Actor Charles Dance

and there's a new DVD release...aired in September 2003

A severed female hand is found in the Thames, which brings Detective Chief Inspector Roisin Conner in contact with Chief Superintendent Walker, who is now back in uniform after being found innocent at his murder trial. No body is discovered, and the case soon becomes a battle of wits against the killer, who has cleverly planned for every outcome in a bid to escape justice for his crime.

Charles Dance gives a long hard stare and says with relish 'I am barking mad, mad as a meat axe, deeply unpleasant . . .'

Then he sinks his 6ft 4in frame back in his chair, half closes those hooded but piercing blue eyes and takes a long drag on his cigarette.

This is actually quite unnerving and could be perturbing to fans of the actor -particularly the female ones who started swooning over him when he found fame as smooth, romantic Guy Perron in TV's Jewel In The Crown and later when he starred in films, like White Mischief, Plenty and TV's Rebecca. Indeed the man once hailed as Britain's answer to Robert Redford has retained a dedicated bunch of fans, dubbed Charlie's Angels, who run a website devoted to him.

But breathe a sigh of relief girls. Dance, 56, who is still rather gorgeous in the flesh and dressed immaculately in a white linen shirt and blue linen trousers, is totally sane and merely describing his latest role. He is the villain, in Suspicion, the latest instalment of Lynda La Plante's crime series Trial and Retribution. He plays Greg Harwood who is suspected of chopping up his wife.
The gruesome discovery in the Thames of her severed hand is the shock beginning of the gripping murder enquiry. Hot on Dance's trail is glamorous film actress, Victoria Smurfit, formerly from Ballykissangel, who also starred in The Beach and About a Boy, now playing Detective Chief Inspector Roisin Connor.
Dance smiles as he resumes gleefully : 'Greg was very satisfying because he is complex, devious, and charming -and as far as I'm concerned he is as guilty as hell. But what adds another dimension is the debate over whether he is just plain bad or mad.
'So it's not really about asking whether he is guilty or innocent. It is a question of whether he is going to get away with it.'

'I am a real fan of Lynda's work -there's a kind of Jacobean quality about it, it gets bloody and so nasty it makes you grin. So when she called me one day and said: 'I've got a killer of a part for you' I agreed immediately.
'It was a lot of fun to do because really unpleasant, villainous people are more fun than romantic leads.'
His satisfaction in adding this to his portfolio is obvious because it emerges that Dance is weary of people harking back to the old days when he was a modern version of a matinee idol.

That copper hair is thinning now, while there are a few more lines etched in that handsome face, and he says reflectively: 'I think there was an over-emphasis on the looks thing at one time. It was very nice then, no doubt. But there is an age to capitalise on that kind of thing and it was about 15 years ago -not now.'

In his impressive career he has played other unpleasant characters, such as Ralph Nickleby in the TV version of Nicholas Nickleby. He can also boast a string of demanding Shakespearean roles, including his favourite Coriolanus and a slew of films from Aliens III to Gosford Park. He is also in the just-released Swimming Pool starring Charlotte Rampling.

Dance has a dry sense of humour , and can appear abrupt but he may use this rather brusque front to mask the fact that he doesn't enjoy 'personal publicity'.

Like most actors he's also insecure and sensitive to criticism -but he is in a minority that admit it.

'Insecure yes, most actors are -anyone in this business who tells you he doesn't want to be liked, and is not constantly looking for approval, is lying. We are all on a kind of treadmill and dread stepping off it in case our place is taken by someone coming up behind us.

'Even the most successful actors -and I'm always astonished when they say it -admit to the fear of coming to the end of a job and not knowing what the next one will be.'

But Dance reveals that he also suffers in another way -when he does theatre work. Last year he appeared in The Play What I Wrote at the Wyndhams theatre and in a national tour.

He says: 'I suffer from stage fright. In my case it manifests itself in the return of a stammer which I developed in adolescence. It disappeared when I was about 20, but when I get very nervous about an appearance it comes back and it fills me with dread. 'It can make me stumble over a line and I am flooded with thinking, I have lost the audience. I had them, and now they're gone and I will never get them back.'

In desperation at one point he visited a hypnotist to try to rid himself of what he describes as the 'shadow'. 'I don't know whether it helped. Sometimes I am fine and I think yes, the shadow's not there today; but other times it's a real struggle. Thankfully, it has never stopped me going on stage. 'When I am having a bad attack I become convinced that the audience is out there waiting for me to take a tumble and mess up, despite the fact that everyone will tell me that's ridiculous. I know it's irrational and misplaced but I am not alone in suffering from it.'

Though he's known for his upper-class roles, Dance came from a working class background in Plymouth. His mother was a waitress, and he once said he chose acting 'as an antidote to the drabness of my childhood'.

He married Jo, a sculptress when he was 23 and they have two children, Oliver, 28 and Rebecca, 22. Home is a 17th-century manor house in Somerset complete with paddocks, stables and a flock of geese.

But Dance seems to be slightly dissatisfied with the way his career has gone -despite only suffering one period of 18 months out of work.

He regrets once turning down an opportunity to audition
He regrets once turning down an opportunity to audition for James Bond and says a little tetchelly : 'I never doubted I was going to be successful to some extent, I wouldn't have stayed in the business otherwise, but I haven't had that fantastic a career. There are plenty more successful people than me. It hasn't been bad, but it could have been a bloody sight better.

'It is still hand to mouth, very rarely do I know what I am going to be doing next which can be quite unnerving sometimes. I try to be fatalistic about it.

'Perhaps it's because I am relatively ambitious, but I'm not driven. I suppose I'm looking for longevity, a bit like John Gielgud who was working in his 90s. I never want to retire -dropping dead in front of the camera in mid-scene would be my idea of the perfect way to go.

'But I think the current generation of leading men and women are a lot more streetwise than mine was. They get one successful film or TV series under their belts and then they form their own production company and sort out their own projects. They are incredibly impatient for immediate success.'

Dance has been less impatient while waiting for his dream to come true -one he will fulfil next month when he steps behind the camera to direct for the first time. Thefilm, Ladies In Lavender, stars Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith, and he has written the script.

'It is a beautiful story with no sex, no violence and no bad language, a kind of grown-up fairy story. I came across a book when I was working on a film set a few years ago and I have developed the story from it. 'Judi and Maggie play two elderly sisters in the autumn of their lives, living in Cornwall, who find a beautiful young man washed up on a shore.

'It is about older people for older people, but I hope it will cross boundaries of age and upbringing. It is difficult enough for men and women of a certain age in this business -work does start to thin out because of this over concentration on looks.

'But I think the film industry is finally starting to wake up to the fact there is an older population on the increase out there and it's kind of foolhardy just to make films for the 15-21 year old age group.'

Trial & Retribution -Suspicion is on Central on Monday September 1 and Tuesday, September