John Simm, who stars in Mad dogs on Sky1. Photo: Martin Usborne for the Guardian

On a break from filming beneath the baking Balearic sunshine, John Simm sits on a white plastic patio chair and ponders “second album anxiety”. Along with Philip Glenister, Max Beesley and Marc Warren, Simm is back in Majorca making the second series of Mad Dogs for Sky1.

The first – a darkly comic thriller about a lads’ holiday blighted by dead bodies, drug barons and a gun-toting dwarf in a Tony Blair mask – was one of the channel’s highest-rated and most acclaimed home-grown dramas. It earned a Bafta nomination in 2011 for best serial – but was, perhaps predictably, beaten to the prize by Channel 4′s jury-pleasing Any Human Heart.

“Success, however you judge what that even means, brings with it certain pressures,” says Simm, “but we were chuffed by the reception the first series got. I was very surprised, actually. Some people hated it – which I half-expected because it was so different from so much else – but they were luckily outnumbered by the people who loved it. You never undertake a project because you think other people will like it – because that way lies madness – but rather because you believe in it. And we believed in this. So it’s great that a lot of other people believed in it too.”

When the first series was announced all four actors were full of praise for Sky for taking a gamble on the drama, which is made by Left Bank Pictures and executive-produced by Andy Harries, whose past hits range from Cold Feet and The Royle Family to The Deal and The Queen. The success of Mad Dogs has, in their eyes, an added layer of lustre – Simm’s Baxter, Glenister’s Quinn, Beesley’s Woody and Warren’s Rick returned for a second run at 9pm on Thursday, and a third series has been commissioned and begins filming in South Africa this week.

“Our decision to go with Sky was vindicated,” says Glenister, who also co-starred with Simm in Life on Mars. “If we had made it for the BBC or ITV, we would have been under more restrictions in terms of content, violence and language. That’s understandable – it’s one of the prices you pay for being on a terrestrial channel – but it wouldn’t be the show it is and it wouldn’t be the show we wanted to make. Mad Dogs has got much more of a filmic quality to it. In a way, it doesn’t feel as if we’re making television.”

Arguably, the compliments heaped upon Sky are just actors’ flannel, flattery designed to charm their current employer, but Glenister and Simm seem sincere. And Simm’s reputation means he doesn’t need to sweet-talk Sky, or stroke TV executives’ egos. He is just as at home in uncompromising grown-up drama as he is in the likes of Doctor Who and Life on Mars and has a CV that reads like a list of some of the best dramas of the past 15 years, from Jimmy McGovern’s The Lakes and Paul Abbott’s State of Play to Danny Brocklehurst’s Exile last year, via Sex Traffic by Abi Morgan and The Devil’s Whore by Peter Flannery.

Exile on BBC1 last year, which co-starred Jim Broadbent, was a case in point.

“That was proper quality, one of those jobs that you think ‘yes, this is fantastic’. Olivia Colman [who played Simm's sister] was just incredible. It was a very, very tough job but I had come off the back of Hamlet [on stage at the Sheffield Crucible] so I was match fit.”

However, the 41-year-old becomes sheepish when I describe him as “one of Britain’s best actors”.

“That’s very kind of you but I don’t know about that. It’s not as if I get up in the morning and, if I’m feeling downhearted, say to myself in the mirror ‘Cheer up – you’re one of Britain’s best actors!’. I don’t think about it at all. I’d go nuts if I did.”

If Simm doesn’t get at least a nomination for best actor at the Baftas for playing Exile’s disgraced journalist who uncovers family and political secrets, there is something seriously amiss, I say. But Simm, who has never won a Bafta, isn’t that bothered.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really do awards,” he says, archly.

For all that Simm is serious about acting, it isn’t just him and his art he thinks about since first becoming a father 10 years ago.

“It’s not about me any more, it’s about my family. Having children is the defining thing of your adulthood and I never want to be one of those dads who isn’t really that arsed about seeing his children and is happy to go off for months and months on end. Nor do I want to be one of those actor-dads who drags them out of school to follow me around.”

Mad Dogs’ relatively short shoots in Majorca last summer meant that he could bring the family out with him during the summer holidays – he is married to Kate Magowan, a fellow actor who appeared with him in 24 Hour Party People and Exile.

“When it came up, it was one of those things that made me think ‘Why wouldn’t I do this?’ I’ve never done anything like it, I’m working with great actors and directors in a nice location, and it’s just sounded exciting. I mean – what’s not to like?

