Duty calls

APPARENTLY, this drama is so good it even convinced Lennie James to put aside his misgivings about playing yet another police officer.

The actor, who has previously appeared in Out of the Blue and Undercover Heart, laughs: “I have played loads of coppers!

Too many coppers! But the scripts were so good and the cast they managed to put together so fantastic that there was no saying ‘no’ to this.

“It was a no-brainer for me in the end, even though playing cops had kind of become something I was resistant to. At one point I thought I was the poster boy for the Metropolitan Police!”

There may be a reason why casting directors keep trying to get him into a uniform – James admits he came very close to becoming a police officer for real.

“There was a time when I was deciding what I wanted to do outside of school and I had serious considerations about being a copper... I have friends I went to school with who joined the force, a couple of whom are very high-ranking members of the Met and surrounding regions.

“I’d like to think I could have been a police officer too, but the reality is I don’t think I could have done. I would have left, like at least one of my friends did early on, because there was a time when it was, or I would argue that it was, one of the most dangerous jobs – to be a black police officer in Britain.”

Now though he’s on the beat for Line of Duty, which co-stars Martin Compston as DS Steve Arnott, who is ostracised by his colleagues after a counter-terrorism raid goes wrong and he refuses to take part in a cover-up.

His principled stand earns him a place in the anti-corruption unit, AC-12.

Arnott’s new boss Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) has his sights set on DCI Tony Gates (James), who, on the surface, appears to be a model officer – his squad has returned the best crime figures for the past three years, and everyone wants to work for him, especially DC Kate Flemming (McClure).

James explains: “If you’ve got ambitions in this particular squad or in this particular station, the place to advance your career is to be next to Tony. He has an incredibly loyal squad and they would walk over hot coals for him.”

However, Hastings is convinced no one achieves those sort of results legitimately, and he wants Arnott to prove it.

Unbeknown to AC-12, Gates does have a secret, although it initially seems to be rather less juicy than the investigators were expecting – he’s been having an affair.

But when his mistress (Gina McKee) then asks him to help her cover up a minor traffic offence, is he about to land himself in serious trouble?

WHAT Alan Titchmarsh doesn’t know about greenery isn’t worth knowing. Green-fingered guru that he is, he has turned his hand to bloomin’ all sorts (pun intended), from years’ worth of work alongside Charlie Dimmock, to making over Nelson Mandela’s garden.

Last year, the freshman series of this show saw the gardener go right back to the roots of his passion in sprucing up gardens around Britain.

The new series gets off to quite an emotional start as Alan and his team rally round for a woman in Hampshire who has a life-threatening illness and has devoted her precious time to fundraising. However, her kind heart has meant that she’s been left with little choice but to neglect her garden. Alan begins work building her a Japanese garden, taking inspiration from local hotspots.

Plus, landscape gardener Katie Rushworth searches for dramatic Japanese plants, while landscaping expert David Domoney helps add that special touch and horticulturist Francis Tophill plants varieties of bamboo.

JAMIE OLIVER has campaigned to improve school dinners and James Martin has tackled hospital food, so some viewers may take one look at the title of this show and assume Gordon Ramsay has taken it upon himself to ensure prisoners are being well fed.

But before anyone starts writing an angry letter to their MP complaining that convicted burglars don’t deserve scallops with black pudding and pea purée, Gordon is taking a much tougher line.

It turns out that each jailbird costs taxpayers £38,000 a year, making it more expensive than sending a child to Eton. Gordon believes it’s in everyone’s best interests if the prisoners pay something back into the system by working, especially if it gives them the chance to gain a nationally-recognised qualification and make them more employable on release.