Douglas Henshall may seem to have rocketed to the giddy heights of fame in the blink of an eye, but he doesn't see it quite like that.
"It always makes me laugh," he says, "this idea of overnight success. It's a long night, that's all I can say."
Henshall is the rising star of Psychos, Channel 4's new, challenging six- part drama set in a Glasgow psychiatric ward.
Tracking the unusual lives and relationships of a young medical team and their parents as they struggle with the extraordinary pressures of life in a highly-charged, fast-moving and sometimes anarchic hospital environment, Psychos marks the TV writing debut of David Wolstencroft.
Concentrating on the doctors and nurses on the ward, it features a strong and distinctive cast of characters, including Neve McIntosh and Indira Varma, whose stories instantly engage attention as their personal and professional alliances and animosities are played out against the challenges presented by a shifting patient population.
Pivotal to the series is the relationship between the impulsive Dr Danny Nash (Henshall) and his strikingly attractive colleague Dr Kate Millar (McIntosh). In tonight's first episode, Dr Nash accompanies the police to an incident in Glasgow's Easterhouse. Billy McLeod, a former psychiatric patient has barricaded himself into his flat.
The police have to section him and Billy is admitted to the Nicholson Ward of Muirpark Hospital, where Kate Millar - the junior doctor on Nash's medical team - assesses his mental state. Later, during a ward round, Kate announces that she believes Billy is a paranoid schizophrenic and should be treated with a course of medication. This brings her into conflict with Nash whose own diagnosis is simply that they're `coming to get him'.
Daily Record 1st May 1999