“You can’t start turning down things because you think it’s not good enough for you,” Simm adds. “You have to weigh up the options and go for it, hopefully without compromising your artistic integrity too much.”

Simm doesn’t subscribe to Cyril Connolly’s view that “there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall”, and says that being a dad and getting older have enhanced his life and work.

“When I got to 40, I was happy. Now I can wear what I like, listen to what I like, don’t have to try and be cool. I’m someone’s dad and it doesn’t matter any more. That’s an enormous freedom.”

I ask him if he thinks that part of Mad Dogs’ appeal is that, amid the caper and chaos, it’s about growing up and what it means to be a man.

“Absolutely, it’s about friendship. There’s something really interesting about having those close friends that you’ve had incredible times with but growing up and away from them. The underlying tensions, the shifting in the group dynamic, the little lies you tell to big yourself up: it’s something that happens to us all.”

After he finishes filming Mad Dogs 3, Simm is heading back to the stage, again in Sheffield, to appear in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. He is, he says, “incredibly excited”.

“I had an amazing time on Hamlet so it’s great to be going back. It was exhausting but brilliant. Twice a day too. At my age. It should be illegal.”

Curriculum vitae
Age 41

Education Edge End High school, Nelson, Lancs; Blackpool and the Fylde College; Drama Centre London

Career 1995 appears in Cracker episode written by Paul Abbott 1997-99 The Lakes 1999 Human Traffic, Wonderland 2000 Clocking Off 2002 24 Hour Party People, Crime and Punishment 2003 State of Play 2004 Sex Traffic 2006-07 Life on Mars 2007-10 The Master in Doctor Who 2008 The Devil’s Whore 2011-12 Mad Dogs 2011 Exile

Graham Norton with Philip Glenister & John Simm

There was a trio of great British actors joining Mr Norton this week.

…Philip Glenister and John Simm popped in to talk about Sky1′s ‘Mad Dogs’ and the struggles of filming in stunning, hot locations. The life of an actor, who’d want it?

BBC Radio 2 – Graham Norton with John Simm & Philip Glenister (0:19:06)
Listen to Radio Interview (click play button below):

(With special thanks to Mr. John Simm (@john_simm) on Twitter for the heads up!)

Five middle-aged ex-classmates gather at a villa in Majorca for a school reunion… but within hours it’s turned into a living nightmare as one of them is murdered and the others find themselves tangling with heavy-duty criminals and corrupt coppers while loaded down with laundered money.

That was the plot for the hit first series of Sky1’s black comedy Mad Dogs, and now they’re back. With the pals still stuck on the island and up to their necks in trouble, this time they’re on the run.

Star Philip Glenister says, ‘Every time we head down one alleyway there’s another obstacle and we can’t escape. We don’t really know who’s after us or why. We just know we’ve got some money that doesn’t belong to us, and we’re being chased by some pretty evil people.’

Spellbinding: A voodoo-type religion called Santeria is practised in Majorca, and this series features it heavily

The new series meant a reunion for the cast – Glenister, John Simm, Max Beesley and Marc Warren – as well as Ben Chaplin, whose character Alvo was shot dead by a gangster wearing a Tony Blair mask in the first episode of series one, but makes a surprise return for a series of flashbacks.

Celebrity egos being the size they are, it’s unusual to find a TV series that gives equal billing to such a number of leading men. So you might assume employing these heavyweights of British TV drama (and Hollywood, in Chaplin’s case) would lead to a miserable set full of seething resentment and backbiting. Yet they all insist filming Mad Dogs is one of the most enjoyable jobs they’ve ever done and during breaks from shooting the actors hung out together.

‘John fell asleep outside his villa the other week and woke up with me, nearly naked, lying next to him sunbathing,’ admits Beesley. This real-life chemistry helped make the first series of Mad Dogs such a hit, and they’re hoping it’ll guarantee success for series two.

‘If you’re going to spend eight weeks in each other’s pockets, as we have,’ says Glenister, ‘you’ve got to be able to have a laugh, and we really do. Everyone’s got a great sense of humour. We laugh constantly. We were nervous at the beginning because of who we were, so there was an expectation. But the first one did all right, so fingers crossed this will be a worthy successor.’

This series sees a change of pace from the claustrophobic setting of the villa in the first series, as the pals attempt to shake off their pursuers by going on the run and trying to leave the island. Their terrifying journey sees them encounter criminal godfathers, drug factories and voodoo witches in what ends up playing like a road movie, and it certainly took its toll on the stars.

