Damien Molony: "I wasn't trying to copy John Nettles's Bergerac"

Well, someone else is playing him: Damien Molony, the 40-year-old Irish star of Derry Girls, Brassic and The Split, who’s now beside me, looking out over the splendour of Jersey’s Atlantic-facing St Ouen’s Bay.

Not quite as fresh-faced as he was a decade ago in Ripper Street, where he played Detective Constable Albert Flight, but not that far off it either, Molony now finds himself the face of this major series reboot. "I’ve done a lot of jobs where there’s a gang of us," he says, his brown eyes containing that hint of the sadness required for existentially challenged cops. "But this is such an iconic role in such an iconic show."

The original Bergerac, created by Robert Banks Stewart, ran from 1981 to 1991 and made Nettles a star as the detective from the fictional Bureau des Étrangers, alternatively looking moody in a burgundy 1947 Triumph Roadster or being mildly exasperated by his father-in-law, Charlie. Back then each episode was a self-contained story; the new series, which creator Toby Whithouse has called "Bergerac with a twist", will allow one storyline to unfold over each season.

In another change, father-in-law Charlie has become mother-in-law Charlie, a role played by Zoë Wanamaker – in imperious form, to Molony’s delight. "I think Zoë playing Charlie is so brilliant, so clever," he says. "It just worked. We started giggling from the read-through."

The first episode, Molony reveals, finds detective Jim Bergerac "contrite and determined to fix himself". His wife has died, leaving him signed off work sick and in an alcoholic freefall. On top of that, his 14-year-old daughter Kim, dismayed by his drinking, has gone to live with her grandmother, Charlie.

If Bergerac is going to convince Kim and Charlie that he’s a fit father, he must engineer a way back into work and onto an investigation trying to solve the murder of a young woman at her businessman father’s house. (This is tax-free Jersey, so the houses are all huge and the drives full of supercars.)

"Bergerac is completely shattered by the loss of his wife," says Molony, "but he must be brave for the sake of his daughter and convince the other cops he can come back to work. Because, really, he shouldn’t be at work."

To get into this new, very damaged, Bergerac’s head, Molony investigated Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps programme. "I had a wonderful conversation with a recovering alcoholic who had also lost a parent recently," he recalls. "They said the worst thing was waking up after they’d just dreamt about their parent being alive and then remembering that, no, they had really gone. I was overwhelmed by that. There’s a moment in the series when Bergerac wakes up with a hangover, opens his eyes and thinks it’s all OK for a second."

As well as research, Molony, who is married with two children, can draw upon his own life for guidance. "I think being a father really helps when you’re playing a father. I’d be halfway through a scene and trying to replace it with my own family situation, trying to equate it with, ‘What if that happened in my life?’ I would try and find something that had already happened, to me." That doesn’t sound much like John Nettles’s series about money and beautiful girls. "I wasn’t trying to copy Nettles’s Bergerac. I was bringing my own thing to it. I think this is darker."

Molony, brought up in Dublin, also prepared by watching videos of Irish rugby player Brian O’Driscoll doing team talks. "I looked at the way he held himself in the dressing room. That felt to me very like the police incident room. This is what we’ve got to do, and don’t come back until you’ve done it." Was Molony a good rugby player? "No, I was terrible at school. Too small, too scared. I was mown down."

Even then, floundering in the mud, Molony was thinking about acting. "I never considered anything else. I watched so much TV as a kid: I was obsessed and thought MacGyver was the coolest dude on the planet and would dance around the kitchen to the theme. But I was very shy in secondary school and wasn’t ready to audition for plays because I was embarrassed about standing out.
I had no relatives in the industry, so I had no idea of how to make it happen."

Molony read business and politics at Trinity College Dublin, dabbled in drama and found himself in a play at the Edinburgh Fringe. "Then I auditioned for drama school in London and got in. Looking back, I must have been so arrogant. But I remember just really wanting it."

Not quite so arrogant that he hasn’t learnt from those around him. "I witnessed Matthew Macfadyen on Ripper Street. It was the second TV job I ever did, and he was the pinnacle. Obviously you have to be a good actor, but you’ve also got to lead on set. He was so good at that, making everyone feel so relaxed. That gets the best out of everyone.

"I remember thinking, ‘If I ever get to be the lead, that’s how I’m going to do it.’" Now’s his chance.

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Bergerac premieres on U&Drama on Thursday 27th February 2025.

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