Angela Griffin interview: ‘Bring back ‘Cutting It!’

After seemingly wrapping up for good last year, Lewis has made a welcome return to screens for an eighth series – and TV legend Angela Griffin has joined the team as DS Lizzie Maddox.

We caught up with Ange earlier this year, and as well as teasing what’s in store for the straight-talking new detective sergeant, the former Holby City actress tolds us what it’s been like playing Tamsin Outhewaite’s lesbian lover in new play Breeders, and why she’s leading the campaign to bring back Cutting It…

So how have you enjoyed being a part of Lewis?
“It’s a really lovely show to be a part of. It was quite daunting coming into it because it was like ‘Please, please let me get on with Lawrence [Fox] and Kevin!’ But fortunately we got on really well and we had a great relationship throughout filming. I think I actually took a bit of the burden off them, because they didn’t have as many reams and reams of lines as they normally would have, because my character’s doing all the dogsbody work!”

What can you tell us about your character?
“So DS Lizzie Maddox is a career cop. She’s worked her way up the ranks and she’s really diligent and thorough and really wants to do a good job. She wants to prove herself but unfortunately Hathaway has other ideas because he’s a bit of a control freak and isn’t even really seeing her. He’s worked his way through two Detective Sergeants already and Lizzie in the third, and Lizzie’s now already thinking about jacking it in because he’s not giving her enough to do!”

Is she different to most characters you’ve tended to play?
“I kind of think I’ve grown up a little bit with her. There’s nothing massively playful about her, she’s very serious about her job and she can have a laugh but she feels much more grown-up than some of the characters I’ve played before. There was a lightness to them but I think there’s more gravity with Lizzie Maddox.”

You’re also starring on stage in Breeders with Tamsin Outhwaite.
“I know, I’ve got my new wife!”

What can you tell us about the play?
“So Breeders is about a gay couple – myself and Tamsin Outhwaite – and we want a baby, so we go looking for sperm, basically! But we don’t want to go to a sperm bank, so in comes Tamsin’s brother – who’s in a relationship with his girlfriend – and a relationship between the four of them develops while trying to make a baby that genetically belongs to Caroline and Andrea. It’s about modern parenthood and modern families and about how that works. It’s a new play and I’m ridiculously excited about it!”

It’s a very different role for you; is that what attracted you to the part?
“You know what, Tamsin has apparently played lots and lots of gay women! But though I’ve never played a gay woman, Tamsin’s never played a gay woman with a girlfriend!”

Is she always a gay woman on the prowl?
“Yeah, that’s it! Haha! We had to do the photo shoot on Tuesday – and me and Tamsin have known each other for years and years – and it was really interesting because it was like ‘Okay Angela and Tamsin, just get yourself comfortable on the sofa and act like you’ve been married for years and are completely in love with each other,’ and I was like ‘Wow Tamsin, never in a million years did  I think I’d have to sit here with my hand on your leg and my arm around you gazing lovingly into your eyes!’

“It would have almost been easier if I didn’t know them at all, but when it’s your mate… Haha! When I do a drama, as soon as it’s someone I know who I have to snog, it just makes it completely different – I would much rather have a random. I’m not sure what that says about my personality but I’d rather have a random! Haha! I’m breaking new ground with Tamsin. We did decide it possibly might be the way forward. That might what comes at the end of this!”

Would that work in real life?
“Haha well it would be awful because I’m married! My husband wouldn’t be very happy about that at all!”

So you don’t know who’d be in charge?
“Haha no! And that’s the thing that was quite hard with the photo shoot: We’re not in rehearsals yet so we’ve not quite worked out what the roles are. But I think I would be the one wearing the trousers – that’s what I’ve decided!”

Do you think people will be surprised that you’re taking these roles or do you think that these days it won’t be considered a big deal?
“I think now it’s much less shocking than people would have thought ten years ago, these two ex-soap stars coming out [and doing this]. I can’t helping thinking that if it had happened ten years ago it would have been seen as a bit ‘Ohhh yeeeaaah, these two are gonna be coming out and snoggin’ on stage,’ and it would have seen as a bit cheap. But now I don’t think it’s shocking, it’s just ‘Oh, that’s a really good role,’ and it is, it’s a really good story. I might be being naïve though. It’ll actually be really interesting to find out what peoples’ reaction is.

“It was only when we were doing the photo shoot when Tamsin turned around and was like ‘Our friends are going to have an absolute field day with this,’ and it was like ‘Oh yeah, I hadn’t even thought about it.’ Ten years ago it could have looked like it was being done for shock value, but these days I don’t think that’s how it seen. I think it’s seen as two actresses going for two roles that are really contemporary and modern. But we’ll soon find out!”

You have such a great back catalogue of great British dramas over the last 10 years.
“Haha! 20 years! Bless you for saying 10 years, but unfortunately Holby was 17 years ago! I left 15 years ago, I did three series over two years. I feel like everyone must have seen something I’ve been in over the years, because it’s been so varied.”

How do you feel about Waterloo Road coming to an end next series?
“I’m really sad about it, but I can kind of see what’s happened with it. I watched Educating Yorkshire and when I got to the end of the final episode I actually remember saying through my tears, ‘This is the competition for Waterloo Road.’ And I think that is exactly what happened. I think it’s hard to keep up with stories that are real. I just think when [the show] went to Scotland it lost its way a bit and didn’t feel as cohesive anymore. If they bring it back in 5 or 6 years they’d be able to do it fresh with all fresh people and it might work.”

Now we were wondering, if you had to resurrect any of your –
“Cutting It.”

Yeah?
“Cutting It. And I have tried for quite some time to try and resurrect it, but everyone who was in a position to resurrect it now isn’t in that job anymore! But in all the commissioning rooms it’s one of the things that’s always held up as the standard, like ‘We want the next Cutting It,’ because it just spoke to everybody and it just worked. It had everything: It was camp, it was dramatic, it was fun, you had dads fathering children to, like, sisters and… it was just brilliant. There’s been nothing like it since. Bring back Cutting It ! Honestly I’m trying. I know Sarah Parish is dead but I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve got a great idea for how she could come back as a ghost. And we need to get Amanda [Holden] back into acting; she’s such a great actress.”

Series 8 of Lewis continues tonight (October 31) at 9pm on ITV.

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Jessie Ware: ‘I’m so glad my gay fans found me’
Nick Grimshaw on Madonna, Rihanna and ‘The Nixtape’