REACHING; NEW PEAKS; Kevin Whately left Peak Practice amid rumours about his love life. Angela Hagan hears how he's coped with the irony of his latest role as a man whose affair has torn his marriage apart; THE BROKERS' MAN Thursday BBC1 9.30pm.
For Kevin Whately it was the bleakest time in an otherwise blot- free career. His image lay in tatters as he stood accused of having an affair with his Peak Practice co-star and married mum-of-two Amanda Burton.The pair were said to have met for secret trysts at Amanda's cottage in Derbyshire's Peak District while filming the hit medical drama. Then, three years ago, both stars quit the show amid furious denials that they were off-screen lovers. And Kevin declared his love for his wife, actress Madelaine Newton, and their children Kitty, 15, and Kieran, 13.
It was claimed that Amanda's husband, photographer Sven Arnstein, and Madelaine had put pressure on their respective partners to leave the show and come home.
"They are the most important thing by far," was all Kevin, 47, would say at press launches, his cheeks always reddening, his voice angry at being put in such a compromising situation for such a private person.
Now he's back in his second series of The Brokers' Man in which he plays an insurance investigator, Jimmy Griffin, with a tangled love life. Jimmy is now reconciled with his ex-wife Sally (Annette Ekblom) after almost tearing the family apart with an affair in the last series. And if Kevin is uncomfortable about the irony of his latest role, he shows no signs of it. In fact, he's happy to show he can empathise with such a complex and common situation.
"Jimmy is quite romantic but, like a lot of middle-aged people, life gets in the way and it's easy to forget the romance, the spark that was once there," he says unflinchingly.
"In the show we're not sleeping together, but we're trying to form a life that works for all of us. I'm certain Jimmy and Sally will get back together at the end - my character's still in the process of trying to worm his way back into her affections.
"Come to think of it, there were no sexy scenes in the first series either. There was a line in it somewhere that I must be the only man in a love triangle without any love, because even though my character was involved with both women, nothing was happening on either front!"
Since quitting the hectic schedule of Peak Practice, Kevin, who lives with his family in the Bedfordshire countryside, admits he's slowed his work pace. "I couldn't operate if I wasn't being stretched creatively, but no more 13-part series," he says.
Last year he spent most of the Easter and summer holidays at home in his real-life role as house-husband.
"Madelaine did three jobs in a row so I stayed at home, not that I was exactly tied to the kitchen," he says. "The kids are teenagers now and fairly independent so I had lots of country walks with the dog, something I particularly enjoy - so does the dog," he smiles.
Since he burst on to our screens in the early '80s as nice brickie Neville, the one who missed his wife in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Kevin's rarely been off the telly.
His role as Dr Jack Kerruish in Peak Practice, with Amanda Burton as his wife and surgery partner Dr Beth Glover, ensured top ratings for the show. And millions were saddened when his role as the solid Sergeant Lewis in Inspector Morse was brought to a somewhat abrupt end earlier this year.
But Kevin has found it hard coping with the fame of being a household name. "I used to resent the fame side a lot," he says. "It was the intrusion of it - it's worse for people around you who have to endure it."
And he still gets letters from adoring female fans which only add to his discomfort. "Some of the letters are not exactly a sex thing, more a weird declaration of adoration - some women send their love to all your family as well. I don't know how you cope with that, if you do at all."
A quiet type, Kevin has always shied away from the showbiz scene. "I'm not part of that world, I've always hated parties," he says, his face breaking into a grin. "I've never been invited to them anyway. I don't like that hothouse atmosphere of having to socialise, that eyeball-to- eyeball thing. I'm too shy."
Born in the remote farming country of North Tyneside into a large family - there were five children - Kevin says as a child he was "shockingly shy".
"It's strange I was so shy because all the others were quite loud. Maybe I was just overwhelmed," he says. "Shyness is a powerful human condition and being on the stage was somewhere I felt comfortable - I suppose because my personality wasn't on show."
The young Kevin was a regular in school plays and was spotted by the county's drama adviser in Oedipus. "I mentioned it to the careers people who said, `There's no future in acting. What else would you like to do?'"
Discouraged, he joined an accountancy firm instead. "I hated it so much that I left when I'd only got a year to go before I qualified as a chartered accountant," he recalls.
He pursued his acting dreams at the Central School of Speech and Drama followed by six years in non-stop rep work. Then he landed the role in Auf Wiedersehen Pet.
Just before that series, in 1980, he'd fallen in love with wife-to-be Madelaine. "We were in Newcastle doing a show together, I was playing her brother-in-law... We decided straight away that we wanted kids, which I'd never considered before."
When Madelaine was pregnant with Kitty, and about to undergo an emergency Caesarean, Kevin proposed. "I'm not particularly romantic, I suppose I pick my moments," he laughs.
"We'd had endless discussions about marriage while we were living together but I was overcome with the moment when she went into labour and just asked her outright - she didn't say yes straight away, I think she had other things on her mind!"
Now Kevin is enjoying his role in the six-part series The Brokers' Man. "I'm not driven in an ambitious way. I'm just driven to keep working," he says. "If I didn't work I'd get very jumpy.
"Even on holiday I have to be doing something. I can't just lie in the sun and relax, but that's like most men isn't it?"
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| Title Annotation: | Features |
|---|---|
| Author: | Hagan, Angela |
| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Jul 18, 1998 |
| Words: | 1059 |
| Previous Article: | Video week. |
| Next Article: | The Imposter. |