Dominic Power on being PC Leon Taylor

MORE POWER TO DOMINIC ON SUN HILL BEAT

By Liam Rudden
Edinburgh Evening News
Published Saturday 24 October

HE’S Sun Hill’s most enigmatic copper but the layers are about to be peeled away from The Bill’s PC Leon Taylor and actor Dominic Power can’t wait.

“When I joined the show they had given him a back-story: His girlfriend had died in a road traffic accident and the driver responsible had never been caught. So there’s a lot unresolved with Leon. He has a lot of contradictions, for example, he’s a team player but he also loves his own company.

“He came to Sun Hill because he wanted a busier station to take his mind off the grief, but he’s still not over it. Now the new later slot we’re are able to start exploring those issues.”

The clues that life is about to change for Taylor were planted in last week’s episode when he found himself on the brink of becoming romantically involved with Prison Officer and in Monday’s episode he finds himself becoming emotionally involved in a case of suspected child abuse.

A father of two himself, Power says, “I’m pretty good with kids on set and most of the story-lines they have given me have involved a child. As I’ve got children it’s not hard to get empathy but the way I associate that to Leon is with the thought that if his girlfriend hadn’t died, he probably would have had kids by now or be thinking about having a family.”

PC Leon Taylor made his debut in the long running series 18 months ago but Power himself is a veteran of the show having appeared in many guises over the last 12 years, including as another copper, PC Pete Warner.

“I’d actually done six or seven guest roles but never had the inkling that I would ever become permanent,” he confesses. “When I played PC Warner it was Scott Neil’s first episode as PC Luke Ashton. I already knew Scott and I remember being very jealous of him being a regular.”

With all that previous experience under his belt you’d be forgiven for believing that the 36-year-old would have been a natural shoe-in when producers decided to freshen the show up with new characters. Not so. He had to audition like everyone else.

He recalls, “The producers decided to do a series of casting sessions in a way that they hadn’t done before... using improvisation. They didn’t know what sort of police officer they wanted so they brought in a group of 20 actors. We were all different sexes, sizes, shapes and colours. When we went in they said, ‘We don’t have an idea of what we want... you bring something to the table’.

“Now I trained in improvisation for six years, so being asked to audition for something through the medium of improvisation was good and I obviously excelled to the point that, three sessions later I got the job.”

As those sessions progressed Power found himself getting into the mind-set of a police constable.

“You draw on what you know from your subconscious,” he explains. “Everyone has met a policeman before, what always fascinated me was the way they behave towards the general public and then how they suddenly take away that mask in each others company. That’s the mystery of the uniform. That status. You can ask a stereotypical policeman directions and they can spend 30 seconds giving you those directions without actually making eye contact.

“Anyway, by the point I put on the uniform for the second time, which was at the third audition, I was thinking, ‘My God, if I don’t get this job I’m going to be really peeved’. By then I was striding down the corridor and felt that I had already taken possession of the environment. When Angela Grosnover, the casting director, passed me and said, ‘You look very natural in that uniform. It really suits you,’ I kind of knew what she meant. I felt it suited me.”

One of the ‘Old Bill’ to make the biggest impact on Power when he joined the series was Graham Cole alias PC Tony Stamp, who bows out of the show after almost 25 years next month.

“Graham was on holidays when I started so it was a while before I met him, but he already had this big presence without even being in the building. By the day he turned up I’d heard so many nice things about him that suddenly it did feel like a bit of an honour being in the same scene as him. Especially as I was going, ‘Wow! I watched you as a youngster and now I’m stood next to you chasing the bad guys.”
PC Stamp’s final episode will be screened on ITV3 on 9 November and Power reveals filming it was emotional for everyone.

“Myself, Ben Richards who plays PC Nate Roberts, and a few of the cast and crew had finished earlier on his last day, but we hung around and watched him shoot his last scene which was right at the end of the day,” he says, adding, “He didn’t know, but we were watching each take on the monitor in the back room as it was filmed. It was really lovely because you did feel you were watching a bit of TV history in the making.”

However, as one well loved character bows out, viewers can look forward to discovering that bit more about another, although Power hopes that the producers don’t let PC Leon Taylor settle down too quickly.

“Having that enigmatic side to him he’s a lot of fun to play. It’d be nice to keep that because there is something potentially quite self destructive about Leon and unless something positive happens to him I think that self destruction could happen. Those parts are always the best to play.

The Bill: That’s Love For You, Monday, 11pm, ITV3