Meet Chris & Shaz from 'Ashes To Ashes'

The Life On Mars follow-up isn't all about whether Gene Hunt will worm his way into the knickers of Alex Drake, you know. Touching hearts around the nation, the blossoming romantic intrigue between DC Chris Skelton and WPC Sharon 'Shaz' Granger in Ashes To Ashes looks set to have tongues wagging over the coming weeks. We meet Marshall Lancaster and Montserrat Lombard - the two stars behind the Eighties-dwelling lovebirds.

Is Chris Skelton more confident this series?

Marshall: "I wanted him to be a bit more grown up. He's always one behind everybody else but I do think he'd have arrested a few armed blaggers by now and he's got the gist of it. You can see that with the gun-spinning trick [in the first episode]. Perhaps he'd have dropped it in 1973!"

Do you think Chris has grown the balls to stand up to Gene Hunt?

Marshall: "Well, I've got the white jeans on, judge for yourself!"

Do you think Shaz is now the naive member of the team?

Montserrat: "I don't know really. She seems naive at the beginning, but she does change quite a lot throughout the series. She's not as quiet as you think she is. That's what’s so great about Shaz, she really develops and is full of surprises."

Was it daunting to join the cast and crew, bearing in mind a lot of them know each other from Life on Mars?

Montserrat: "Yeah, I thought it might be. But Keeley was new, obviously, and very quickly the boys were really nice, so we bonded really, really quickly. So it very much had the feel of a new show. I'm a bit of a tomboy, so I quite liked being with lots of boys! Keeley's quite similar as well, isn’t she?"

Marshall: "We were all playing darts in Gene's office. It didn't take long before we all bonded and were swearing when beating each other."

What is it like to be the series' lovebirds?

Marshall: "It's a nightmare! No, it's good, it was alright. We haven't had to do anything too drastic so it's been alright to play that innocent sort of love thing. I didn't think I'd be playing that at 33 but there you go! So we play that sort of side of it, really. It’s quite good because it mirrors Alex and Gene's [flirtations]. Theirs is a real sexual tension and they’ve not got it on, whereas we have, but it's all holding hands. We used to write 'Chris & Shazza' on the desk for a laugh!"

How long do we have to wait for the first full-on snog, if there even is one?

Marshall: "It was written in, wasn't it?"

Montserrat: "We complained."

Marshall: "We said no. I must have been an idiot, but I was thinking that it's good that you don’t always see it. Tension is a good thing. If it’s full-on snogging and this, that and the other sometimes that's not quite as good as a ‘Go on, go on’ sort of thing."

Montserrat: "It was more romantic not doing it, wasn't it?"

Marshall: "That's right. It was an almost, almost and then someone says 'Come on Chris, you've got to go' and away you go."

Does Shaz see Alex as a mentor in the same way that Chris saw Sam as a mentor?

Montserrat: "Not at the beginning, because she's a bit wary of the fact that there's a woman coming into that position and she knows how the boys feel about that - and she's very much one of the boys. But I think slowly she starts to see what a woman can be like in the Eighties. Not just in the workplace, in all sorts of areas of life."

Marshall: "Shaz is Alex's creation, everyone else is Tyler's so that's interesting."

Do you interpret Life On Mars as taking place on the mind of Sam Tyler, as there's been some different opinions between cast and crew?

Marshall: "Yeah, I'm pretty much in that camp I suppose. It's still very vague, to be honest with you, whether it's this, that or the other. You've got to imagine it yourself, in some ways. I'm sure everyone's got their own theories. Mine is probably that... I'll have to get shot to find out!"

What was your reaction when you learnt you had to wear those tight white trousers in the first episode?

Marshall: "I just thought 'give me my tank top back!' I didn't use talcum powder, they were white anyway."

Is Shaz often placed in positions of jeopardy that require her to be rescued?

Montserrat: "She's very annoyed that she's become the damsel in distress as she likes to be tough. We see her trying to prove that as the series goes on."

Chris certainly hits the eyeliner in an upcoming episode - how did you find the experience?

Marshall: "I secretly loved it. It was fantastic. No, it was good because Shaz takes Chris to a Blitz club and he obviously had to do the full shebang. We had Steve Strange there, singing 'Fade To Grey' playing himself. They got him up there on the stage and we're all dancing. So it was a real throwback."

What time period would you like the writers to explore next?

Montserrat: "The '90s. That would be really good. I think it would be fun to see Gene Hunt cope with the whole Madchester scene and the warehouses."

Marshall: "I'd like medieval. I want to see Gene Hunt with a big broadsword chopping someone's head off. Perhaps The Spanish Inquisition - that's his interview technique."

Thanks for chatting!