'IT'S TIME TO GO, BUT NOT QUIETLY' (29/3/03)

This interview with Tony O'Callaghan (aka Sergeant Matt Boyden) is from today's Daily Record.

For someone who originally joined The Bill as a stop-gap character for three months, Tony O'Callaghan has certainly had a good run for his money. As the opportunistic and occasionally dodgy Sergeant Matt Boyden, Tony has been a distinctive presence along the corridors of Sun Hill police station for 12 years. But now his time is up and in an explosive storyline Boyden is about to be written out of the show by being gunned down in cold blood.

"You'll see a car coming towards me in the street with a gun coming out of the side window - then shots are fired and I'm dead" says 46-year-old Tony, who recently filmed his final scenes in Brixton market, south London. The episode in question should be aired in early May, yet although the decision to kill Boyden off was out of Tony's hands the actor remains refreshingly upbeat about his departure. One reason is probably that over the next few weeks the lead-up to Boyden's demise puts him firmly centre-stage in a multi-layered storyline - including underage sex and drug-dealing within his own family - that ensure his exit will be a memorable one.

"OK so Boyden is going to die" says Tony, "But I've been given four big simultaneous storylines and it's better to go out with a bang than to nip out of the station for a packet of biros and get knocked over. In a way I consider myself lucky to get this kind of farewell." Boyden's dramatic exit is all part of The Bill's major ongoing shake-up by the executive producer Paul Marquess, who notoriously instigated last year's controversial firebomb plot to get rid of half a dozen long-running characters in one fell swoop.

"Of course we were all a bit shocked to lose so many regulars like that" muses Tony "But Paul is a man who knows what he wants an I'm sure the show will keep changing. So when he told me I was going I honestly didn't feel hurt or hard done by" he says. "To get 12 years on any job is pretty amazing - while I've been lucky enough to get some nice episodes, these storylines are probably the best. It gives Boyden some juicy dilemmas other than routine policing stuff."

Over the past couple of weeks viewers have already seen Boyden becoming embroiled with Abigail Nixon, the young daughter of Sun Hill's new Detective Inspector Samantha Nixon (Lisa Maxwell). Fifteen year old Abi (played by Peter Davison's daughter Georgia Moffett) has been assigned to the station for work experience and Boyden is the one given the job as "babysitter." "They become a lot more than friendly shall we say and yet somehow Boyden has no idea she's underage" says Tony. "So it's all got a little messy. I think we'll see a situation where all the female population is against Boyden for obvious reasons and the male population is more unsure because Abi isn't unattractive. To put it bluntly they might be thinking 'there but for the grace if God go I'. After all Abi is the one that came on to him, She's 15 but he's thinking she's 18 at least."

Another equally headline-grabbing story coming up involves Boyden's discovery that his own wayward daughter Amy (played by Sasha Pick) has become involved in drug-dealing and that her toddler daughter - his grand-daughter - has inadvertently been given crack cocaine. Coupled with two secondary storylines - linking Boyden to a trigger-happy Triad gang and the vengeful brother of a suicide case that Boyden failed to stop - there are clearly plenty of people out to get Tony. All of which leads to the inevitable Dallas/EastEnders-style question:
"Who Shot Matt Boyden?"

Not even Tony knows the answer to that one "The producers won't tell me" he smiles "But there are at least four threads to follow." Boyden's death is certainly being milked for all its worth. The investigation into the sergeant's brutal murder forms the basis of the opening episode of M.I.T. (Murder Investigation Team) - a new spin-off series from The Bill starring Lindsey Coulson and Samantha Spiro as murder detectives in the Sun Hill area. Cagney and Lacey it certainly isn't but its post-watershed placing (set for Saturday evenings from early May) will give room to grittier more adult material than it's weekday sister programme.

The actor's scenes, with Boyden's toddler grand-daughter in hospital after accidentally taking cocaine proved particularly emotional - not least because Tony himself has a 14-month-old baby Molly by his wife of four years Siobhan."There's one scene where Boyden goes to the hospital after this little girl has had her stomach pumped and he's there as she comes around" he says "As the father of a year-old daughter that hits home big time" Now freed of The Bill's shackles Tony - London born of Irish parentage - feels "a bit like Doctor Who coming out of the Tardis" as he himself puts it. One thing he wont miss is the daily drive from his home in Crouch End to south Wimbledon where most of The Bill is filmed. "When Molly was born I was full-on in the show - up first thing in the morning - and when I got home at night she was in bed so I did feel I was missing out on something."

Bizarrely enough Tony's very first appearance on The Bill was as a villain back in the days when the episodes were half-an-hour long. Then the casting directors were looking for a sergeant and called him up for a screen test. "At that time it was only going to be for six months" recalls Tony who underwent actor training at The Drama Centre in London, "It was a small fill-in character. But then I was asked to consider doing another three months. Boyden must have caught the imagination of the public and here we are some 12 years later." At present Tony has no definite plans on the job front but he would love to return to the theatre - which provided the bulk of his work in the pre-Bill days. "At this juncture I haven't a clue what I'm going to do" he smiles "We've just bought a two-bedroomed cottage in Ireland - West Cork, by the sea - and it'll be a chance to get over there and do some work on it. I spent a lot of my childhood going to Ireland for the summer holidays" Tony remembers warmly "What I'd love to do is some theatre in Ireland - combine the best of both worlds. Whatever happens, it's all been both exciting and frightening" he concludes. "But that's good for an actor - it's time to extend myself and show that I can do something more than nick people."