‘There was a good vibe when we were shooting the first series,’ says Beesley, ‘but we’re all a bit more knackered this time. There are 78 locations in this series compared to 24 last year, so we ended up schlepping all over the island. But it’s great because we’re getting to film in all these amazing places.’

The dynamic between the stars works so well a third series has already been written and will begin filming soon in South Africa. ‘We get together every few months now we’re onto our third series,’ says Glenister. ‘We talk about it like we’re in a band. We go off and do our solo projects, then regroup and say, “Hey guys, let’s make a new album, Mad Dogs On Tour.” But our first album was pretty good so it’s hard to follow up. We just hope the viewers will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed filming it.’

Mad Dogs, Sky1, Thursday, 9pm.

Mad Dogs starts Thursday 19th January at 9PM on Sky 1

John Simm plays Baxter

From The Lakes to State of Play, The Devil’s Whore to Doctor Who, Sex Traffic to Exile, John Simm’s CV reads like a checklist of some of Britain’s best dramas of the last two decades. In 2009, he appeared in Sky1′s Skellig, opposite Kelly MacDonald and Tim Roth, and, in 2010, played Hamlet on stage at the Sheffield Crucible to critical acclaim and packed houses.

Were you surprised that Mad Dogs’ first series was so well-received?

Very! While some people hated it – which I half-expected because it was so different from so much else – they were luckily outnumbered by the people who loved it. You never undertake a project because you think other people will like it, because that way lies madness, but rather because you believe in it. But it’s a great feeling when people do like something, especially when it includes loads of people whose opinions I really value. It’s always feels good when something is well-received but you can’t please everyone, can you?

Did the positive reception mean there was more pressure in making the second series?

There’s probably a bit of ‘second album anxiety’, but I trust everyone working on this series and I’m hopeful that we’ll have made something good at the end of it. This series is the same world and the same characters but it has its own unique feel too. It’s more of a road movie, more Aliens than Alien, if you like. There is a lot of running about, explosions and stunts. And lots of sweating. I feel quite sorry for Leticia [who plays Carmen] as she’s stuck with all us sweaty British boys trying to show off. It must be very tiresome for her but she’s been great.

How was it coming back after a year and getting back into the role and back into the drama a matter of minutes after when the first series ended?

Acting-wise, it was relatively easy to get back into the role because it’s easy working with such lovely lads. But filming the first scene of this series back at the villa, which was meant to be ten minutes after the last scene of the last series, was a bit weird. That we filmed it out-of-sequence, about four weeks into filming, didn’t help either. It was tough but it’s our job to make it believable – and slipping on Baxter’s oh-so-familiar and, frankly, sweaty shirt brought it all back…

What’s in store for Baxter this series?

Well he lights the fuse on the story for this series – by making the fateful decision of putting stolen money in the boot of their car. It’s pure avarice and it catapults them back into calamity. From there on, it’s all his fault. I’m not even sure I like him that much.

Do you have to like a character you play?

I don’t think you do but you have to empathise at least a little bit. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to portray him. With Baxter, he can be horrible but they all can. None of them are particularly nice guys.

How does the group dynamic change?

For a start, there’s this beautiful girl Carmen thrown into the mix and that really livens things up in a really unexpected way.

Could Baxter be happy ever after? What would you like to happen to him?

We’ve all got loads of ideas what we’d like to happen to our characters but none of us know as it’s all in the head of writer Cris Cole. In an ideal world they’d be running an antiques shop and never see any of these idiots ever again. Of course there wouldn’t be much fun in that for the audience so I’m hoping for something really dark and horrible. I’d really look forward to a third series because the way this series moves up a gear means that the possibilities are endless.

Finally, what’s your holiday essential?

Oh, a book. Well, Books. I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov [by Fyodor Dostoyevsky] at the moment. I know, I know – heavy stuff. But I thought I’d give it a go having been in an adaptation of Crime and Punishment for Channel 4. I love reading. Couldn’t live without it.

Follow john_simm

John Simm is now on Twitter! Welcome, John!

Follow @john_simm

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 37,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.
 

John Simm is a founding member, songwriter and guitarist with the rock band Magic Alex

Magic Alex Founder, Vocalist and Blogster, Dean Taylor, queried his fellow band mates, Simon Borkin, Greg Saunders, John Mac and John Simm to submit their record picks for 2011. He then gathered up their responses, sprinkled in a few music videos and baked up one glorious year-end batch of Musical Gems.

