‘ Homecoming’ for Mc
FOR Scottish actor Kevin McKidd, filming the tense new Glasgow- based ITVX drama Six Four was a bit of a “homecoming”. “It’s been great. It feels like a homecoming for me,” says the Trainspotting star, who made a name for himself Stateside as Dr Owen Hunt in the long- running US medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.
“And I love working over there ( in the US) and the crews and actors are brilliant. But there’s something that just feels really familiar, there’s a shorthand that exists, I think, in British crews and British actors, between us all, that you just kind of know.”
The 49- year- old – who joined Grey’s Anatomy in 2008 – “jumped” at the chance to be part of Six Four, by Scottish playwright and screenwriter Gregory Burke, admitting he’s “really missed” working on this side of the pond.
The four- part crime drama is inspired by the Japanese novel of the same name by Hideo Yokoyama, centred around a historical kidnapping and police cover- up, which is brought to the surface when, years later, a detective’s daughter goes missing.
For the series, which debuts on ITV’s new ITVX streaming service later this month, Burke has taken the key themes and plot points but created a new version of the story, based in Glasgow.
It centres on Scottish detective constable Chris O’Neill and his wife Michelle, whose lives are upended when their 18- year- old daughter Olivia goes missing, after she finds out that Chris is not her biological father. Set against a backdrop of a marriage in crisis, their desperate search causes a series of secrets to begin to unravel.
Chris and Michelle must face the truths they’ve been hiding and in the process confront a wider picture of lies and corruption, involving the cover- up of the tragic disappearance of a local girl called Julie 16 years earlier – the daughter of Jim Mackie, a former lawyer and friend of Robert Wallace, justice minister in the SNP.
It’s not incidental that the series is set in Glasgow.
“Gregory obviously, his voice is very much a Scottish writer’s voice, so I think that’s where his passion lies – to create really interesting, unique work that has a Scottish voice, and I think Glasgow is a great setting for it,” says McKidd.
“Glasgow has a very sort of messy and interesting history of corruption and violence, and this is a very twisty- turny, political thriller, in a sense, so it seemed like the right place. And Glasgow is so close to beautiful countryside but also incredibly urban, and at the same time it can have a lot of edge.”
Vinette Robinson, who plays Michelle, adds: “The political landscape of Scotland is quite central, but he ( Burke) also manages to use that to tell a more universal story about power dynamics, the political classes.”
The actors are equally full of praise for Burke’s handling of the script.
“He’s structured it in a way that those cliff- hanger moments and plot twist moments are placed – and you know, sometimes you can get these wrong, just in the rhythm of this kind of drama, it’s not easy – and he really got it right. He lands those moments right at the end of the act.
“It’s really smartly devised and his execution of it, I think, really will keep people on the edges of their seats, wanting to know where this is leading.
“It’s one of those dramas that, to be honest, you’re going to have to pay attention,” McKidd adds. “It’s not one that you can just sit back and let it wash over you – you have to keep up with it.
“It’s complex, it’s dense, but it’s very entertaining and very compelling.”
All episodes of Six Four will be available to watch on ITVX from Thursday, March 30.