Being Human

19/01/2010

"We're just like our characters" - say the werewolf, the vampire and the ghost

By Laura Kelly

With all its gore and melodrama, you may not expect BBC Three’s surprise hit Being Human – which follows the travails of a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire trying to make their way in the human world – to be the happiest set, but that’s exactly what it is.

In the series, George (the werewolf, played by Russell Tovey), Annie (the ghost, played by Lenora Crichlow) and Mitchell (the vampire, played by Aidan Turner) are beset on all sides and can never tell who they can trust. Always watching their backs in case their true identities are found out by the humans around them, they are just as disliked by their fellow supernatural beings.

Never the best at fitting in with the dark side, the end of the first series saw the mates forced to face off against the local vampire gang boss, with traumatic and bloody results. Ironically, the horror, juxtaposed with the three main characters’ affection for each other and tea-drinking ‘normality’, has earned the cast just the kind of universal love that their onscreen characters are so sorely lacking.

Speaking to The Big Issue just ahead of the launch of the much-anticipated second series, the three young actors can barely contain their pleasure at having the opportunity to work together again. “It’s great to be back,” says Turner. “It’s crazy, we wrapped on the show and then a month later it’s on the TV. We’re all good buddies and we do a lot of hanging out together when we’re not working, so it’s such a fun show to do.”

“We love each other,” explains Tovey, succinctly. “It’s brilliant to be back together and it’s such an awesome job. We’re so excited because there’s an audience now. There are so many people wanting to see it. That’s the best way to make a show, if you’re making it knowing that people want to watch it. It’s a brilliant feeling.”

“I’m ecstatic to be back – really, really happy,” agrees Crichlow. “It’s like going home. It’s a cheesy, corny thing to say, but we have the happiest set in the world, I think.” At the core of this is a trio of friends every bit as close as the three characters they play. Although they swear there are no supernatural powers involved, there’s more than a resemblance between themselves and George, Annie and Mitchell.

Just like in the series, when they’re filming they live together in a house in Bristol and they’ve fallen into similar roles when they’re around each other. “If someone sat down and psychoanalysed the show, they’d say, ‘that’s like you, Russell’ or ‘that’s very much like Lenora’. Mitchell is naturally very cool and laidback, dresses well, all the ladies love him. Aidan has really got all that – he’s cool, well dressed and he gets a lot of attention,” says Tovey.
“I’m probably like George in that I can be a bit loud, I’m a bit neurotic, I get overexcited. Lenora drinks a lot of tea and she has a scatty quality that Annie has as well. And she wants to protect us and look after us.”

Although initially horrified his mate has let his ladies’ man status out of the bag, Turner – who has a gorgeous Dublin accent and easy charm – admits playing a vampire has helped with the opposite sex. “Bloody hell, he’s getting me in trouble, isn’t he?” he laughs. “Well, you know, vampires are all the craze these days. It doesn’t do me any harm, that’s for sure.”

Crichlow, meanwhile, is just surprised that the lads would admit she’s been babying them. “They’re not even ashamed of it!” she laughs. “I thought they’d at least try and pretend they were responsible for themselves. When you’re with friends you take on a role I guess. I am a bit Annie with them both – feeding them and making sure they’re all right, being the voice of reason.”

As Turner suggests, Being Human is now in a rather crowded marketplace. Between the Twilight franchise, US series True Blood, E4 drama Misfits and any number of imitators, the supernatural – and especially vampires – is big business. Crichlow says she’s glad Being Human staked its claim early. “We got in there just in the nick of time, to not be accused of jumping on the bandwagon,” she says. “We’re also a bit different. Our characters kick against the whole supernatural thing the whole time. We are all trying to be human. So it’s a unique take on the genre, I think.”

“When the show was conceived it was before Twilight had broken,” says Turner. “Then when we were shooting the first series, Twilight came out, so now everyone’s on it. It seems like it’s a thing that comes around every decade or so. All it takes is one hit and that’s where the money goes. You can’t get money for drama anywhere these days – if it hasn’t got a werewolf in it you haven’t a hope.”

Turner is not a big fan of the genre, True Blood and its ilk are too “vampy”, but the character-driven Being Human, however, was something he could get behind, even if its low-key approach wasn’t by choice. “We don’t have the budget to do crazy special effects – we have to pare it down,” he explains.
“That’s how the show found its style but people seem to like it – they like the relationships. They can relate to it. It can be ultra-naturalistic and then totally theatrical. It’s different, and anything that’s different is always a good thing, regardless of whether it’s a hit – points for bravery and all that.”

Tovey has a little more time for the world of sci-fi and fantasy. As a veteran of Doctor Who – he played Midshipman Frame in the 2007 Christmas Special and so impressed then-showrunner Russell T Davies the writer said he’d like to see Tovey take over from the beloved David Tennant at the controls of the TARDIS – the Essex-born star has an idea of the power cult shows have. And thanks to Doctor Who, he says, sci-fi is cooler than ever. “They’ve made it acceptable for people to say ‘I like sci-fi’ without being bullied,” he argues. “It’s cool to like sci-fi now, and a lot of that is down to David.”

Although Being Human may not quite be on the scale of Doctor Who, the BBC knows it’s onto a good thing. As Turner lets slip, there are already plans for a third series, to air in November, providing everything goes well with the current series. Speaking for them all, Tovey says: “When you read the scripts, you realise there’s nothing to worry about, with Toby’s [writer Toby Whithouse] vision and his brains. He’s incredible.”

“The threat in the first series was the supernatural element, the threat in the new series is the human element,” Turner explains. “These scientists come in and they want to figure out the ‘evil gene’. Obviously the big questions about religion and mortality come into that. They’re getting it from every section now. It all comes to a big climax at the end of the series – it’s make or break for everyone.”

It’s a neat trick at the start of a new series to have everyone salivating for the next one. Nonetheless, as support for the show grows, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them follow in Doctor Who’s footsteps and secure their very own Christmas special by the end of the year. We can only imagine the levels of gore they’d manage to bring to that one.

Being Human is on Sundays, 9.30pm, BBC3