Starring in a Seventies classic - it's a great Life!
LIFE on Mars hots up this week for DS Ray Carling when the character played by Dean Andrews gets caught in a bomb blast.
The moustachioed Seventies sidekick in the BBC's hit cop show finds himself centre stage for once as the rest of the team blame time-travelling hero Sam for the accident which leaves Ray fighting for his life.
The South Yorkshire actor is delighted at this turn of events. "It's been great fun to do. In the first series I did a lot of hanging around chewing gum but I have a lot more input in this series."
DS Carling is certainly the grouchiest and probably the most un-PC in the 1973 Manchester CID room.
"In this episode Ray, however, becomes the hero and he becomes the boss's boy again," says Dean. "It was quite a good one to act because I could show a different side to Ray, rather than just the macho/ testosterone side.
"Throughout this second series, there are some great stories and situations that go some way to vindicating Ray's behaviour to a degree. There have been some great moments for Ray which you would never have dreamt of in series one."
The Rotherham-born performer, who recently moved home to Upper Hoyland, came to acting comparitively late in life when he appeared in the Ken Loach film The Navigators, filmed in Sheffield.
"I'd been a singer for 20 years and it had never entered my head to do acting but someone said, 'Do you want to be in a film?'," he explains .
"As a singer you get lots of things that come your way so I went along for an audition. I didn't know who Ken Loach was, but he was a nice fellow. To put some authenticity into his work he wanted to find local people to be in the film."
At that time Dean worked as a singer in social clubs and cruise liners. "I've always been a cabaret singer, doing popular stuff like Tony Christie and Tom Jones. I still sing, although not as often - mainly golf clubs and I'm on the Grosvenor casino circuit," he says.
"When I left school I went to work in the parts department of Kirkby Central, the Vauxhall dealership near where we lived which was the Masons Arms in Wellgate. My mum and dad had pubs. I started singing when I was 18 and was still working in the day until I got the chance of a summer season in Skegness. That was the catalyst to go full-time.
In those days you could work through the summer and in the clubs four or five nights a week. The first wage I earned as a singer was 42 - pretty much the same for one night as doing 38 and a half hours in the day job."
The appearance in The Navigators led to more acting offers.
"The first job I did was Buried for Channel 4 and I've done Clocking Off, Between the Sheets with Brenda Blethyn and Alun Armstrong - "a bit of rough as usual" – and I've also done Blue Murder, Casualty, EastEnders, Wire on the Blood, all those kind of acting jobs."
As an untrained actor appearing alongside some big names and experienced performers, was it intimidating?
"Because of my upbringing in clubland you are used to fronting everything out and not letting people see the fear. I have always been a confident person. You learn along the way, which is a good way. I have never felt uneasy."
He will next be seen in a couple of episodes of True Dare Kiss, a new drama series about a disturbing family secret. Filmed in Manchester, the cast includes Dervla Kirwan, Lorraine Ashbourne and Paul McGann. "I play a property developer – there's a Sheffield Arena-kind of project that one of the main characters is involved in."
Did he guess just how big Life on Mars would turn out to be?
"When I first got the script, I thought this looks wacky and it had a great cast and good writing - the kind of thing an actor waits for.
"But you just don't know how it's going to go. With Between the Sheets, the critics loved it, we won a BAFTA – but nobody watched it."
It has undoubtedly raised his profile, but not on the street.
"I don't get recognised because I don't look anything like Ray once I have got rid of the sideburns and the tash. When the first series came out, I was growing back the stuff for the second series, so going around Meadowhall I got a few looks."
The Seventies retro fashions may be cool for some, "but not when you are a 43-year-old bloke - I just look like me Dad," says Dean.
That said, one of the pleasures of Life on Mars is the period setting. "I remember the Seventies vividly. I was 10 in 1973 so I was just starting to experience things. I was in the Bay City Rollers Fan Club. It was quite a formative time. You're starting to think about fashion and girls – and music. I bought my first record – Alice Cooper's School's Out."
First hand experience has come in useful on the set. "There are times when you say, 'That wouldn't happen' or 'They wouldn't have worn that'.
An example of that was when we did a football thing, I was able to tell them that a lot of people used to wind their scarf round their wrists in those days rather than just having everyone wearing them round their necks."
This will be the final series and Dean has no regrets. "I've had a good time in the Seventies, and it's a show that I'll definitely miss.
"I know it's not a bad thing that it will go out on a high - everyone will talk about it and hopefully it'll become a classic."
He and his wife, Denise, have two daughters, Sharny, aged 21, and Alice, 15. How impressed are they with having a dad in Life on Mars?
"Not very," laughs Dean, "but I have finally managed to impress my youngest. Last Saturday I was on Sky's Soccer AM programme.
"There was Philip Glenister who's an Arsenal fan, with Marshall Lancaster - Macclesfield Town - and me - Rotherham United - representing proper football clubs."
Life on Mars, BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm.
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