AN INSPECTOR CALLS

Thomas Craig on his long-running role in Murdoch Mysteries.

IT’S the role that’s changed his acting life and saw him clock up enough air miles to travel the globe several times over.

But former Coronation Street star Thomas Craig has told how he almost lost out on it through looking forward to his weekend.

Thomas is one of the big names in Canadian-shot Murdoch Mysteries, which is such an enduring hit it’s now in its 12th series.

“It was back in 2007 when I got a call from my agent one Friday afternoon,” recalled Thomas, who plays Inspector Brackenreid.

“They wanted me to put a showreel together and get it in the post to an address in Canada.

“To be honest I wasn’t going to bother and thought, ‘What’s the point?’

“But my partner at the time Siobhan, who’s Scots, persuaded me. A few weeks later I got a call saying I was down to the last two, then I got the job without ever having met anybody.

“It’s the only job I’ve ever had where I’ve been cast purely on my showreel.”

While Thomas had included clips from his time on some of British TV’s biggest shows, including of course playing Tommy Harris in Corrie, it was a film he’d starred in that really clinched the deal.

“I did a Ken Loach film called The Navigator and the man behind Murdoch Mysteries was a huge Loach fan,” said Thomas.

He reckoned if I was good enough for Ken, I was good enough for them.

“When I first showed up and saw the scale of it and how great the set looked, I thought I might get two or three years out of it.

“Eleven years on I was starting filming season 12.”

Murdoch Mysteries, shown here on Alibi, is set in Toronto at the dawn of the 20th Century.

It follows detective William Murdoch, played by Yannick Bisson, and the pioneering forensic methods he uses to crack crimes.

Inspector Brackenreid is the right-hand man, a no-nonsense Yorkshireman who quickly became a fan favourite.

The first six seasons consisted of 13 episodes and saw Thomas spend four months a year in Canada. But the popularity is such that since then there have been 18 episodes, meaning half of his year is now over there.

“It’s a real big filming town and most of the studios are really central,” said Thomas.

“American productions are filmed there all the time. But it means