DAVID CALDER, EVGENY GRIDNEFF & CHRIS BOUCHER
INTERVIEW

Summer 1987

Interview conducted by Jonny Black.
From The Radio Times 4 - 10 July 1987

In the not too distant future people will be living on the moon, on mars and on space stations orbiting the earth.

Life on the frontier of space will be hard, dangerous and exciting, but no matter where people may live they'll take with them all their earthly habits: laughing, crying - even killing. And that's why they'll be needing the Star Cops.

'We've made what we think is the most realistic science-fiction series ever, and filming it was full of quite eerie coincidences,' says David Calder, who plays Nathan Spring, the newly appointed commander of the International Space Police Force, nicknamed the Star Cops. 'For example, while we were shooting an episode around a murder, I read in the Times about a group of hot shot New York lawyers who are already devising the laws that will apply to the first murder in space which, they predict, will happen in 40 years' time!'

BBC2's new nine-part series Star Cops is set, by another coincidence, exactly 40 years hence in the year 2027. Five permanently manned space stations orbit the earth, there is a base on the moon and a colony on Mars. Altogether it gives space a population of nearly 3,000 people and absolutely no bug-eyed monsters.

From the very beginning, three years ago, the show's creator Chris Boucher was anxious to 'get away from the gee-whiz elements of space opera, and back to nuts and bolts with an intelligent detective series set in alien environment. I certainly didn't want to boldly leap where lots of people have leapt before.' Boucher, a long-time science-fiction fan, worked on both Doctor Who and Blake's Seven, but he has also had his feet firmly in the real world, having contributed to such series as Bergerac, Juliet Bravo and Shoestring. After he had worked out the space environment, Boucher's next concern was to make the characters real. 'The central character, Nathan Spring, was never intended to be lovable. He's an outsider, a tough professional not unlike the lawmen of the old west.'

Indeed, the whole Star Cops organisation reflects that earlier frontier. The cops themselves were initially a handful of part-timers, volunteers who got the badge and had to keep the law and order while holding down other jobs. 'They're like Western sheriffs, elected to the job, but doing it so badly that a journalist facetiously labels them "star cops", and the name sticks,' says Boucher. 'Nathan, however, is a full-timer appointed to whip them into shape.'

Drawing from Chris Boucher's character outline, David Calder (perhaps best known for his role as Greville Wynne in BBC2's Wynne and Penkovsky, but also seen in The Black Stuff, Widows and Good as Gold) brought a depth of character to Nathan. 'He's a troubled man, virtually unable to handle any sort of deep personal relationship, but a good detective. He's also immensely distrustful of the computerised world he lives in, convinced that it encourages people not to think for themselves.'

In developing Nathan, just as Chris Boucher did in creating the environment, Calder took the trouble to establish a wealth of detail which may never be made explicit but which gives the character authenticity. 'He's a man with a past that he keeps to himself. He had a difficult relationship with his father. He likes jazz and classical music. A cultured man, he considers detection an intellectual exercise, speaking of which, it is a very physical role. I've been swimming half a mile a day just to keep in good shape.'

The physical demands on the characters arose mainly from the need to portray them in the working environment of the space station, where there's no gravity. A complex and carefully integrated system, of varying techniques can make Nathan appear to be casually walking down a vertical wall while his colleagues sit, just as casually, upside-down on the ceiling.

'We sought out the best available advice from NASA and other space agencies to ensure that Star Cops is as real as it possibly can be,' says Evgeny Gridneff, the series producer, who has also worked on Blott on the Landscape, Hold the Back Page and Sharing Time. 'We didn't want to make Blake's Seven or Star Trek. Instead, we've created an exciting, unusual, futuristic environment, but it's as authentic as we can make it. So the drama comes not from the realms of the fantastic, but from the strength of the lot and the realism of the characters.'

A seal of approval was set on the special effects when Pete Conrad, a real-life NASA space shuttle commander, dropped by the set during filming. 'He had a couple of minor observations which were useful to us, but we were relieved to find that he seemed quite impressed with the look of the thing,' recalls Evgeny Gridneff. 'What we didn't want, though,' he quickly points out, 'was a series crammed with special effects that would overshadow the characters. People are the main ingredient, and the technology should always be just the icing on the cake.'

In the early episodes, Nathan's only regular companion is his second-in-command David Theroux, a young black American flight engineer whose line of witty banter sits in sharp contrast to Nathan's irascible nature. Erick Ray Evans, who plays Theroux, has appeared in Superman I and II, as well as in Yanks, and the character is the first member of an international team that Nathan Spring builds around himself as the series develops.

'The international aspect is important,' explains Chris Boucher. 'We assumed that, in this future world, there is a degree of international co-operation in space, so the bases and stations are staffed by people from all over the world. This means that, as well as having personal motivations, they may also have nationalistic or idealistic motivations for their actions.' In particular Nathan finds himself regularly in conflict with Krivenko (Jonathan Adams), the Russian co-ordinator of Moonbase, where the Star Cops eventually make their HQ. Such complexities involve the Star Cops in investigations of the same crimes that happen on earth - everything from murder to sabotage, theft and hijacking, bit with the twist that in space nothing is quite as simple. The logistics of space flight often make it impossible to simply jump in a rocket and zoom off across the solar system every time a theft is reported on some far-flung outpost. Indeed, news of one crime reaches Nathan by radio from a crippled space freighter several years away in terms of travelling time. Now that's the kind of thing Starsky and Hutch never had to worry about.

As Star Cops opens, we find Nathan still working on earth, but it's an earth 40 years on that has changed subtly. 'People look much the same, because the classic dress styles haven't changed dramatically in the past 40 years, so we assume they won't change too much in the next 40,' explains Chris Boucher. 'On the other hand it's a world where you don't go out at night, if you're sensible. The parks are hunting grounds for what we've called Urban Apaches, a bit like the kind of punk tribes you already find in New York's Central Park.' 'Star Cops will surprise a lot of people who think they don't like science fiction,' says Evgeny Gridneff. 'Anybody who likes a thrilling story, well told, will be able to sit down and get involved, because these characters are real.'

Posted for reference purposes. Many thanks to the Radio Times for having no objections to the posting of this interview.

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