Monroe

A lovely new interview with Tom for Metro has been posted online accompanied by a really gorgeous photo by Faye Thomas. See and read it in full on the website. Tom chats about the sex stuff, training while filming Monroe and getting into the mind of da Vinci.

‘So you want to go straight for the sex stuff?’ Tom Riley grins good-naturedly as we sit down to talk about his starring role as Leonardo in new TV series Da Vinci’s Demons. Well I hadn’t actually; normally, I go in for a little interview foreplay. But I’d dropped the word ‘bawdy’ into my icebreaker and Riley is happy to get the sex stuff on the table.

‘Shows such as Game Of Thrones have changed the rules about what cable TV can do – the nudity and violence is there, the gloves are off,’ he says. ‘As an actor, you trust that it’s part of the action.’ Wasn’t he anxious when reading the script that page 46 would say ‘Leonardo gets his arse out’? ‘A little bit,’ he laughs, ‘but it’s all very tasteful.’ The glint in his eye is tongue in cheek...

Series 2 of Monroe will begin broadcast in New Zealand on Prime TV tomorrow night 24th February at 9.45pm.

Prime is pleased to welcome James Nesbitt back to New Zealand television screens as titular neurosurgeon Gabriel Monroe, in the second series of the hit British drama Monroe.

Eighteen months on and Monroe’s confidence ebbs and flows, both in his personal life and his professional. As always, the stakes are high when it comes to brain surgery and, win or lose, the challenge is to pick yourself up and head back into work again the next day. When new clinical nurse Lizzie (Tracy-Ann Oberman) arrives at St Matthew’s the patients now have specially trained emotional support while Monroe himself, still smarting from his recent divorce, may just have one more reason to turn up to work… or not. As far as he’s concerned, if anyone’s talking to his patients, it should be him, not some specialist nurse, no matter how pretty. For his colleagues Shepard (Tom Riley) and Bremner (Sarah Parish) it’s a daily struggle maintaining a healthy balance as they juggle the demands of work with their gorgeous baby boy. Can they make their relationship work or will transgressions on both sides spell disaster?

Both series of Monroe begin broadcast in Germany and France on the ARTE channel from Thursday 21st February. 

The German and French ARTE sites have video clips and photos from the series.

Visit the sites for full listings.

There is a lovely review for series 2 of Monroe and for Tom's performance, on This Way Up blogspot, along with a perceptive analysis of the reasons for the low audience numbers during the recent broadcast. Read it in full on the blog.

Pitted against the BBC’s New Tricks which is the corporation’s highest rated ongoing drama series, Monroe was doomed. It is a shame because the series was showing all the vital signs of growth and development and had it been screened on a different night the story could be different...

...Last season’s most surprising development was the relationship between Lawrence and Jenny. This too brings both surgical teams closer together in story terms as the duo now have a baby but also commitment issues to deal with. Both actors- Tom Riley and Sarah Parish—give such convincing performances as the couple share awkward encounters in the kitchen or with a counsellor. You really feel for the fact that neither seems to be able to communicate what they feel. When Lawrence sleeps with Whitney it adds an extra tension to the workplace...