Amanda: 'It'd be nice to have a woman to talk to!'
Amanda Redman tells us about the return of New Tricks, which returns to BBC1 on Friday, Sept 10... Are you happy to return as Sandra for a new series of New Tricks? “Yes I have so much fun. It’s strange because I never wanted to be involved with a long running series, it never interested me. But we have a ball, it’s not work.” Do you miss female company – you’re the only regular female in the cast? "I do. I love my cast mates, James Bolam, Dennis Waterman, and Alun Armstrong, but it’d be nice to have another woman there to talk about something other than golf!" How do we find Sandra at the start of the new series? "She met her half brother Tom at the end of the last series. The first episode deals with that. He’s back and their relationship is very strained and awkward. They have a lot to sort out." In the first episode Sandra visit a psychic. Have you ever visited one? "I did visit a psychic many, many years ago and it unnerved me because this person knew something about me that wasn’t in the public domain and I couldn’t understand how they knew it. This was pre-Google so I was very spooked. I did not go back. " Are you happy to keep coming back and doing the show or are you planning to move on soon? "I have committed do doing one more series and beyond that there are things that I want to do. Nothing I can talk about though!"
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.