Adrian Lester

Adrian Lester: 'Be more tomato'

Actor and director Adrian Lester captured the attention of his audience by urging them to “be more tomato”.

Sprinkling his inspiring talk with references to the fruit, the Hustle star said: “A tomato tastes just as good whether you call it a fruit or a vegetable. Labels define you and are a bad thing for creatives, so, in that sense, we should be tomatoes. We can be anything, hot, cold, spicy or cool to the tongue, and it’s up to the rest of the world to catch up.”

‘Because it’s terrifying,” was Peter Kosminsky’s no-holds-barred answer when I ask him why he would take on the knotty problem – televisually as much as narratively – of bringing cyber conflict to the screen, before he expanded on the dire potential real-life consequences for us all.  

The six-part thriller sees Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester play bomb disposal operatives known as Expos, who put their lives on the line every day. 

Vicky McClure plays frontline officer Lana Washington and Adrian Lester plays her colleague Joel Nutkins. 

Washington and Nutkins are ex-military and close friends after both serving time together in Afghanistan. 

When Mike Bartlett sent actress Victoria Hamilton the script for his latest television series, Life, she felt a bit confused at first. “I was reading this wonderful character Belle, and I suddenly thought, I know this woman! I emailed Mike and told him she really reminded me of Anna, my character in Doctor Foster. Mike sent me back a very short email, ‘Yes, it is Anna. Anna Belle.’”

The charity has launched the first ever industry-wide study, The Looking Glass, to get an insight into the wellbeing and mental health of those working in the TV and film industry and how could they be supported better.

The launch is accompanied by a short film titled Smashed? starring Alex Reece, which has been created by music video director Tim Pope and voiced by actor Adrian Lester.

I’ve always loved acting, I just caught the bug.

It’s become an old saying now, but if you can make a living doing what you love, then you’ll never have to work a day in your life. That has certainly been what it’s felt like for me. The hardest thing to deal with is what happens when you're not able to work, and you either have to take another job or just be frustrated and wait. There’s all sorts of disappointments waiting for you, and I think the measure of professionalism in our career is how you handle disappointments, not how you handle success.

Multi-award-winning actress Helen Mirren will star in new four-part drama Catherine the Great. The  series will explore the politically tumultuous and sexually charged court of the most powerful female monarch in history.

She wielded supreme power throughout Russia for nearly half of the 18th century. “She rewrote the rules of governance by a woman, and succeeded to the extent of having the word Great attached to her name, Catherine the Great,” said Mirren.

Trauma focuses on two fathers Jon Allerton (Adrian Lester) and Dan Bowker (John Simm), whose lives collide when Bowker's teenage son is fatally stabbed, dying in Allerton's trauma unit. 

Bowker blames trauma surgeon Allerton for his son's tragic death and embarks on a desperate hunt for justice he struggles to deal with his loss, with Allerton as his target. 

As Bowker unravels every aspect of Allerton's life, it poses the question: is his grief overpowering his judgment or is there more to Allerton than meets the eye?