LAW AND ORDER

George Rainsford is really excited. He’s playing Detective Superintendent Roy Grace in a touring stage adaptation of Peter James’s bestselling thriller, Wish You Were Dead, and he couldn’t be happier.

“I haven’t been on-stage for about 10 years,” says George, “so it’s good to be part of an ensemble again.”

This absence from the boards is explained by the nine years he spent playing Ethan Hardy in BBC One’s Casualty. Before that, in the first two series of Call The Midwife, he was Jessica Raine’s unfaithful boyfriend, Jimmy Wilson.

After time spent learning his craft at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, George gravitated to theatre work. “I’ve always enjoyed the live element of doing a play - the audience reaction, the adrenaline it generates and so on. And the reaction we are getting from audiences so far on the tour has been amazing. They seem to be loving it!”

He auditioned for the lead role of Roy Grace last August. “It’s a fantastic part, something I can really get my teeth into.” As a result, he’s been reading author Peter James’s backcatalogue of murder-mysteries - “always so beautifully plotted” - and watching the first two television series of Grace, starring John Simm as the eponymous policeman.

The TV series was an immediate success with audiences when it launched on ITV in 2021almost nine million viewers tuned in to watch the primetime drama. Series two hit TV screens in spring 2022, the five episodes being the most watched programme across all channels on each of the Sundays they were broadcast. A third successful series has just finished on ITV.

The twist in Wish You Were Dead is that Roy is on holiday in France with his wife, Cleo, and their baby. “He’s not working,” explains George. “But when a crime boss, Curtis, is released from prison, he’s a man desperate to take revenge on the policeman who got him incarcerated. So, crime comes looking for Grace.”

Is it scary? “I hope so. Roy has to use all his wits to ensure his loved ones come to no harm. It’s full of surprises. I think audiences like being scared. Hearing the audience jump and gasp each night is great! But it’s also great funthere’s quite a bit of dark comedy that audiences are really enjoying.”

Will it involve fisticuffs? “Oh yes, a bit of that, and possibly some bodies - although I’m not about to give the game away.”

George knows all about pretend-fighting. In a play at the RSC in 2009, he was required to look as though he’d landed a punch in a bar-room brawl on fellow actor Luke Norris. On one occasion, he misjudged the swing and made heavy contact with Luke.

“The result was that I hit him in the mouth with enough force for his teeth to puncture his lip and take a chunk out of the joint on my fist. He looked worse than me, but I ended up in hospital for a week.”

Wish You Were Dead is the sixth stage adaptation of Peter James’s novels, making it the most successful crime-thriller theatrical franchise since Agatha Christie.

Previous James novels brought to the stage are: Looking Good Dead, starring Adam Woodyatt and Gaynor Faye; The House On Cold Hill, with Joe McFadden and Rita Simons; Not Dead Enough, starring Shane Richie and Laura Whitmore; Dead Simple, with Tina Hobley; and The Perfect Murder, starring Les Dennis and Claire Goose.

“I’m really enjoying touring, visiting places I’ve never been before,” says an enthusiastic George. “I’m only able to get home once a week, or Sunday wash day, as I call it.”

George is joined in the production by Clive Mantle, with whom he’s worked before - they were both in a Doctor Who audio drama. “And then there was an edition of Pointless Celebrities, featuring actors who’d been in Casualty. As I’m sure he’ll be only too happy to point out, I was kicked off at the end of the first round, and he and his partner went on to win.”

As George predicted, Clive is indeed only too happy to mention Pointless. “I thrashed him roundly,” he says, eyes glinting. “I left him snivelling in the dirt. I’ve won Pointless twice, as it happens. I’ve half a mind to pin my Pointless trophies to my dressing-room door as we tour the UK, to wind George up.”

Clive fell in love with his character of crime boss Curtis as soon as he read the script of Wish You Were Dead. “He’s been the head of a mob based in Brighton; an old-fashioned family villain with his own set of values. He has a personal moral code, which covers slitting your throat without a second’s thought. And don’t you dare say anything bad to his mum.”

Curtis also has a lovely turn of phrase, says Clive. “He’s very sharp, very sarcastic, often very funny. I’ve enjoyed making the audience laugh - they seem to quite like Curtis, despite his criminal intent, but I do also like to frighten the audience at some points in the evening!”

In a career covering some 45 years, Clive has played everything from poor, lumbering Lenny in Of Mice And Men (“seven times now, I think”) to surgeon Mike Barratt in both Casualty and Holby. He was also a recurring character, Simon Horton, in The Vicar Of Dibley. More recently, he was seen in another light comedy, White Van Man, opposite Will Mellor, who was a big success on Strictly last year.

“I played his dad, and he taught me a lot about comedy. But then, I taught him everything he knows about dancing!”

Wish You Were Dead shows at Theatres Severn, Shrewsbury, Tues 9 - Sat 13 May; Malvern Theatres, Mon 12 - Sat 17 June; The Alexandra, Birmingham, from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 June