Daniel Ryan interview
Lisa and Dan have weathered quite a few storms over the past four years: what's in store during Series 5?
We find Dan and Lisa dealing with what it is like to be a couple with a demanding 18 month old baby girl, a 'live-in' father-in-law, and both trying to run self-employed businesses with no time to pay attention to their relationship. The strains that this is putting onto an essentially quite selfish pair of characters and their previously fancy-free former life, is taking its toll. 20 years together, very little happy banter, a lot of falling out, and definitely not much making up.
It's a classic comedy cocktail for Lisa and Dan to be viewed as a poignant reflection of how we all manage to get by as supposed 'grown-ups'!
New characters the Millers look set to bring quite a bit of upheaval to the street, and a great new friend for Dan?
If you put 2 very strong females together and get them to start a relationship on the wrong foot and then add that they live in the house opposite, you'll find a definite arena for all out conflict! And this is exactly what we get when the Millers arrive in the cul-de-sac.
From that point on you see a way for Lisa to re-direct all angst from the problems that she is having at home with Dan into a full scale battle of wills with her nemesis Jenna. Dan and Cameron seem to hit it off very well but having to try and diffuse this horrendous trench warfare of their wive is preventing them from being able to become pals.
Of course what this does for an audience is to create some hilarious scenarios for these characters to fight it out!!
Is it handy or confusing to share your character's name?
It's actually very handy sharing a name with my character! It's the first Dan I've ever played and I quite like the name.
It was however, somewhat of a nightmare this year as there were 2 other 'Dan's' on the camera team and references to Dan Ings who played my brother. That's a whole heap of Dans in one room and confusion arose on several occasions as you might imagine.
Also, when the Director is giving me notes that 'Dan is a dick' I don't have to take too much offence......at least I think I don't!
It must be such great fun working with Bobby Ball. Do you and Bobby get on as well as your character and Barry do?
Working with Bobby is pure joy. I've been very open about the fact that Cannon & Ball were a massive part of my childhood and getting to play gags off the man I used to cry laughing at on a Saturday night watching telly is beyond anything I could have imagined. There is a great satisfaction in being able to make a 'comedian' laugh and he has taught me a lot. Bob has become a very natural and talented actor now and it's great to watch him work.
We get on tremendously, and although my own father died when I was 17, the way we get on makes me think of the relationship I might have had with my Dad had he been around today!
Despite some big cast changes, after five series the entire unit must be fairly into the groove of working together on Mount Pleasant every year?
What's brilliant about the format of Mount Pleasant is that anyone can come in to join the cast, and almost anything can happen in the storylines! We don't have the confines of a 'serious' drama and there is equally no compulsion of a 'sitcom' to fill every single scene with gag after gag, it's absolutely the best of both worlds. With that in mind, it means that the show can take no-end of cast changes or plot developments.
The only rule we have on our set is that we want it to be the happiest place to come and work. That atmosphere is best for being creative and I think it shows on screen and I'm pretty sure it's why the actors come back to do it, and new cast want to join!
Do you see any of the cast outside work, or is it an on-set only friendship with the likes of Sally Lindsay and Paula Wilcox?
The only down-side of having such an eclectic and in-demand bunch of actors on the show is that we don't get to see that much of each other outside of Mount Pleasant. I've just been in Blackpool staying with Bobby, me and Sally chat very regularly and I'm mates with her husband, and I'm very much in touch by text or tweet with everyone in the show, but it's almost impossible to get all of us in the same room at the same time.
Saying that, it's a very intense 14 week shoot, we always get together to watch the first episode of a new series and the nights when we are all up filming at the same time in the hotel in Manchester can become somewhat legendary!!
Mount Pleasant has lots of fans on Twitter. Is it nice to engage with them on the platform?
It's so wonderful to have so many active and adoring fans on Twitter. Most of the cast are on there and we are able to have a very close relationship with our audience via social media. People tell us their favourite moments, funniest lines and are very vocal when a character is headed for a fall.
My Twitter feed was bombarded with expletives when Dan got in the lift with Tanya! Sky have even made a 'SuperFan" show with 3 couples who love Mount Pleasant and think they are like Lisa and Dan.
People have really fallen in love with these characters and their lives and it's brilliant to have a forum to engage with them and something of a responsibility to respond when it means so much to our audience.
You tend to work mostly in drama but have some great comic roles on your CV. Would you like to work in the comedy field more?
When I started out I did several comedy pilots which never went to series. I had high hopes for a studio sitcom which we piloted last year which never came to fruition. So the concept of doing more comedy is very much on my mind.
I've been developing a script with Mark Brotherhood, the Mount Pleasant writer, but we are yet to have an offer to take it further.
I do find myself working predominantly in drama but I feel my 'comedy chops' are always looking for an outlet!
We loved Just William - would you have liked to return for more adventures as the senior Mr Brown?
I was flabberghasted when the BBC didn't decide to make more series of Just William. I felt Simon Nye had captured the books so exquisitely in the scripts and I have to say it was a damn fine cast. It was an absolute privilege to bring those classic and beloved books to life again and people still stop me in the street and tell me how much they and their children adored our adaptation and why weren't there any more? I had a ball with Rebecca Front too, so if they ever decided to bring back the Brown family I'd be there like a shot.
What is next for you Dan, work wise?
It's been a very busy year so far with Doc Martin and Mount Pleasant and I'm now onto the 2nd series of Home Fires, which was hugely successful for ITV and that will keep me busy till Christmas. I haven't had the kind of career where I had the luxury of knowing what's happening very far ahead so I consider myself a very lucky boy to be filling my time with lovely jobs at the moment.
I'd love to find a challenge for the start of the New Year. I'd love to play a Basil Fawlty type character.
In this game, you never can tell what's round the corner, I work very hard at being an eternal optimist, I feel I'm really coming into my own at the moment and I'd like to think that there is still a hell of a lot out there for me to play!
Mount Pleasant returns to Sky1 from Friday 11th September 2015 at 9pm.