The BANK JOB!

AMANDA ABBINGTON on playing a mum who'd do anything to save her troubled son

- HANNAH DAVIES

DESPERATE MEASURES

NEW TUESDAY-FRIDAY, 9PM, CHANNEL 5 DRAMA

A hard-working single mum finds herself staging a dangerous heist in Channel 5’s star-spangled new action thriller Desperate Measures.

The four-part series sees Amanda Abbington (The Family Pile) play Rowan, who’s busy raising her studious teenage son, Finn (newcomer Jesse Cescatti-McFarlane), while holding down a job as a clerk in a Manchester bank. Her world, however, is turned upside down after her lad is coerced into a botched drug deal and ends up in debt to a violent gang leader, Kristof (Halo actor Gábor Nagypál), to the tune of £25,000.

With Finn’s life in danger, Rowan has just days to pay back the money and comes up with a risky plan to raid her bank’s vaults with the help of her armed-robber ex Patrick (Trigger Point’s Warren Brown) and her best friend and colleague Varisha (Ackley Bridge star Sunetra Sarker).

Here, Amanda, 48, gives us the inside story…

How would you describe this drama? 

It’s a really compelling, exciting series about a mother’s love, what she’ll do for her child and whether she gets away with it or not. Rowan has totally fallen in at the deep end and she’s struggling to get out. It’s up to viewers to draw their own moral conclusions about the heist. But if people go away talking about that, then I’ll be very happy!

This is your first lead role. How did you find it?