Writer hits out at claim TV show has become ‘bland’

Published on 22/08/2012 00:33

ONE of the writers of long-running detective drama New Tricks has hit back in a row with the cast who claimed the show’s scripts had become “bland”.

Amanda Redman, who plays Sandra Pullman in the show, said: “It’s more bland now. The characters are not being as anarchic as they used to be, which I think is a huge shame.”

But writer Julian Simpson took to Twitter to tell fans: “A New Tricks I wrote and directed airs on Monday. I can tell you EXACTLY how much of it the actors wrote: not a f***ing comma. I was going to be writing today, instead I’m just going to hand the actors a pad and pen. I wish I’d learned this 15 years ago.”

He also discussed an episode scripted by another writer, saying: “I directed that too. Cast contribution to script? Big fat zero.”

He added: “Worth saying that I get on phenomenally well with the New Tricks cast. Just don’t appreciate actors speaking out of turn and they know that.”

His Twitter outburst came after a magazine interview with Redman, Alun Armstrong and Dennis Waterman, who play police officers brought out of retirement to investigate unsolved crimes. James Bolam quit the show last year, saying it had “become stale”.