James Nesbitt

Cold Feet stars celebrate finishing filming

James Nesbitt, Fay Ripley, John Thomson and Robert Bathurst enjoyed a low key wrap party at Artisan in Spinningfields, Manchester, to celebrate finishing filming the new series of Cold Feet.

Pictures: Cold Feet scenes filmed [Spoiler alert]

SPOILER ALERT: Has Adam found love again? James Nesbitt and John Thomson spotted filming Cold Feet wedding scenes with mystery new co-star.

Cold Feet: first look at filming on location

Cold Feet favourites James Nesbitt, John Thomson and Robert Bathurst spotted on the first day on location in Manchester city centre.

Cold Feet reunion - will the 90s hit work in 2015?

Robert Bathurst, Fay Ripley, John Thomson, Hermione Norris and James Nesbitt have been seen together on the set of ITV's revival - but will the show survive without Helen Baxendale?

Cold Feet could be back on our screens following talks

ITV bosses are understood to be in negotiations to secure the core cast, including Hermione Morris, John Thomson and James Nesbitt.

'Babylon' interview: James Nesbitt

An interview with James Nesbitt about his role in Babylon.

The James Nesbitt of Babylon is different [from The Missing]. It's a strange hybrid of a show, being an actual police drama in which the cops are ridiculed with the kind of humour that wouldn't be amiss in Airplane. But Nesbitt, as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Richard Miller, doesn't do a Leslie Nielsen. He unleashes his 1,000-yard stare and plays his hand with unabashed aggression. Without Nesbitt the uncertainty of tone that keeps Babylon on the edge of farce would overwhelm it. Nesbitt's role is to glower and grimace and to issue volcanic eruptions of poetic swearing. Forget Doctor Who, Nesbitt's Miller is the new Malcolm Tucker.

Observe his dismissal of a proposal for a sponsored police news network, The Metwork: "This kettling was brought to you by Morphy Richards." Or the way he orders the deletion of some potentially embarrassing emails. "I don't want it to happen. I just want it to have happened." Obviously nothing like that would ever occur in the Met, but the scene in which a copper was required to eat 100 chicken nuggets on his last day had the ring of truth.

It is to the police what Twenty Twelve and W1A were to the Olympics and the BBC, though bolder, sharper, swearier. Maybe more like The Thick of It then, with which it shares some creative DNA. And, like TTOI, there are, in with the deadpan insanity, some truths. About the police, their image issues, target culture, political interference, privatisation etc. As well as - as you'd expect with Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong writing - some glorious lines.

"I'm on 24-hour-a-day storm watch yeah, I sleep like a cokey meerkat on an electric fence, that's me relaxing, I've got a map inside my head of all the trouble in the world and you just popped up on the radar like Godzilla's hard on, and I will cut you loose if you ever, ever fuck me again Charlie, all right?" says Commissioner Richard Miller. Played by James Nesbitt, who looks like he's enjoying himself after - during - all the misery of The Missing.

Radio Times review

When the pilot for this police satire aired, it felt perfectly poised between farce and drama. Or maybe imperfectly: there were plenty of absurd moments and funny lines (its creators worked on The Thick of It), but also a thriller edge to proceedings. An action satire? A jet-black dramedy? Kafka meets The Bill?

As we start the full series, the tone feels clearer. The dialogue is still razor sharp - "I sleep like a cokey meerkat on an electric fence. That's me relaxing," snaps James Nesbitt's commissioner - but actual gags are rationed. We're more focused on the political minefield of policing London, and the PR machine - headed by Brit Marling's spin chief - that steers through it.

Their main problem here is a youth prison riot where private contractors running the unit have been overrun. The good news? "Joey Barton's said on Twitter he's willing to be an intermediary..."