Behind The Scenes . . . Television from the inside out

Fact file:
What is it? Waking the Dead
Who's in it? Sue Johnston, Trevor Eve, Wil Johnson and tara Fitzgerald
When's it on? BBC1

It's back to cold-case corpses and psychopaths for Sue Johnston but, as she tells RT, there's a lighter side to making Waking the Dead ...

"Sean Davis is on of our electricians and, as you can probably tell from this pictuer, he's a bit of a cheeky chappy. What he's holding is the cover from one of the spotlights. They call it a barn-door. "A lot of the crew - the camera guys, the lighting guys, make-up, effects - have been with us right from the start, and they're so important to the look of the show. Even as we're filming it, there seems to be this dark, disturbing quality, and I think that really comes across on screen - the feeling that something is creeping up on you from behind."

"This is Wil (Johnson, who plays Spence) and Félicité (du Jeu, who plays Stella) having a quick check through their lines. Last-minute as ever for Wil! (I'm sure he won't thank me for saying that. "Actually, we all have to keep a really close eye on the scripts, because there are so many last-minute changes. The dialogue is constantly being checked by all the legal teams and often comes back with lots of red pen. I'm always looking for places on the set where I can hide my lines in case I forget what I'm saying. On the slab behind the dead body is always a good place!"

A quick buff-up

"Here's me and Trevor (Eve) in Boyd's office, getting our make-up touched up between takes. To look at the main characters, you wouldn't imagine there's a lot of make-up involved, would you? But when you think about all the injuries, and the blood that's spilled, you realise the make-up team have got one of the hardest jobs on the show. And don't forget that the stories often have flash-backs, so characters have to appear 20,30 or 40 years younger. I reckon they do an incredible job."

Good with his hands

"Look closely or you'll miss the extra hand on the table. It looks so realistic. in this scene trevor is interviewing someon (probably a psychopath) and he gets stabbed in the hand with a pen. Obviously, they cut to the prosthetic hand at the crucial moment. Most of the things we have made for the show - especially the corpses - look amazing. They must cost thousands. And they wet some of them, too, to make them look even more like real bodies. "Can I just say that some of the guest actors have made very good psychopaths? Toby Stephens in the last series was chilling."

Tara Fitzgerald plays Eve Lockhart, a new member of the team and ... let's just say she's got a few dark secrets. I worked with Tara on a film called Brassed Off and it's been lovely being on set with her again. She's picked up all the pathology stuff very quickly. "Dr Peter Dean (left) is a real-life coroner and pathologist. You need people like him, because there are so many procedures to be followed, and we have to look like we know what we're doing."

"No matter where Wil is on the set, he always seems to be surrounded by beautiful women. This is him relaxing with his 'make-up babes'. You have to chill out on set ... have a bit of a laugh and a joke and actually step away from the show. Get your mind somewhere else. if you don't, the storylines really start to get to you. "Basically, your life is nothing but death, murder and psychopaths for the nine months you're working on the show."