Hot 100 2012 TALENT


3 Vicky McClure


This Is England ’86/’88; True Love; Line Of Duty


Dynamo: Magician Impossible 1 Dynamo


Dynamo: Magician Impossible


Steven Frayne had built up a cult following as magician Dynamo before UKTV’s Watch channel came calling. But even with celebrity support from the likes of Matt Lucas and Jonathan Ross, few could have predicted the impact he would have on UKTV-owned Watch, where he peaked with an unprecedented 1.8 million and set social media alight. That UKTV stepped up to the plate to retain his talent in the face of an intense bidding war speaks volumes about his value to the channel. So what’s his secret? He is, in a sense, the anti-David Blaine: a performer of astonishing tricks, but grounded thanks to his Bradford council estate roots – a humble, approach able, funny and down-to-earth guy who just happens to be able to disap- pear through a locked window.


18 | Broadcast | Hot 100 2 Benedict


Cumberbatch Sherlock; Parade’s End


He’s worked with Steven Spiel- berg, played both Doctor Franken- stein and his monster on stage, and is about to board the set of the new Star Trek fi lm. But for many, Benedict Cumberbatch (below) will always be Sherlock Holmes. The actor was inspired casting for Hartswood Films’ Sherlock, a tow- ering presence with an inscrutable face, capable of selling Holmes’ dazzling intelligence with one contemptuous look to a less clued- up accomplice, or rattling off clues at breakneck speed. With his physical, theatrical take, he owns the role – no easy task given how often Holmes has been depicted down the years. He’ll next be seen on TV opposite Rebecca Hall as the lead in BBC1’s blue-chip adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End series of novels.


After fi ve years playing Lol in This Is England, Vicky McClure is emerging from what she laugh- ingly calls the “psychological nightmare” of Shane Meadows’ gruelling working methods. Audi- tioning for the challenging director at 15, she made her screen break in his fi lm A Room For Romeo Brass before This Is England took over her life. She earned a Bafta and an RTS for her harrowing perform- ance in This Is England ’86 and is set to reprise the role in This Is England ’90. But fi rst there’s a change of tack as a police offi cer in Jed Mercurio’s Line Of Duty. This follows BBC1’s True Love, in which she put her experience in improvising for Meadows to good use opposite David Tennant, who will also co-star in McClure’s next project: ITV1’s Broadchurch.


4 Dominic West


Appropriate Adult; The Hour


Aside from playing Oliver Cromwell in Channel 4’s 2007 drama The Devil’s Whore,


Dominic West spent much of the past decade in the US in the iconic role of The Wire’s Jimmy McNulty. But in the past year, he’s bagged leads in two of the UK’s most signifi cant dramas – and they couldn’t be more different. As charismatic TV anchor Hector Madden in The Hour, he was all matinee good lucks and smooth charm, having a blast as a cad who engaged in screwball banter with Romola Garai’s producer Bel Rowley. But it was his Fred West in Appropriate Adult that led him to a deserved Bafta; to many critics – and Fred West’s own daughter – he appeared possessed by the convicted murderer, the epitomy of ‘the banality of evil’.


5 Brendan


O’Carrell Mrs Brown’s Boys


Just 15 months ago, few in the UK would have heard of Irish actor and writer Brendan O’Carrell. Almost overnight, Mrs Brown’s Boys changed all that. The indus- try was stunned by the main- stream phenomenon this studio-based throwback sitcom became, and how quickly: pro- moted from a cautious BBC1


The Hour www.broadcastnow.co.uk


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