow and Philip believes audiences will be rooting for Mur- doch too. ‘Murdoch is taken down a path that’s absolutely not of his choosing and he follows it to try to save the person who means most to him in the world,’ he says.
‘We learn that he’s recently been widowed, which makes him even more protective of his daughter. I’m a parent – I’ve got two daughters – and I know you’d go to the ends of the earth to protect them. That’s what Murdoch is trying to do in Prey.’
The three-parter, which was filmed on location in Manchester, Blackpool and Shropshire, is told not just from David Murdoch’s point of view, but also from the perspective of DS Susan Reinhardt, played by Rosie Cavaliero. She was one of the police on the trail of Marcus Farrow in the first series. Linking up with her new colleague DC Richard Iddon, she’s hard on the heels of Murdoch in series two.
‘ Susan is a workaholic and was aggrieved to miss out on a promotion
after the Far row case, which went instead to Mike Ward, who’s now her superior officer,’ says Rosie. ‘When her job gets interesting – and it does when Murdoch and Hope go on the run – it starts to take over her life.’
Six million viewers were gripped by the first series of Prey when it was shown in April and May last year. ‘I was terrified people wouldn’t like it,’ recalls creator Chris Lunt, ‘but its success has given me the confidence to be bolder with series two. I wrote a scene later on in this new story where the action switches to Blackpool and we had to close off a fair old length of the Golden Mile to film it. Last time around I would probably have set that scene on a B-road or in a backstreet. Series two is much more ambitious – but hopefully it’ll be just as popular.’ Tim Oglethorpe Prey, Wednesday, 9pm, ITV.