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You know the feeling - one
minute you're a TV love god with your own 1980s sci-fi series,
then next thing you know, your show is history and you're reduced
to hotel portering. When former star Andy Van Allen (Marion and
Geoff's Rob Brydon) is invited to make a guest appearance on
a cruise liner full of fans, he thinks his ship has come in -
again. What a shock, then, to find much more successful co-star
and rival Nick Lee (Steve Coogan) along for the ride, too. The
man behind I'm Alan Partridge is naturally the main draw to this
one-off comedy, but it should also please closet Blake's 7 fans.
DAILY MAIL
Adoring fans, wild seas and sexual
adventures - Rob Brydon's new show has it all
The wind was howling and the
ship was pitching so violently that actor Rob Brydon panicked.
He leapt out of bed and paced up and down in his cabin waiting
for the call to man the lifeboats. He felt very alone.
'You don't really get storms on the Mediterranean, but there
was one night when I thought it was really horrible and I put
on my clothes on thinking that we were going to have to amandon
ship. But nobody else in the team was ever woken by it,' he says.
The Weslsh actor was on the
ship for three weeks in October to film Cruise of the Gods, a
BBC2 comedy drama. Rob, 37, plays Andy van Allen, the former
hero of a cult eighties sci-fi TV show, Children of Castor, who's
working as a hotel porter. In contrast, his former co-star, Nick
Lee, played by I'm Alan Partridge star Steve Coogan, has since
shot to fame in the US starring in a glitzy mini-series, Sherlock
Holmes in Miami.
But things start to look up
for Andy when he's invited to join a Children of Castor fan cruise.
Once aboard, a combination of fan's adoration, a sexual encounter
and an unexpected death ensure the cruise is far from plain sailing.
'It's very easy to identify
with someone like Andy who's down on his luck, because most actors
have a struggle at some point,' says Rob. 'Andy behaves quite
badly, so I had the challenge of keeping the audience's sympathy
for him.'
But while it may have been
a rough passage for his screen character, Rob really enjoyed
the filming. 'It was the wonderful experience of a troupe of
actors going of abroad together. We got to visit a lot of great
places, with a week on a Greek beach and a day off in Venice.'
Rob's most famous creation
is the cabbie Kieth in the award-winning BBC2 black comedy Marion
and Geoff. The show was a huge success for Rob, and he's now
filming a new series, to be screened in February.
So has Rob collected his own
brand of adoring fans? 'Umm… I have, er, very respectful
fans who say nice things to me, but they stop short of adoration,'
he reports. 'They haven't thrown themselves in front of me, as
yet. But New Year's looming, so I'd never rule it out!'
TV Times
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Written
by Tim Firth
