Fresh from Trigger Point, Vicky McClure is finally ready to leave crime dramas behind

Vicky McClure can reveal only one thing about Line of Duty’s hotly anticipated return, which has been shrouded in secrecy since the seventh series of the TV show was announced. “We had loads of curries,” she says. 

It’s the sort of down-to-earth response you’d expect from the Nottingham-born actress, who sits cross-legged as she joins hello! for this exclusive interview. But although she is the undisputed face of gritty British TV dramas, Vicky, 43, is ready for a change of pace.

“I love the fact that people think I’m capable of defusing bombs and carrying machine guns, but it would be nice to step into a lighter space,” says the actress, whose starring role opposite Martin Compston and Adrian Dunbar in the hit BBC police drama paved the way for top billing in primetime crime dramas such as Trigger Point and Broadchurch.

“It’s a bit difficult now, because ‘crime thriller’ is all that’s on offer,” she says. “That’s the nature of what most people are getting commissioned.”

Stepping into a lighter space

The Bafta Award-winning actress, who broke into the industry with her portrayal of Lol in Shane Meadows’s seminal 2006 coming-of-age drama This Is England, believes there is a “middle ground” between drama and comedy that seems to have disappeared from our screens.

“If it’s not a crime thriller or a comedy, but it’s drama-ish and quite funny, a bit like This Is England… are we not allowed to make that any more?”

Vicky is back on screens as the explosives officer Lana Washington in the fourth season of Trigger Point, which arrives on ITV this month. Is there anything she’s learnt during four years of stepping into Lana’s steel-toed boots?

“Standing up for yourself,” Vicky says. “She’ll get frustrated when the powers-that-be won’t let her do something that she feels will get the right result, and she’ll bypass that sometimes because she knows it’s life or death. That kind of strength is really admirable.”

Working alongside her husband, Jonny Owen

The actress displays the same type of determination when it comes to her work. Alongside her husband, the Welsh producer Jonny Owen, 55, whom she married in 2023, Vicky co-founded the production company Build Your Own Films (BYO) to champion working-class voices.

Yet even with the help of her star power, getting passion projects backed by broadcasters remains an uphill battle. “We’ve had so many brilliant projects that you’ll never see,” says Vicky, whose company co-produced the ITV drama Without Sin, in which she also starred.

“BYO was about giving writers from working-class backgrounds a chance to write their stories and a chance to write authentically. But if you’re not getting the green light, you can’t make it, and eventually you have to close these projects. 

“But I’m not going to produce something I don’t believe in, and I don’t want to do it with people who already have well-progressed careers.”

It’s clear that uplifting others is at the heart of everything Vicky does. In 2018, she formed Our Dementia Choir, inspired by her late grandmother Iris, who lived with the condition and found comfort in music. The actress was subsequently awarded an MBE for services to drama and to charity in 2023.

That year, she and Jonny launched Day Fever, a popular daytime disco designed for over-thirties who love to dance but want to be in bed at a reasonable hour.

“Day Fever was Jonny’s creation. I just love a dance, so I was like: ‘This sounds amazing,'” says Vicky, who describes working with her husband as a “big bonus”. 

“We love working together because when we’re not, nine times out of ten, I’m working somewhere and he’s working somewhere and it means we don’t get to see each other a lot,” she says.

“In the past couple of weeks, since I’ve been back from filming Line of Duty, Jonny and I have been to a few Day Fevers, as well as hanging out and driving in the car. It’s been so nice.”

Staying loyal to Nottingham

One of the other great loves of her life is her native Nottingham. Unlike a lot of celebrities who trade their rural roots for the bright lights of London, Vicky has remained loyal to her home city – so much so that she chose not to transfer the Nottingham Playhouse’s production of Stephen Lowe’s play Touched to the capital following its two-week run in 2017.

“I was really proud of it and it was a really nice success in Nottingham,” she says. “But I always said that I would never transfer it, because I wanted to give it to Nottingham as Nottingham’s thing. Don’t get me wrong, London is famous for its fantastic theatre, but I didn’t take it any further.”

Would she consider a run in the West End in the future? “I don’t think you rule anything out in this game,” she says. “It’s a bit of a roll of the dice. Let’s see what happens.”

Trigger Point season four is available to stream on ITVX.