The Rupert Graves Project - Ashes to Ashes
The Rupert Graves Project - Ashes to Ashes
We Fade to Grey
As I assume you all already know, Ashes to Ashes, is the spin off series from the excellent ‘Life on Mars’. The show keeps the ‘time travelling cop out of water’ premise but moves the action from Manchester to London and the time from the 1970’s to the 1980’s.
Rupert appeared in the third episode of the first series which is set against the backdrop of the first ‘Royal Wedding’ that of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in July 1981.
There is a bomber at large in the East End of London and DCI Gene ‘the genie’ Hunt is determined to make sure that nothing will interfere with the Wedding and sets out to track down the bomber. The police receive a note which implies that the target of the bomber isn’t anything to do with the Royal Wedding but is in fact a local business man and the developer of the East End area, one Danny Moore. Hunt & Drake go and interview Danny and offer him police protection which he turns down. It is obvious that Alex and Danny have taken a fancy to each other.
The following day Danny turns up at the station and takes Alex out in his car. After finding out that she is single he asks her out to dinner which she accepts. Then they both hear a ticking sound inside the car and discover a, thankfully in this case, fake bomb. It is just a warning to Danny from the bomber that he can get to him at any time. The attached note threatens to kill Danny on the day of the Wedding. Danny is now suitably shaken and takes the police protection, so long as it is DI Drake who is assigned to protect him.
Drake and Danny go out for a meal before going onto a ‘New Romantic’ club (cue Steve Strange and ‘Fade to Grey’) where they drink and dance and kiss! Alex sees a poster in the club advertising a forthcoming band; the lettering on the poster is distinctive and is the same as was used in the note from the bomber. Alex remembers seeing the name of the band on a shirt worn by the son of a pub landlord. The pub is the last building standing in the way of Danny’s plans to develop the docklands and Drake seems convinced that because the boy worships his father, and would want to help in his fight to stay in his pub, that he could easily be the bomber
Hunt is initially unconvinced about Drake’s conviction that the son is the bomber but she eventually persuades him to arrest him before he can do any further damage. Despite intensive questioning and a few of Gene Hunt’s famous threats he continues to deny knowing anything about the bombings or the explosives used in them.
Alex asks her Mother to be the duty solicitor for the boy, George Bonds because she thinks it will be a way for them to get closer and maybe give her some more insight as to why she is in the 1980’s. The police have found some dynamite under the floorboards of the pub which George still maintains he knows nothing about. Drake and her mother go out for a drink where her mother tells her that she would like for the two of them to be friends so that she can use Alex to spy on the goings on inside the Metropolitan Police. Alex refuses to help her.
On the rebound from the meeting with her mother, Alex gets dressed up and goes to Danny Moore’s flat. Her intention is to sleep with him, but when she gets there she finds he is already ‘entertaining’ another woman and so she leaves.
Hunt goes back to the pub and discovers that the landlord was in the army in WW11 and knows how to handle explosives, so he arrests him. Drake is having another go at getting George to confess to being the bomber and when Hunt barges in with George’s dad in tow he admits that he planted the fake bomb in Danny’s car. However Gene is still unconvinced and traps George’s father into showing that he is in fact the real bomber.
With the bomber safely locked up Alex, Gene and the rest of the team are free to attend the street party given by Danny to celebrate the Royal Wedding. At the party Danny promises to compensate all those who lived in the area and to give all the men jobs in his new company. At the party Alex sees George heading into his old home and knows that something is going to happen. She convinces Gene to get all the party goers back away from the pub just before George blows it and himself up as a final act of defiance.
******
Now I have to admit that I LOVED ‘Life on Mars’ and wasn’t quite so keen on ‘Ashes to Ashes’ which was mainly down to the ridiculous sub plot of Alex Drake and the frankly dreadful acting of Keeley Hawes.
But putting my personal gripes aside this was a typical A2A story set against the backdrop of the 1980’s in which Philip Glenister had all the best lines and everybody else, Rupert included, just trail along in the wake of the Gene Genie.
Rupert’s character is indeed a stereotypical Thatcherite wide boy businessman made good. In fact all that he is missing is a Filofax and braces and he could be Gordon Gekko! He wears a white suit with wide trousers and a big jacket (more Miami Vice than East End boy), sports an orange looking sun tan and drives one of the iconic cars of the age in a DeLoren. (Which when I was younger I always wanted to have and even now still think it is a classic). He is Harry Enfield’s ‘Loads of Money’ in a suit…but that was the Thatcher years for you.
Rupert looks as if he relished the chance to be a ‘wide boy’ as he, like I, is of an age to remember the 1980’s with…well maybe fondness isn’t quite the right term… but with a nostalgic nod to the fact that it wasn’t all bad.
Rupert gets to be smarmy and cheesy and try out a slightly unconvincing East End accent. The hair…I don’t want to talk about….but at least he wasn’t a New Romantic….although…..mmmm?
This was one of Rupert’s early forays into the ‘big name guest star’ roles that he continues to do to this day but it is nice to know from the start that he isn’t the bad guy (this time).
