New drama is all about the 'Crime'

British TV has no shortage of detective dramas, so how do you make a new one stand out from the crowd?

Some people might think that one of the worse things you could do is give it a generic title – like Crime. However, Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, who has adapted his own novel for the small-screen, is convinced the series won’t be mistaken for a just another cop show. He says: “I’m more excited about Crime than anything I’ve done in a while. I was looking at the episodes again: I’ve just seen nothing like this ever on British television…

“I haven’t seen coppers represented in that way. I’ve never seen anything else that actually even looks like it, the way it’s shot. Whether that’s going to be a bit too much for some people or not what people expect from a British show I don’t know but it just seems to me to be so different from so much of the stuff that I’ve seen.”

At the heart of the series is DI Ray Lennox, played by Dougray Scott, who is on mission to root out evil.

The actor explains: “If you were to describe Lennox, you know, I think you would call him some sort of very rough, fragile, avenging angel who is determined to give a voice to those people who don’t have a voice in society, and to protect the vulnerable.

“Stuff happened to him as a kid and so he went into becoming a copper because he felt that was the best way to avenge what happened to him as a child. What makes him a great copper also makes him a bad copper: he’s impetuous, he works off the cuff, he works on instinct.

Scott adds: “He’s left field – he’ll go down alleyways that no one else will go down in order to try and find the solution or the answer. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. But he’s passionate, deeply passionate about what he does.”

Sadly, that passion could be his undoing when he and his new partner DS Amanda Drummond (Joanna Vanderham) investigate the abduction of a 13-year-old girl, leading Lennox to fear that a serial killer known as Mr Confectioner has returned.

It’s a dark plot, but with a cast that also includes Ken Stott and Angela Griffin, and a script by Welsh and Dean Cavanagh, Scott believes it will strike a chord with viewers.

He says: “I think Crime is quite a tender novel. The original is set in Miami as well and the Scottish scenes are all in flashback, but of course we flip that – so we’ve made the first series all set in Scotland.

“We’ve fleshed out that part of it, but it’s still in a brutal environment in terms of what Lennox and Drummond are dealing with… But at the same time, there’s wonderful tenderness within the characters that Irvine just produces. It’s an all-encompassing book and story that I think will appeal to lots of people.”