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NOW that we’ve finally met, would DCI Gene Hunt like to see my hernia scar? I’ve offered but he’s just laughing. I’ll take that as a no.
Disappointing, really. It’s always made me think of him.
I explain how a box set of Life On Mars, the brilliant 70s-based cop drama where he first popped up, got me through days of bedridden boredom a few years back, the post-op, drug-induced wooziness possibly even enhancing my appreciation of the show.
“God, that must have been really weird,” he chuckles.
“You must have felt like you were genuinely going back in time.”
Of course, this isn’t the real Gene Hunt I’m talking to. But it’s the next best thing, the hugely likeable Philip Glenister, who played the dinosaur detective in both that show and Ashes To Ashes, its 80s-set sequel.
Philip and I have actually been chatting about a different programme altogether, one he’s currently presenting on the Crime+Investigation channel.
What The Killer Did Next is serious stuff, an in-depth look at four different murder investigations. And there’s no doubt it taps in to our increasing appetite for forensic true crime documentaries.
“I think what people find fascinating,” he observes, “is seeing how each of these murderers has tried to normalise their life once they’ve committed the crime, trying to carry on.
“There’s one case I find particularly shocking, involving two sisters. I have two daughters and the thought of something like that happening, you can’t get your head around it.”
Naturally, Philip is presenting this series very much as himself. Any Gene Hunt-isms here would be horribly inappropriate. But being identified with that fictional copper probably hasn’t done him any harm when it comes to landing this kind of work.
I wonder, though, if playing Gene had its downside. The guy was, after all, the living embodiment of oldschool political incorrectness. Were real-life coppers OK with that? “They were more than OK with it, Mike!” he assures me. “One police force told me: ‘We’ve put your picture above the Queen’s in the station.’
“But it was a very different time. A lot of the older police said they’d had DCIs like Gene, sometimes worse.”
And from his own point of view, it seems that infamous decade wasn’t all bad. “I was a kid in the 70s,” says Philip, 56. “So I have fond memories. “I remember the power cuts. Those were a great excuse not to do my homework. The only snag was the telly would go off in the middle of Z-Cars or something.”
Recently Philip has also been starring in Sky One’s Living The Dream, a comedy drama about a British family who’ve moved to Florida. Lesley Sharp plays his wife.
“It’s a nice hour of escapism really,” he says. Sky One was also home to Mad Dogs, where he teamed up with Marc Warren, Max Beesley and his Life On Mars co-star John Simm.
Executive producers on that show included Philip’s friend Suzanne Mackie, who’s since gone on to work on Netflix’s thumping hit The Crown.
“Suzanne hasn’t given me a f***ing part yet. Maybe they’re waiting till the
70s so they can bring me in as Gene. “Or even the 90s, perhaps. Gene could be Tony Blair’s bodyguard. Can you imagine?”
What The Killer Did Next continues tonight at 9pm on CRIME+INVESTIGATION (Sky 156, Virgin 275, BT and TalkTalk 328). TV SHOW ACTOR COMEDIAN SPORTSPERSON FOOD DRINK CITY HOLIDAY ANIMAL