From Spooks to the New Vic!

A former Spooks star is swapping the world of espionage for middle-aged love in the New Vic’s production of A Fine Bright Day Today this summer.

Best known for his role of Malcolm Wynn-Jones in BBC1 hit series Spooks, Hugh Simon is appearing as Milton in Philip Goulding’s powerful play from Friday 6 to Saturday 21 July.

Directed by award-winning Peter Leslie Wild, whose directing credits include BBC Radio 4’sThe Archers, big-hearted A Fine Bright Day Today is set in a northern coastal town and looks at moving on, chance meetings and middle-aged love.

Margaret has been widowed for more than 30 years, her trawlerman husband lost at sea. Now grown-up daughter Rebecca is making waves and leaving home to move in with her boyfriend. So Margaret gets ready for a life of meals for one, washing up and making sure she’s turned off the gas.

But when she impulsively agrees to take in a lodger, it’s not long before he’s disturbing the calm, dripping rainwater on her nice clean floors and appearing for breakfast in his boxers.

And Milton turns out to have hidden depths so maybe they won’t just be ships in the night. And maybe, when you think life is all washed up, you might just find there’s a future after all.

A familiar face from the likes of Shackleton and Cold Feet, Simon played data analyst and technician Malcolm Wynn-Jones in Spooks from 2002 to 2010 and recently appeared in romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Making his debut at the New Vic, he will be joined onstage by Janine Birkett as Margaret and Hayley Doherty as Rebecca.

Birkett, who appeared in the hit film Billy Elliot, returns to the New Vic after roles in the theatre-in-the-round’s The Snow Queen, To Kill a Mockingbird and Once a Catholic.

No stranger to working in-the-round, theatre and radio drama director Peter Leslie Wild worked at London’s own theatre-in the-round, the Orange Tree Theatre, before moving into radio.

Spending 16 years as a senior producer for BBC Radio Drama his work included ground-breaking drama-documentaries and five series of Falco among much more.

Describing A Fine Bright Day Today as ‘life-affirming’, Wild said: “It is a play about how grief can turn into hope for the future. What is appealing about this play for me is that it is a really good story of character.

“The writing really gets into the characters’ psychologies and asks important questions about how we face up to life as a single person in a modern world.”

A Fine Bright Day Today runs at the New Vic from Friday 6 to Saturday 21 July. Tickets, priced from £10.50 to £19.50, are available by telephoning the Box Office on 01782 717962 or online.