Andrea Lowe - DCI Banks

February 2015

THERE is a scene in the new series of Yorkshire-based crime drama DCI Banks where a murder investigation leads to Nottingham.

“Yes and no,” laughs actress Andrea Lowe, who plays DS Annie Cabbot.

“The story does travel to Nottingham but sadly we didn’t for the filming, which was a shame,” says the actress who grew up in Arnold.

“So we pretended to be in Nottingham to visit a relative of a victim but it was all filmed in Leeds. Although, I was back in Nottingham last week for a friend’s 40th birthday party,” adds Lowe, who now lives in London.

“And I brought my son up to hang out with my mum and dad in Woodthorpe.”

Lowe had her first child, now two, during the second series, which is why Annie Cabbot was written out as being on maternity leave.

Lowe was back for the third series last year and able to see her newborn during filming as she and partner Terry Betts, a fashion buyer, relocated to Leeds for the duration.

“But he was back at work when we did this series at the end of last year,” she says.

“I did travel to London every week to see him but it was like a pit stop every time. Filming hours are always long so I wasn’t back home for long before I had to be back on the train up to Leeds.”

The fourth series, which starts on ITV1 next week, reunites Lowe with Stephen Tompkinson as Alan Banks, whose on/off relationship with Annie sees her reuniting with an old flame.

“The relationship is most definitely off,” insists Lowe, despite the trailer for the series showing the characters holding hands.

“That’s a reassuring gesture. Banks has a really traumatic time in the first episode and Annie is there for him but she’s very much back with the father of her daughter.

“Alan finds it hard to let go of their relationship. He wants her back. Annie still has feelings for him but a year has passed and in that time her feelings have almost diminished. She’s getting on with her own life.”

In the first of the three, two-part dramas, Banks suffers a family tragedy, although it doesn’t get in the way of the job in hand, investigating the discovery of a body. In fact, all three stories are about the discovery of bodies.

Does she call Tompkinson, who starred in the Nottingham-set BBC drama Truckers, Honky Tonk on set?

“Or Steve-O,” she laughs.

“He gets referred to as Mr T. He’s lovely. He’s not someone who finds problems, he finds solutions, which is helpful. Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

The first three series were based on the novels of Peter Robinson but this time new writers were brought in with CVs that include Law & Order: UK, Lewis, Midsomer Murders and Death In Paradise.

“We’re taking guidance from Peter Robinson so it’s not too much of a departure,” says Lowe, 39.

“There are still lots of options of who could have done it.”

She’d be able to work it out, having told ITV researchers for the programme’s publicity material ‘I would make a good police detective... I have a really investigative mind. I like to know where people are and what they are doing so I can get my head around things.’

It comes as a surprise to the actress that she actually said that. And that ‘there was a dalliance on set and I was straight onto it.’

A dalliance?

“I didn’t think ITV would put that in the notes,” says Lowe, sounding genuinely horrified.

“But yes I did some marvellous detective work when one of the actors had a fling with someone on set.”

Who?

“I can’t say!” she laughs.

Filming the series during the winter caused a few problems.

“It was really windy a lot of the time and so I’ve had to record some of the dialogue again to be overdubbed. Not that you’ll be able to tell.”

She adds: “There was a once scene where we chasing a car and the director and Stephen forgot to tell me that there would be another car involved. So I see this other car hurtling towards us and think it’s really happening,” she laughs.

Lowe’s love of acting goes right back to her childhood in Arnold, where she grew up alongside two brothers.

At Redhill Comprehensive School she appeared in a production of Under Milk Wood and in her spare time attended Lesley Reason School of Dance in Gedling.

After studying English and theatre at Goldsmiths College in London, she cut her teeth doing small parts on telly, such as Peak Practice and The Bill.

Since then her TV credits have included Monroe, Accused, The Tudors, Shameless and Where The Heart Is.

Her first film role was alongside her friend and neighbour Samantha Morton in the musical comedy drama The Token King set in a high school in Nottingham.

“I really want to do some more work in Nottingham,” she says.

“I wanted to do Truckers with Stephen but it didn’t make sense to have us together in another drama.”


DCI Banks begins on ITV1 on Wednesday at 9pm.