It's worth a watch if only just for the music!
We Fade to Grey
As I assume you all already know, Ashes to Ashes, is the spin off series from the excellent ‘Life on Mars’. The show keeps the ‘time travelling cop out of water’ premise but moves the action from Manchester to London and the time from the 1970’s to the 1980’s.
Rupert appeared in the third episode of the first series which is set against the backdrop of the first ‘Royal Wedding’ that of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in July 1981.
There is a bomber at large in the East End of London and DCI Gene ‘the genie’ Hunt is determined to make sure that nothing will interfere with the Wedding and sets out to track down the bomber. The police receive a note which implies that the target of the bomber isn’t anything to do with the Royal Wedding but is in fact a local business man and the developer of the East End area, one Danny Moore. Hunt & Drake go and interview Danny and offer him police protection which he turns down. It is obvious that Alex and Danny have taken a fancy to each other.
The following day Danny turns up at the station and takes Alex out in his car. After finding out that she is single he asks her out to dinner which she accepts. Then they both hear a ticking sound inside the car and discover a, thankfully in this case, fake bomb. It is just a warning to Danny from the bomber that he can get to him at any time. The attached note threatens to kill Danny on the day of the Wedding. Danny is now suitably shaken and takes the police protection, so long as it is DI Drake who is assigned to protect him.
Drake and Danny go out for a meal before going onto a ‘New Romantic’ club (cue Steve Strange and ‘Fade to Grey’) where they drink and dance and kiss! Alex sees a poster in the club advertising a forthcoming band; the lettering on the poster is distinctive and is the same as was used in the note from the bomber. Alex remembers seeing the name of the band on a shirt worn by the son of a pub landlord. The pub is the last building standing in the way of Danny’s plans to develop the docklands and Drake seems convinced that because the boy worships his father, and would want to help in his fight to stay in his pub, that he could easily be the bomber
Hunt is initially unconvinced about Drake’s conviction that the son is the bomber but she eventually persuades him to arrest him before he can do any further damage. Despite intensive questioning and a few of Gene Hunt’s famous threats he continues to deny knowing anything about the bombings or the explosives used in them.
Alex asks her Mother to be the duty solicitor for the boy, George Bonds because she thinks it will be a way for them to get closer and maybe give her some more insight as to why she is in the 1980’s. The police have found some dynamite under the floorboards of the pub which George still maintains he knows nothing about. Drake and her mother go out for a drink where her mother tells her that she would like for the two of them to be friends so that she can use Alex to spy on the goings on inside the Metropolitan Police. Alex refuses to help her.
On the rebound from the meeting with her mother, Alex gets dressed up and goes to Danny Moore’s flat. Her intention is to sleep with him, but when she gets there she finds he is already ‘entertaining’ another woman and so she leaves.
Hunt goes back to the pub and discovers that the landlord was in the army in WW11 and knows how to handle explosives, so he arrests him. Drake is having another go at getting George to confess to being the bomber and when Hunt barges in with George’s dad in tow he admits that he planted the fake bomb in Danny’s car. However Gene is still unconvinced and traps George’s father into showing that he is in fact the real bomber.
With the bomber safely locked up Alex, Gene and the rest of the team are free to attend the street party given by Danny to celebrate the Royal Wedding. At the party Danny promises to compensate all those who lived in the area and to give all the men jobs in his new company. At the party Alex sees George heading into his old home and knows that something is going to happen. She convinces Gene to get all the party goers back away from the pub just before George blows it and himself up as a final act of defiance.
******
Now I have to admit that I LOVED ‘Life on Mars’ and wasn’t quite so keen on ‘Ashes to Ashes’ which was mainly down to the ridiculous sub plot of Alex Drake and the frankly dreadful acting of Keeley Hawes.
But putting my personal gripes aside this was a typical A2A story set against the backdrop of the 1980’s in which Philip Glenister had all the best lines and everybody else, Rupert included, just trail along in the wake of the Gene Genie.
Rupert’s character is indeed a stereotypical Thatcherite wide boy businessman made good. In fact all that he is missing is a Filofax and braces and he could be Gordon Gekko! He wears a white suit with wide trousers and a big jacket (more Miami Vice than East End boy), sports an orange looking sun tan and drives one of the iconic cars of the age in a DeLoren. (Which when I was younger I always wanted to have and even now still think it is a classic). He is Harry Enfield’s ‘Loads of Money’ in a suit…but that was the Thatcher years for you.
Rupert looks as if he relished the chance to be a ‘wide boy’ as he, like I, is of an age to remember the 1980’s with…well maybe fondness isn’t quite the right term… but with a nostalgic nod to the fact that it wasn’t all bad.
Rupert gets to be smarmy and cheesy and try out a slightly unconvincing East End accent. The hair…I don’t want to talk about….but at least he wasn’t a New Romantic….although…..mmmm?
This was one of Rupert’s early forays into the ‘big name guest star’ roles that he continues to do to this day but it is nice to know from the start that he isn’t the bad guy (this time).
It's worth a watch if only just for the music!