Lisa Williams catches up with Liverpool actor Shaun Evans, about taking on the role of a young Inspector Morse

INSPECTOR MORSE was one of television’s most famous characters, with 14m people tuning in to see him die in the final episode of Morse in 2000, and many more mourning the real-life death of actor John Thaw in 2002.

That’s enough to frighten any actor off stepping into the shoes of the Oxford-based detective.

But not if that actor is Walton-born Shaun Evans, the relatively unknown but keen-as-mustard 31-year-old, who plays Morse in one-off prequel Endeavour.

“It wasn’t intimidating, no, it was exciting,” says the actor, trying to make his voice heard over the seagulls circling the Mersey.

“I think that’s because I’d guessed they were looking for the right person, so I was excited they thought I could do it.”

The prequel, which fans will know takes its title from Morse’s closely-guarded first name, is based on a short story by Morse’s creator Colin Dexter and is scripted by Russell Lewis, who wrote the Morse spin-off, Lewis.

It sees the young Morse joining the police after being kicked out of Oxford University, and lays the foundations for the Morse we came to know during the original series.

Evans explains: “You see the beginnings of all the things which made him so popular in his later period; he’s struggling with women even then, struggling with work and struggling with himself, but he already has a love of classical music and crosswords, poetry, old cars and beer.”

We even get a glimpse of the woman who broke Morse’s heart all those years ago, setting the blueprint for his failed love life.

“You see her as a fragment of the memory, rather than a scene of someone saying, ‘Why did you dump me?’” says the former St Edwards College pupil.