The big interview: Stephen Tompkinson

Stephen Tompkinson first grabbed cinema audiences as Phil, the desperate Yorkshire miner who tries to make a go of being a children’s clown in Brassed Off. On television, he’s been in Ballykissangel and Drop the Dead Donkey and more recently was a hit as a policeman soon to return to your screens.

He plays Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, a character created by the Yorkshire ex-patriot novelist Peter Robinson and part of the new series has been filmed in locations all over West Yorkshire.

Scenes for one of the new episodes called Playing with Fire – about an art scam and the murder of a girl – were shot on a canal towpath in Huddersfield and at a mill in Hebden Bridge.

Other familiar scenes to look out for are an arcade in Otley, Cartwright Hall in Bradford and Granary Wharf in the centre of Leeds. A cottage near Harrogate becomes the exterior of DCI Banks’s home.

But for now it’s the more exotic, and warmer, locations of South Africa which have claimed Stephen Tompkinson.

He’s now embarked on making the seventh series of Wild at Heart where he plays the vet and conservationist Danny Trevanion.

Stephen is certainly no stay-at-home. He’s also made two ratings-topping documentaries, Australian Adventure and Great African Balloon Adventure and the 45-year-old actor says he’s keen to do more aeronautical features.

“After those two, I’d now like to do all the ‘As’ – I am pushing for one to be shot over America, another over Asia, and perhaps another over Antarctica. I’m really not that keen on the Arctic, though, and I think I’ll leave that one to Prince Harry and his mates. Ballooning is an amazing experience, absolutely exhilarating – except when you come down with a bump, and you’re dragged along the ground at 40mph.”

Stephen has a daughter Daisy who is now 11 which makes him think it’s time to put down some roots. “I’m a bit footloose as regards the ‘where do I live permanently’ front at the moment,” he says. “And while I’m not actively looking for somewhere, Yorkshire might well be the place I’d like to call ‘home’.

“There are some marvellous properties up here, and if it’s good enough for Patrick Stewart, who has a place in the Dales, it’s good enough for me. Daisy loves it up here – she adores going for walks along the canals, and helping to open all the locks.

“Leeds apparently has more Michelin-starred restaurants within its boundaries than any other city in Britain. My mission is to track them all down.

“It’s all in a state of flux at the moment, but Yorkshire could be perfect, especially if I’m up here for half the year with more of Banks. You don’t have to live in or around London any more to get work. That may have been true once, but these days, with TV series being made so much more in the North, and using northern backgrounds, it’d be far more convenient to live somewhere up here.

“Not to mention the fact that it’s a far better lifestyle – come on, I should know. Born on Teesside, brought up in Lytham, I’m a northern lad myself.”

He likes to talk about the late Pete Postlethwaite with whom he made the hit film Brassed Off. “That was nearly all on location in and around Doncaster and we had so much fun. We became very good friends and I just loved the man. He died far too soon, far too young. I’ll use the old expression, and say that Pete could definitely ‘sup some stuff’ when he had a mind to – I think that he and I and Ewan MacGregor once very nearly drank the bar dry at Doncaster’s Danum Hotel.”

Stephen used to enjoy a drink himself. He gave up six or seven years ago. “It was about the time that my mother died, but that wasn’t the reason. I don’t mind at all if others do but I’ve exercised the option not to. It wasn’t a Road to Damascus conversion. I just woke up one day and thought ‘Well, I don’t feel so grand this morning, so maybe I’ll do without the odd couple tonight. And one day away led to two, and two to four, and four to a week off and I never went back. It’s given me a much clearer brain, I have more energy and lots of reasons and benefits. The chief one is that I have far more time to devote to Daisy, which is paramount.

“She comes out to South Africa for Wild at Heart as soon as the summer break begins and stays as long as she can. She really loves the animals on the reserve – we shoot near a wildlife park devoted to helping stray or abandoned wild animals.

“When she first came out there were a group of new-born lions, adorable and cuddly, lovely to play with. Now, five or more years on, they are rather larger and not quite so cuddly. But to Daisy, they will always be ‘her’ lions, and she is convinced that they remember her from when they were cubs. I don’t really like to tell her different.”

Stephen is proud of the local impact the series has made. “We put an awful lot back into the South African economy. Apart from a few of us actors, we employ an all South African crew.”

He was on the set when he first heard about ITV’s plan to film the DCI Banks novels and when he’d finished in South Africa flew to Tampa in Florida, to meet Peter Robinson the author of the books.

“I hadn’t realised how popular Peter’s books are. He’s Stephen King’s favourite author and Pete Townshend loves him too. He’s got an amazing fan base.

“We got on very well together and he agreed that I should play DCI Banks. It was so useful to pick his brains and to get his insights. I went away and read every single book that he’d written in the series, to immerse myself in the man.

“One of the identifying marks about the character is a little scar on his forehead which he touches when he’s thinking things through. That’s something rather nice to use. But he’s rather insular, wedded to his work, with no social life at all. I’m not like that – yes, I am a workaholic, but I do like to relax.

“I do quite like him because he’s persistent, and he does his job well. He has a favourite quotation from John Donne that goes, ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind’, and I’m definitely there with him on that one. He is always fighting for justice, and I think he’s the sort of man that you’d always want on your side.”

The stage, he says, is still very much part of his life and he’d like to do a lot more. “Being in front of an audience recharges the batteries in a way that acting for a camera will never ever do. It makes you realise that you are an entertainer, that people want to connect with you. I am a huge fan of Barrie Rutter and his Northern Broadsides company, and I’d love to do something with them.”

If he could take a break, he’d probably choose San Francisco. He likes their dry sense of humour and quotes the story of a San Francisco driver stuck behind a car at traffic lights on one of the steep streets.

“The lights changed a few times and the bloke in front didn’t move and inch. Instead of shouting the bloke behind gets out, walks round, taps on the window and asks: ‘Just exactly which shade of green would you like?’”

The shooting for Wild at Heart, he says, “is like being given free and complete access to your own zoo, day in, day out, and I love every second of it.

“Well, maybe there’s one thing I’d change. South Africa would perfect if it wasn’t for the zebras. They look beautiful, but they are vicious little beasts, unpredictable and prone to kicking or biting. Sometimes both at the same time. It’s wise to steer well clear of them, just in case. Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of zebra scenes for DCI Banks in Yorkshire.”