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Amanda Burton - Back in Silent Witness
For a woman who has spent the morning examining a grisly murder scene in a
dirty, dusty, deserted building, Amanda Burton is looking remarkably cool and
collected – almost as cool and collected as Professor Sam Ryan, the role which
established her as one of the nation’s favourite actresses and which sees her
back on BBC One in the latest series of
Silent
Witness.
Sam Ryan has become a large part of Amanda Burton’s life:
"Sometimes I wonder how much I have shaped her and how much she has shaped me
over the years. It’s a very spiritual connection I have with Sam.”
This is the sixth
series of the show which gave Amanda her first lead role and stemmed from a
holiday chat with a friend who worked at the BBC. “I was heavily into Patricia
Cornwell at the time and happened to say that I’d love to play a forensic
pathologist or someone like that. She said the BBC were thinking of creating
one, and it all went from there – the fates and a chance conversation.
“Sam’s still teaching pathology at London University but has plenty of
time to get involved with more unusual criminal cases,” explains Amanda. "But
it’s as much about the living as the dead.”
Still, Amanda is pleased that the programme doesn’t shy away from showing the
more grisly aspects of a forensic pathologist’s work, which she feels are
missing from other shows. "We see a lot more people in paper suits now, but you
don’t have another female character involved in such grimness,” she says with a
smile.
This time around, Sam has two new colleagues working alongside her at the
University pathology lab – Dr Leo Dalton, played by William Gaminara, and Harry
Cunningham, played by Tom Ward. Leo has left his partner and daughter behind in
Sheffield to take a promotion in London. He can be quite brilliant but doesn’t
have time for the politics which goes with career success and, once in London,
finds it hard to juggle his work and family commitments. Bright and very
ambitious, Harry is a trainee still studying hard for his exams and working
closely under Sam’s supervision.
Together, the trio delve deep into a variety of mysterious and suspicious
deaths, unravelling the clues that will find the killers. Their cases include a
dead man found in a derelict lift shaft and a multiple murder at a family home
which reunites Sam with one of her old flames. Back at the university, drugs are
going missing from the toxicology lab and Harry finds himself distracted by the
party-loving daughter of one of the university’s biggest benefactors.
It was Amanda, co-producer of this series, who suggested that Sam should have
some permanent company in the morgue. "I thought we should move it forward and
open it out more, in the same way we did three years ago in making her a
professor. We can explore more stories and the relationships she has with Leo
and Harry are great, it allows her to be a less isolated figure.” But fans can
be reassured that Professor Ryan is still very much the linchpin of the whole
show. “It’s very clever the way it’s been structured – Sam is still at the
centre of every story,” explains Amanda, before going on to quickly squash
suggestions that either Leo or Harry might be a new love interest. “Leo is an
established pathologist in his own right, they have their disagreements but
there is a mutual professional respect. He has his own life and Sam has hers.
“Harry is very much the trainee that Sam was a few years ago, and she recognises
in him certain qualities: his approach, his caring attitude and the way his mind
works on a case. She’s basically his mentor and I really enjoyed that dynamic.”
As for Sam: "She isn’t as troubled as she used to be, she seems to have accepted
that her life is like this – she’s single, she’s forty-something and she’s fine
with that.”
Being a co-producer has meant Amanda has been more closely involved in the show
than ever before. “It’s been very interesting being a co-producer, seeing how
things work from behind the scenes. Obviously I was aware of a lot of it before;
you can’t be in the business and not realise what it takes to make a show, but
it was great to be involved in the whole process and see stories that have come
through development all the way to the final edit and to have more input into
the characters.”
Amanda’s next role will be back in front of the cameras as a police commander in
Lynda La Plante’s new drama for ITV, a role which La Plante is said to have
written specifically for her. In the meantime, she’ll be enjoying some quality
time with her husband, photographer Sven Arnstein, and their two young
daughters. Her home life, complete with dogs and horses, remains the most
important thing in her life.
Though voted Most Popular Actress in numerous awards ceremonies and the woman
who most other females in the country would like to be in other polls, the
actress from Londonderry remains refreshingly down to
earth. When French and Saunders did their famous sketch lampooning
Silent Witness,
she
was just amazed that they’d noticed the show. “It was a very odd experience,
watching yourself being taken off like that,
it’s like, ‘Oh my
God, do I really do that? It’s funny because I was talking to the driver on the
way in this morning about it, so when I was filming this morning I did a little
bit of an arched eyebrow – just for Jennifer!”
BBC, September 2002
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