DCI Banks: Andrea Lowe

January 2014

WE didn’t see her in the last series as her character, DS Annie Cabbot, was on maternity leave with her first child. And the Arnold-born actress, Andrea Lowe, who plays her was doing the same.
“He’s now 20 months,” says the 39-year-old, who returns in the third series of ITV’s DCI Banks next week.
While Annie is a single mum, Andrea lives with her partner, Terry Betts, who works in fashion, in London.
“We just muddled through,” she says of the balance of motherhood and filming, which took place in Leeds from August to November.
“They were back and forth. Sometimes it wasn’t worth them being with me because the hours were crazy. Some of the time he was better off being at home in London with his dad.
“In the 11th hour, my partner was given time off work so that came as a godsend really.
“But every working parent has the same difficulty with childcare. And I still haven’t got my head around it.”
The new six-part series is based on three stories by internationally successful author Peter Robinson.
Annie returns to the team to work alongside Banks, played by Stephen Tompkinson, who filmed the BBC drama Truckers in Nottingham last year.
“He did mention that” says Andrea. “I was gutted I wasn’t part of it. I was really envious.”
The series, about a city-based haulage firm and screened late last year, was written by Billy Ivory.
“I’ve worked with Billy before, so if there was a character that was right for me, he would have got me in,” she says.
“And also, you’re not going to cast Stephen and me together in a another TV series after DCI Banks.”
She adds: “If there is another series, and I hope there is, hopefully I could be involved in that. I thought it was great.”
Caroline Catz also returns to DCI Banks playing DI Helen Morton, the disarmingly blunt and often socially inept detective who joined Banks’s team when Annie left to have her baby.
“Mine and Banks’s relationship is still at the forefront,” says Andrea, whose TV credits include Monroe, Accused, The Tudors, Shameless and Where The Heart Is.
“They don’t want to be attracted to each other but they can’t help themselves. There is both antagonism and affection there. Helen Morton adds to the mix and means Annie wants to prove herself but she’s not too worried because she is a feisty character.”
The first story, Wednesday’s Child, concerns a sinister child abduction, undertaken by a man and a woman claiming to be social workers.
As a new mum, was that a difficult story to open with?
“Not everything I’ve been involved with in my career has been gruesome and dark but characters I’ve played have witnessed a lot of tragedy,” says Andrea, who appeared alongside comedian John Bishop in Ken Loach’s harrowing film Route Irish.
“You become immune to it. And with Wednesday’s Child it’s a not a young child. Although there is a scene where we tell a mother that her child is dead and her reaction... that did get to me.”
Andrea’s first film role was alongside her friend Samantha Morton – the first really successful graduate of Television Workshop – in the musical comedy drama The Token King set in a high school in Nottingham. But Andrea wasn’t a product of the city-based acting school.
“I wasn’t although I was involved in a lot of Television Workshop projects so I feel like I was,” she says.

“And I’m friends with James Hooton (Emmerdale) and Chris Gascoyne (Coronation Street). I’ve worked with Chris a few times. We did A Thing Called Love for Billy Ivory, we played a husband and wife in Casualty and I was a love interest in Coronation Street.
“He’s a really nice guy,” she says. “Nothing like Peter Barlow. Although I quite like Peter Barlow.”
Andrea’s love of acting goes right back to her childhood in Arnold, where she grew up alongside two brothers.
At Redhill Comprehensive School she appeared in a production of Under Milk Wood and in her spare time attended Lesley Reason School of Dance in Gedling.
After studying English and theatre at Goldsmiths College in London, she cut her teeth doing small parts on telly, such as Peak Practice and The Bill.
Although she now lives in London, Andrea regularly comes home to Nottingham.
“My family are up there so I come back to see them with my son as much as I can. I was last there at Christmas.”

DCI Banks begins on ITV1 on Monday at 9pm.

Film: Route Irish

March 2011

The latest Ken Loach film, the Iraq War-themed thriller Route Irish, co-stars Nottingham actress Andrea Lowe.

The name may not be familiar but the face should be. Over the past decade, she has appeared in countless TV dramas, among them including Cracker, Shameless, The Tudors, Murphy’s Law, DCI Banks and New Tricks.

Last week, you may have seen her opposite James Nesbitt in ITV’s new hospital-based series Monroe.

“I played a weeping mother,” laughs the 36-year-old.

Isn’t she always playing characters in distress.

“I told my agent ‘no more, please’,” she adds.

“I have done all sorts, including comedy.”

All sorts indeed. Andrea, who now lives in East London with her fiance, even cropped up in Coronation Street as a love interest for Peter Barlow, played by fellow Notts actor Chris Gascoyne.

“I was a nurse and that was quite good fun. I’d worked with him before in A Thing Called Love, which was set in Nottingham. And I played his wife in Casualty. He’s a top lad.”

She’s just made the leap on to the big screen in Ken Loach’s latest film, Route Irish.

“Ken and Paul Laverty, the writer, had wanted to do a film about Iraq for a long time. They wanted to highlight how much it has been privatised and show the devastation that’s been caused.”

She plays Rachel, the girlfriend of Frankie, a contractor working for a private security firm who is killed along a dangerous road dubbed Route Irish.

Frankie is played by arena-filling comedian John Bishop.

“When we filmed it two years ago, he wasn’t as famous as he is now,” she laughs.

“Ken didn’t even know who he was. Now he says ‘I wish I’d known how popular he was’”, she laughs.

Has she seen Bishop in stand-up?

“I have and he’s really good. But it wasn’t in an arena, it was quite a small place. That was a while ago. I need to catch up with him again for some more free tickets to see his latest show.”

Frankie’s best friend, Fergus, played by Mark Womack, doesn’t believe the official explanation for his death and sets out to uncover the truth.”

Although it was partly filmed in Jordan, Andrea’s scenes were all in Liverpool.

“They were shooting each other out there while I was back in Liverpool doing yoga,” she laughs.

“I wouldn’t have minded being out there in the midst of all the action and doing the boot camp beforehand.”

It was a six week shoot, filmed in sequence.

“It’s the way Ken works and it’s unique. We were given the script a bit at a time.”

The former Redhill Comprehensive pupil studied English and theatre at Goldsmith’s College in London but her first acting role was back in Nottingham during her teens, alongside Samantha Morton in school drama The Token King.

“For a lot of us it was our first job and we had a riot,” she says.

“We were a nightmare for the crew.”

Andrea also appeared in Morton’s directorial debut The Unloved.

“Sam is a friend of mine and she’s a brilliant actress,” says Andrea, whose parents live in Woodthorpe.

“They’re both retired now and they come and visit me on set to keep me company.”

This week she’s in Leeds filming the next series of ITV’s crime drama, DCI Banks, opposite Stephen Tompkinson.

She plays DC Annie Cabbott.

“It’s nice to play a copper, particularly one with plenty of fire. You won’t find her weeping.”

Route Irish is in cinemas now.