All heart

ANGUS Deayton's first starring role in comedy-drama Heartless was a shock to his system - because he had to fall into freezing water. That, along with having hair extensions and dancing in a kilt, made the part of a barrister who undergoes a personality change after a heart transplant operation a real challenge.

His character, Harry Holland, is a top divorce lawyer who wins cases and woos women in equal measure. After a rare cardiac condition dictates having a heart transplant, he recovers to find himself a changed man and sets out to discover more about the heart donor.

Simone Lahbib, from Bad Girls and Monarch Of The Glen, is the widow who finds something familiar about Holland and wants to get to know him better.

"Filming Heartless felt like a big adventure," says Deayton, who left his job as presenter of BBC2's Have I Got News For You after tabloid revelations about his private life.

"The script appealed straight away because it's funnily written, a mix of gentle comedy and magical realism. It reminded me of one of my favourite films, Local Hero.

"I felt it was the next step on from sketch shows and sitcom, and wanted to accept something more of a challenge."

The first scene shot for the 90-minute story - which was filmed on the Isle of Skye, Loch Lomond, Hamilton and Glasgow - required Deayton to go in at the deep end, literally. The script called for Harry to go fishing and be pulled by a fish into the water. To add to the wet look, it was pouring of rain too.

"Having been in a nice warm airport lounge that morning, being wrenched into a freezing loch came as a bit of a shock to the system," recalls Deayton.

Then there was the dancing at a Scottish ceilidh. Being half-Scottish, he reckons he can just about manage a Dashing White Sergeant or a Gay Gordon. But the makers wanted the cast to do something called the Reel of the 51st which "is the most complicated reel ever devised", he says.

"Apparently it was thought up by the soldiers of Colditz because they were bored. So we had to have dancing lessons every night after shooting because we wanted to try and get it right.

"It's very violent with lots of flailing arms and swirling kilts. It was great fun, but I'll have forgotten it by Hogmanay, which is about the only time my own kilt comes out."

Holland goes to Scotland convinced he's taken on the personality traits of the heart donor.

After Harry's operation, his character remains the same but his priorities change," explains Deayton. "Is this a result of what's happened to him or would it have happened anyway? Does he have anything in common with the person whose heart he's been given or is it coincidental?

"One of the things I most liked about the story is that it never quite nails its colours to the mast. That ambiguity keeps you guessing to the end."

As it was a romantic comedy, he was told he was required to have long hair and was given him 350 hair extensions. He's worn every wig and every look imaginable in previous sketch show appearances, but extensions were a new experience and not necessarily one he'll seek to repeat.

"They put blondish streaks in as well. At first the extensions feel obvious but after a while you don't notice them. They did tell me my hair would fall out in large clumps in the morning, but that's kind of happening anyway," he says.

Much more pleasant was filming on the Isle of Skye, although that wasn't without challenges. "Waking up to rain every morning and then your backdrop would change to sun, sleet, a rainbow, and the next day, snow. From a continuity point of view it must have been a nightmare, but it was just stunning to look at.

"My mother is Scottish and I'd spent virtually every childhood summer holiday up in Scotland. Filming Heartless made me fall in love with the place again. And there was such a convivial atmosphere. Everyone was very friendly and relaxed, although obviously there was a lot of English versus Scottish rivalry and banter.

Not everything tied in with real life. "I'm not a barrister and I've never had a heart transplant so Harry's experience is not quite my own, but it wasn't so far removed from my world that I couldn't relate to it," he says.

Riding Harry's motorbike was something Deayton wanted to try. He'd never ridden one before and left scenes of it being driven at 100mph to a stuntman. He stuck to the safer shots.

"But the leathers were an interesting look and certainly the leathers combined with the kilt at one point was even more bizarre. Needless to say, I didn't buy them afterwards," he says.

* Heartless is on ITV1 on Monday at 9pm

Published: 31/03/2005