Pants are out

11:17am Thursday 10th January 2008

THE team are back. So are the monsters. But one thing is missing from the second series of ITV1s Saturday night adventure series Primeval C Hannah Spearitts knickers. The makers decided that her pants were pants despite the enormous amount of press coverage given the underwear displayed by her prehistoric monster hunting character Abby.

I can confirm that my pants will not be returning, says the former S Club singer. To be honest, I didnt have a problem at all with it, but I dont think any of us realised just how much they were actually going to feature as we shot those scenes back to back.

Cut up and placed throughout the series, it seemed as though there were a lot more pant shots than we first thought. Anyway, Abby doesnt need to get in her pants C shes got many other cards to play this time round.

The second series of Primeval sees her and the rest of the team C which includes Douglas Hensall, James Murray and Andrew-Lee Potts C continuing their quest to solve the mystery of the anomalies.

These are rips in time that allow beastly monsters access to the modern world. Problems this time range from a family of raptors going wild in the aisles of a shopping mall to a woolly mammoth holding up traffic on the M25.

The series is helping Spearitt shed her former pop star tag and make a name for herself as an actress in her own right. Being brought back for a second time is a great feeling, she says, because it means shes involved with something that has worked and people really like.

The fact that people have actually asked you back, and that there are enough people out there who have enjoyed Primeval so much that they want us to go again is very cool. Its lovely to feel wanted.

This series is so much more heightened and really takes absolutely everything to a newer and more exciting level, both in terms of the amount of action on screen as well as the emotional punch its packing.

It pushes itself and really doesnt relax. Were trying out new things. I hope people will be shocked, but of course delighted with whats been done.

It would have been very easy to follow the same formula that worked on series one, but everyone involved has really pushed themselves. Its very risky. But its been exciting to do.

There are big changes in store for everyone, not least that the hunters are better trained to find the beasts.

Were much slicker as a team. And weve got a headquarters. How great is that? Its called the ARC which stands for Anomaly Research Centre and is almost like a new character, she says.

I think its going to be the star of the show. We were all upstaged by a cute mechanical flying lizard the first time round, and now were about to be acted off the screen by a set.

You walk on to some sets and its a wall and a door and thats it. This looks as thought were actually working in there. We could live there if we needed to. Not only is the set bigger and better, so is the action and Abby is at the centre of it. Shes not afraid to get stuck right into it, says the actress.

Theres one moment when she takes on a sabre-toothed tiger. Its my Russell Crowe Gladiator moment. Some of the team are trapped in this arena with the tiger prowling around and I break away from the group and theres a standoff between me and the tiger. Its literally me or the beast.

Shes a brave little cookie is Abby, which is great because it means Ive got to do loads of really cool stuff this series. And I wanted to do as much of it myself as I could.

Ive got to drive around in a host of vehicles. Incredibly the producers allowed me to roam around the countryside in a forklift truck, a JCB, and I also got to drive a Lotus Elite.

Theres wire work too involved this series. One sequence she particularly enjoyed sees Abby fighting water creatures from the future.

The idea is that shes being dragged kicking and screaming through the anomaly, so basically Jamie, the director, had me lying on my back in this pool with wires going round my middle. I would then go underwater and be pulled really quickly up from my belly.

With all the CGI added its supposed to look like Im bursting out of the water on the nose of this horrible beast. Thats the plan anyway.

ö Primeval returns to ITV1 on Saturday at 7pm

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