For Tony, it’s the best possible start: “I think my favourite scene is when Nancy (Raquel Cassidy) is sacking Jonathan. He assumes there is a hidden agenda. In Jonathan’s world, he can’t believe he has been sacked through incompetence or anything else because that doesn’t fit in with his self image. He assumes there is a hidden agenda and the truth behind it is sexual harassment and that Nancy wants to sleep with him. He drops his trousers and says, ‘Kneel before the Pope’ at which point she beats the **** out of him. That is my favourite moment. Jonathan can’t believe he isn’t universally loved and adored and that he is ever wrong.”
Of the new girl and boy in the cast, Tony says: “We set the bar quite high with Echo Beach by managing to get Jason Donovan, Martine McCutcheon and Hugo Speer. That was quite a cool thing. It was a fantastic cast. The characters I created for Renaissance were a young single Lara Croft character and a middle-aged guy with kids, and Kelly Brook and Alan Dale were dream casting really, and the fact we managed to get them was great.”
And, he reckons, there’s still plenty more scope for the accident-prone character of Jonathan Pope.
“If we did get re-commissioned for a third series, I would absolutely love Jonathan to make a musical. Like I said, we have set the bar quite high with our casting, so maybe we will find out if Tom Cruise and Kate Winslet are free! We’ll try and get them anyway. I saw Tom Cruise being interviewed on the first Jonathan Ross show, and I’m sure he said he wanted to be in a musical.”
MOVING Wallpaper, tonight at 9pm, on ITV1.
Why comedy actor Ben Miller has no regrets about swapping nuclear physics for comedy >>>