Dean writes…

Hey pop kids,

It’s that time of the year again when we ask the members of rock behemoth Magic Alex to put forward their records of the year. For those who still care about the band, i know we promised that we’d do something this year, a gig or a record or something, but our overpowering, inherent laziness quelled these good intentions once more. Maybe in 2012…

Anyway here’s the gang with what got them cooking in the rock and roll kitchen this year…

Read Full Blog –>> Magic Alex DJ’s:Things We Said Today

About Magic Alex – Formed in 1995 by vocalist Dean Taylor (ex lead singer with the brilliantly baggy Cherrydales) and bass player Simon Borkin (from music press darlings Sign Language), over the course of the next 12 months they were joined by guitarist John Simm (who, along with Taylor had been a founder member of the short lived but massively influential ‘artporn’ rockers “Thrush”) drummer John Mac and, finally, keyboardist Greg Saunders to become Magic Alex… read more

Magic Alex is on iTunes, Last.fm, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace

Pete Paphides celebrates the vinyl format with musicians who are avid collectors.

John Simm - who played Bernard Sumner in the film 24 Hour Party People - waxes lyrical about all things "Madchester"

6 Music continues its month-long celebration of the vinyl format with four two-hour specials featuring Pete Paphides in conversation with famous record collectors.

On Boxing Day, he trawls through the vinyl treasures belonging to American singer Ryan Adams, and English actor John Simm. Ryan reveals his love of death metal, while John – who played Bernard Sumner in the film 24 Hour Party People – waxes lyrical about all things “Madchester”.

Listen to Radio Special (click play button below):

BBC Radio 6 Music – Vinyl Revival featuring Pete Paphides with John Simm (0:55:01)

Vinyl Revival continues through to Thursday and culminates in a day-long celebration of vinyl on New Year’s Day.

It’s A Wonderful Life

presented by a special guest reader…
18 December 2011

Are you sitting comfortably?

For one night only, on Sunday 18th December, the flicker club, are proud to present: It’s a Wonderful Life, Starring James Stewart.

Book tickets at the Hampstead Theatre website HERE

Join us as we celebrate the 65th anniversary of this timeless Christmas classic at the magnificent Hampstead Theatre.

In flicker club tradition, we begin the evening by introducing a surprise guest who will read to us the original story ‘The Greatest Gift’ from which this legendary film is adapted, Jackanory for adults if you like, but who will our mysterious narrator be this year? Last year it was Tom Hollander and the year before Bill Nighy…

All will be revealed on the night, but suffice to say we will be in the hands of a real master.

So come along and be serenaded by our carol singers, drink, eat and be merry in the glorious Hampstead Theatre, before settling back in your seat and listening to the dulcet tones of our surprise special guest prior to the film itself.

And as its Christmas you will not leave empty handed.  On top of our usual goody bag there will be a Secret Santa DVD sack.  Bring a wrapped copy of a film you’d like to share and you will leave with a new one…

So Come All Ye Faithful and we’ll see you at Hampstead Theatre…

the flicker club.

www.theflickerclub.com

Tickets:

£20 / £10 (concessions – please call the box office)

———————————————————

NOTES OF INTEREST

the flicker club screens movies adapted from short stories or novels and thus celebrate the power of the written word and the silver screen. We invite surprise special guests from the worlds of entertainment and literature to read the source material before showing its big-screen incarnation.

Our readers to far have included: Joan Collins, Mark Rylance, Bill Nighy, Mark Strong, Miranda Richardson, Honor Blackman, Steven Berkoff, Tom Hollander and Nic Roeg.

Poster & flickbook artist:
www.jimmyturrell.com

the flicker club is a non profit making organisation and all proceeds from this evening will go to the charity: www.wateraid.org

Five leading men discuss tackling the greatest role ever penned.

Ahead of Michael Sheen’s performance as the prince onstage, Joe Ellison finds out why, for actors, it remains the most daunting of roles.

Life has given us many weighty questions to mull over. Alongside “Why are we here?”, “What happens after we die?” and “Why were there only two series of Fawlty Towers?” comes the conundrum posed by William Shakespeare — “To be, or not to be?”

The existential dilemma — essentially, should you live actively, or passively — is at the heart of the bard’s greatest ever play, Hamlet — the titular role of which is widely seen as the toughest ever written. With Michael Sheen about to take it on at London’s Young Vic, ShortList spoke to some of the biggest stars who’ve undergone their trade’s stiffest challenge in attempting to bring the prince to life…

See full article

With thanks to theHuntgoeson at The Railway Arms.