Larry Lamb has revealed how he couldn’t wait to 'get back in the saddle' for New Tricks.
The ex-EastEnders star, who played Archie Mitchell in the BBC soap, joins the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS) as the team’s newest member Ted Case, a retired detective, in the show’s 12th and final series.
Larry Lamb with his New Tricks co-stars – Denis Lawson, Tamzin Outhwaite and Nicholas Lyndhurst (Amanda Searle/BBC)
He said he was more than happy to throw himself back into a regular TV role: “I hadn’t done a big TV acting role in about six years – time to get back in the saddle.”
Larry, who also starred in Gavin And Stacey, researched for the part by contacting an old friend.
“I spoke to a retired Met officer I’ve known for years. There’s obviously certain liberties taken with the truth when dramatising real jobs for TV, but he gave me a sense of how the police think, what the protocol is in different cases and what tricks they have up their sleeve to get the truth out of tricky subjects, which helped me prepare for the role,” he explained.
“Ted’s been in the force for years so I wanted to make sure I got in the right head space for it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZgOINa_eSY&feature=oembed
The star, whose son is TV presenter George Lamb, will return to doing documentaries after New Tricks.
He said: “(I’m) back to doing what I’ve been involved in since EastEnders and Gavin And Stacey: a lot of informative non-fiction TV.
“I’m currently working on a series about different elements of British life for Channel 4.”
The new series of New Tricks begins at 9pm on BBC One on August 4.
