We will survive

2:27pm Thursday 20th November 2008

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Survivors is back on BBC and updates the impact of a deadly virus attack. Max Beesley, Zoe Tapper and Freema Agyeman reflect on the consequences. Viv Hardwick reports.

MAX Beesley studied US mafia hit-man Richard ‘The Iceman’ Kuklinski to prepare for the role of “charming sociopath” Tom Price in a re-imagining of 1970s BBC1 series Survivors which hits our screens next week.

“He killed hundreds, did some really dark stuff, and yet he was very eloquent, seemed very together, and that’s what is so terrifying,” says Beesley, who shot to fame thanks to bawdy BBC romp, Tom Jones, in 1997.

Survivors focuses on the aftermath of a devastating virus which has wiped out most of the world’s population. The few people left face a fight to survive and not just in terms of finding food and water. Terry Nation came up with the original novel and Adrian Hodges has brought the storyline up to date and put Beesley’s character inside a prison cell as the warders and inmates are struck down by infection.

Beesley says: “Price is serving a life sentence and while the viewers know what he’s capable of, the rest of the characters have no idea, at least not for a while. What interests me is how a man like Price behaves – they go from 0 to 100, bang, just like that without any qualms or sense of morality holding them back.

“He’s the sort of guy that when push comes to shove, whereas you or I might have an argument with someone, he could quite easily kill them.”

The change in Price’s criminal behaviour is due to meeting women socially for the first time in years and he finds himself attracted to actress Zoe Tapper’s character, Anya.

“Anya is someone who gets holds of his emotional psyche.

Sociopaths are control freaks and she intrigues him because he loses control of his emotions with her,” explains Beesley.

Tapper plays a doctor haunted by the fact that she’s the only one to escape from the wards alive.

“Watching everyone dying and not being able to do anything about it is such a distressing thing for someone whose profession it is to save lives. She pretty much has a huge breakdown and has to make a decision to move on, but she is very distrustful of people and keeps her secrets very wellguarded,”

she says.

Anya becomes an object of desire for Beesley’s Tom and actor Phillip Rhys’ playboy Al.

Tapper says: “The dynamic between the men is great.

Adrian Hodges plants a lot of seeds so there’s opportunities for the characters to go in a number of different directions and that keeps it really fresh.”

She admits that, as an actress, her survival skills are pretty hopeless.

Doctor Who and Torchwood star Freema Agyeman, who plays teacher Jenny Collins, recently moved from constantly saving the world to appearing in the latest BBC classic serial, Little Dorrit – which runs three hours earlier than Survivors on Sunday.

It would be tempting to judge this latest series as another scifi, but Agyeman feels differently.

“First and foremost it’s a very powerful human drama. It’s very raw and it feels real. People will watch it and imagine how they react in the same situation. Do we know ourselves well enough to know how we would handle it?

“Most people’s instinct would be to band together with other survivors, but you could never be totally sure of their motives, so you could be putting yourself in jeopardy.

“The story is ultimately about hope and the triumph of the human spirit, but as the series develops you see the flipside of that, and not everyone does the right thing.”

Beesley has vague memories of the original Survivors, despite being only four, when it aired in 1975.

“I can remember little bits and pieces, people’s faces and stuff, so my mum and dad must have watched it, but I’m sure I was more interested in sweets at the time,” he says.

■ Survivors runs on BBC1 on Sunday and Tuesday at 9pm