TOUGH TO BEAT GAMBON:

Although at first he turned down the character made famous on British screens by Michael Gambon 20 years ago and by Rupert Davies in the 60s, the producers came back to him and asked if he would reconsider.

"So I thought about it for longer again and I decided I would.What appealed to me about it was the very challenge that I found difficult. The decision to do it was related to the fact the character is a very ordinary man and, generally speaking, I haven't played many ordinary men. I've played ... more characterised people, people who are slightly odd or eccentric."

Referring to other famous fictional policemen such as Poirot and Inspector Morse, Atkinson said: "Maigret hasn't got a lisp or a French accent or no particular love of opera or all those other things that people tend to attach to many fictional detectives. He's just an ordinary guy doing an extraordinary job.

"I really wasn't sure I could do it. I found it difficult when we were shooting it was a couple of weeks before I settled into not worrying, into finding a way of delivering those lines."

Tweet   @brothersjudd