Back to school: Previewing the new series of Waterloo Road

The smell. That unmistakable whiff. School dinners. Mops. Pencil shavings and, oh yes, pupils. I haven’t set foot in a high school since I left my own too many years ago to want to count, and yet that unmistakable odour blasts me straight back to double maths and sponge and custard. The canteen I’m standing in is as noisy as a school dinner hall, with far too many chairs pulled round some tables where the popular people sit and the shortest queue is at the salad bar. (Some things never change.) But this isn’t a school. And these aren’t school dinners.

Waterloo Road, the award-winning television drama began its eighth series last night. When it started, back in 2006, it was set in a failing school in Rochdale. Angela Griffin was a pastoral care teacher, Kim Campbell, and the school was under permanent threat of closure after poor inspections. Not any longer. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. In fact the poor inspections did at last lead to closure, but that only provided the opportunity for a fresh start. In Greenock. Waterloo Road is now set in an independent school in Greenock, housed in the former Greenock Academy which closed in 2011. The cast combines some familiar faces (Alec Newman back as headmaster Michael Byrne, Heather Peace back as head of English, Nicki Boston) and more than a sprinkling of new boys and girls.

In the world of television, the long-running school drama is one that has snuck along year after year, never making much of a fuss but always pulling in an audience. At the National Television Awards 2011, it bagged the Most Popular Drama gong, ending Doctor Who’s five consecutive year grip on the award.

On a stunning day, the former real school, now television set, buzzes with activity. Crew and caterers, wardrobe people and make-up folk – I don’t imagine it ever felt quite like this when the real teachers and pupils were here. The differences are clear inside too. Where once there were classrooms, now there are partitioned dressing rooms with pigeon holes on the walls with scripts stuffed in them for the actors to learn. In the larger rooms, instead of rows of desks and chairs, there are racks of clothing – blazers and ties, school shirts and grey trousers, clumps of scuffed black shoes and trainers. It’s like the dreaded lost property cupboard gone large. There are make-up and hair stations set up in front of smeared mirrors and on the walls large photographs of the actors are tacked up for continuity purposes – hair must be parted the same way, ties worn at the same height.

In the headmaster’s office it’s much easier to forget this is a set. An academic calendar is stuck on the wall and a morning break duty rota is filled in. There are box files marked ‘progress forms’ and ‘sick leave files’, ‘work placement forms’ and ‘financial reports’. The sign above them says: “Zero tolerance towards bullying”. It’s only when you turn around that you see the rest of the room is filled with monitors and a sound unit trailing leads and wires like entrails. As ever on a TV set there are people everywhere although it’s never entirely clear what most of them are doing.

Upstairs, along another corridor, sitting in a sun-filled room with stunning views across the Clyde, sits Scottish actress Laurie Brett, still best known for playing the long-suffering wife of Ian Beale, Jane, in EastEnders. Brett has joined Waterloo Road to play English teacher, Christine Mulgrew. She laughs when I ask if she’s a glutton for punishment moving from one long-running soap to another long-running drama with a gap of only three months?

“I probably wouldn’t have jumped into something so long-running if it hadn’t been for the part,” she says. “The part was just too good to pass up really. Christine is so different to Jane. That’s what attracted me. I don’t know if I’d have been so eager if the character had been similar to what I’ve done before, but when I found out who Christine was and how she was, it was a no brainer.”

Focusing on the lives of the school’s teachers and students, Waterloo Road has tackled abortion, divorce and child abuse in past series. For Brett, it’s her character’s struggle with alcoholism that made the part irresistible.

“Christine is a very troubled, very unhappy person. She’s an alcoholic. But for me that’s not the core of the woman, the core of her is that she’s desperately sad. She doesn’t drink for no reason. She’s a single parent, she’s brought up her son on her own and he’s a pupil at the school where she teaches. It’s no easy feat. She copes by drinking. A lot.

“Through hiding her problems she’s become a very good liar and manipulator. Equally her son has similar traits because he’s learned at her knee. On the other hand, though, she’s a very good teacher, she loves her job, it gives her an identity. It’s something for her to hold on to. I think if that was taken away from her, she’d be lost.”

It’s clear that Brett likes having a meaty storyline to work with, not least because it gives her a chance to shed the shackles of playing “everywoman” Jane.

“That’s the hardest thing to make interesting,” she says. “With someone like Christine who is full of flaws it’s so easy to get your teeth into that and have great fun with it. Playing someone who is just basically a nice woman for eight years did make me rack my brains a little bit.” She laughs.

“I’m always wary of being preachy but hopefully some water cooler moments will come up around Christine. Not in a contrived way, but in an honest way as people respond to what she does. There are a few moments, when I’ve come off set or out of the scene and people in the crew have said, ‘my god, it does make you think about how much you drink’.”

It’s impossible when talking to Brett to not be a little shocked that she’s Scottish. In fact, she’s from Hamilton, although she’s lived in London since she was 18. It’s partly the legacy of Jane Beale, but it’s also that Brett’s London accent is flawless.

“When I started out, you weren’t cast unless you were from that place no matter how good your accent was so I knew that I had to get a really perfect south east accent. I just spoke in it all the time. I do to this day, I speak in a London accent when I’m in London.

“I call myself a jockney, half jock, half cockney. London is my home and it has been for a long time. But I’ve also got a home up here so I am a bit of a split personality in that respect. I don’t mind though, it suits me.”

But what about still being mistaken for Jane –surely that gets wearing?

“People invest in the families that they watch in soaps,” she shrugs. “You’re in their living rooms four nights a week, it’s a lot. The way people think of you crosses over from being an actor to thinking that these people are real. Even some of the extras on Waterloo Road have been like ‘oh, it’s Jane from EastEnders’ and I’ve had to say ‘no, no, it’s Christine from Waterloo Road now’.” She laughs.

• Waterloo Road, 8pm, BBC1, Thursdays.