Actor Will Mellor on new comedy-drama No Offence: There's quite a lot of blood and guts

AWARD-WINNING writer Paul Abbott’s new eight-part series is a dark comedy drama about front-line policing.

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No Offence stars Saira Choudry Will Mellor and Joanna Scanlan

Whether watching the Gallagher family’s shocking edge-of-the-law behaviour in Shameless or following the twists and turns in the 2003 political thriller State Of Play, TV writer Paul Abbott introduces viewers to fresh and vivid new worlds. 

In this week’s No Offence, a cop drama with a seam of dark comedy through the middle, Abbott pulls off the same trick again – according to the writer himself, No Offence is “The Office as a cop show, but not quite like that”. So you know it won’t be run-of-the-mill. 

We’re on set in a dilapidated youth centre in Openshaw, Manchester, where the fictional Friday Street police precinct has been mocked up. It’s a jumble of desks strewn with folders, phones and maps, dimly lit by grim municipal strip lights.

The actors mill about, ready to shoot a scene in which they’ll be updated on their hunt for a serial killer. The actors are familiar: The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan plays DI Vivienne Deering, Will Mellor (In The Club) is DC Spike Tanner, Saira Choudhry (Hollyoaks) plays PC Tegan Thompson, Elaine Cassidy (The Paradise) plays DC Dinah Kowalska and the Bond movies’ Colin Salmon is their boss, DS Darren Maclaren.

As soon as I heard it was a Paul Abbott script, I said I’d do it

Will Mellor

Though it’s a police procedural with a crime of the week and overarching serial killer storylines, it’s also got those Abbott hallmarks of a northern flavour, a healthy lack of political correctness, and a definite energy and exuberance. 

“As soon as I heard it was a Paul Abbott script, I said I’d do it,” says Will Mellor, 39. “They aren’t scripts you instantly read and go, ‘I know what this will be.’ And that’s what I like about it – it’s different.”

The opening episode sees DC Kowalska recognising a pattern in the deaths of two young women and, with a third girl missing, realising there’s a killer on the loose. At the meeting to discuss strategy, Maclaren is in charge, but Deering takes control of the room with quiet authority. 

She’s an old-school copper with strong morals who’s climbed the greasy pole in a man’s world, in a bid to make her ex-cop father proud. Despite her undoubted competence, Deering has unusual quirks that include a prodigious use of a hand sanitiser to fight off the filth, literally and metaphorically, of police work. “

You’d generously use the term eccentric to describe her,” admits Joanna, 53. “But, less charitably, barmy. She certainly has her own way about her.”

Deering must answer to DS Maclaren. “He’s slightly comic, though not on purpose – it’s more judging by the reactions to things he says,” explains Colin, 52. “He’s caught out a lot by Deering. He’s a great contrast to the commanding characters I tend to play.”

Maclaren hangs out a lot at Friday Street, explains Colin, even though his offices are in the high-tech unit nicknamed Google Grange. “He is bridging the new and old in terms of policing, but he can’t keep away from Friday Street, where he knows the real work gets done.” 

In order to get some privacy away from the big bosses, though, a lot of strategising and decision making takes place in Friday Street’s loos. 

“How many actors can you fit in a toilet cubicle?” says Alexandra Roach, who plays DS Joy Freers, laughing. “We’ve done so many scenes locked in a tiny toilet cubicle for days on end. It’s where we have our meetings, so Maclaren doesn’t earwig into our conversations.”

But at least it gave Elaine Cassidy a comfy (toilet) seat to sit down on. During a scene in which DC Kowalska was supposed to turn over her ankle while chasing a vehicle, Cassidy sprained her ankle for real and suffered ligament damage. 

“I couldn’t walk and I was on crutches, so they had to get a stunt double just to show Dinah walking out of her flat,” says Elaine. “A lot of scenes were rewritten with me sitting down!”

Elaine may have been moving more slowly, but No Offence doesn’t – it’s a thrill ride of a cop series. 

“There’s quite a lot of blood and guts in certain places, and car crashes, punches, fights, all sorts, along with some gruesome stories that will test anyone with humanity,” says Will. “We’re pushing the boundaries of that. That’s what people will tune in for.”

No Offence, Tuesday, 9PM, Channel 4 

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