‘Even bikers like Vera!'

Ahead of her 10th series, star Brenda Blethyn on the crime–cracking phenomenon that is DCI Vera Stanhope…

- Tess Lamacraft

Sitting down for a chat and a cup of tea with Brenda Blethyn is just like meeting up with your favourite aunt.

Fun, self-deprecating, and peppering her replies with her trademark ‘t’rrific!’, she’s always a joy to spend time. She welcomes TV Times into the room at ITV HQ with a beaming smile and straight away offers us one of the chocolate biscuits sitting temptingly nearby.

Brenda has good reason to be happy. The 2019 series of her ITV crime drama, Vera, reached an average audience of 7.8 million viewers – an astounding figure for a show on its ninth run.

‘When I did the pilot episode, I was just hoping they’d do three more episodes to make an actual series!’ laughs Brenda, who plays the title role of no-messing DCI Vera Stanhope. ‘But here we now on series 10. It’s t’rrific!’

Here, Brenda, 73, who co-stars alongside Kenny Doughty (DS Aiden Healy), tells us why she thinks the show is so popular…

What do you think is the secret of the show’s success?

People enjoy trying to work out whodunnit. It’s good family viewing and it concentrates on the crime – it doesn’t dwell on the private lives of the main cast. Also, no one’s sitting at home lusting after Vera! The wives might be lusting after Kenny but then the husbands love it when Vera gives Aiden a good telling-off.