Jason Manford on joining the BBC school drama

Jason Manford joins BBC One’s hit school drama Waterloo Road when it returns on Tuesday, playing new headteacher Steve Savage. Here he talks about filming in his home town, how many of his scenes were shot in a single take and what he was like as a pupil…

How excited are you to be in the series?

I'm delighted! It's such a legendary show, not just on the BBC, but right here in the North West and Manchester as well. It's as big as Corrie. It feels like a big northern powerhouse of a show that's been on for years. 

It was funny, really, because my kids started watching it during lockdown on iPlayer, and I was sort of half watching it and then suddenly you start fully watching it and then it turns out it wasn't just me, it wasn’t just us, it was millions of people. It was one of the most watched shows on iPlayer. 

And so now, to then get the call, to ask ‘do you want to be in it?’ and also the fact that I was available to do it, it felt like a real privilege.

What was it like being on the set?

It was nerve-racking because it's a show that's got people who've been in it for years, and they're all friends, and it's like a little family there. But everyone was very welcoming. It felt like they were as excited to see me as I was to see them.

Tell us about your character, Steve Savage…

It’s such a brilliant storyline I remember being on the train when they sent me the synopsis of what was going to happen and I was like ‘Wow, that's amazing’. I think it's going to surprise a lot of people, I've just got a feeling it will be one of those moments where you’re at work the next day, and you're chatting about it, like ‘oh my god, did you see that?’

I think Steve Savage is the head teacher that you want at your kid’s school, he's one of those people who wants the school to be the best and will do what he can. He might cross the odd line, and get a phone call from the education authority to say that he’s gone a bit far but he's got the best interest of the school at heart.

Fundamentally, he's ambitious. He's a self-made man, from a poor background and from the care system and he’s been told all his childhood that he'll amount to nothing by the same sort of teachers that he's now the boss of. So, it was a really interesting character to play because he's quite a complex man. 

It would have been easy to come in and just be fun and charismatic and charming but at the centre of him is ambition and when it comes to ambition in the wrong hands and in the wrong circumstances, ambition can be dangerous.

How do the other teachers react to Steve when he becomes the new head?

I think Steve is that sort of manager who wants to be your mate and so that works out quite nicely for me.

He doesn't start off as the head teacher, he starts off just trying to help the academy, and then after a sort of disastrous first day with Mr. Casey, he's asked to step in and save the day. Even though he's trying to get Mr. Casey to be the head teacher, I think he secretly was glad to be back driving the ship.

Did you know any of the other cast members prior to filming? 

I knew Neil Fitzmaurice probably the best because we're both comedians, and I remember seeing Neil when I was still just washing glasses behind the bar and he was the headline comedian, and obviously went on to write Phoenix Nights with Peter Kay [and Dave Spikey] and be in all those things so I've known Neil for my whole career.

Kym Marsh, [above] I've known for a long time as well and we've always nearly worked together on the odd thing here and there so it’s really nice it’s finally happened. And to have a sort of ‘will they, won't they’ romantic element to it as well with Kym was great, because I've known her so long so it just felt comfortable.

Adam Thomas [below with Kym and Jason], I've known for a while too but other than that, it was mostly new people and just getting to know them but it's such a lovely family there.

Did you draw from your own school days and any teachers that you had?

Yeah, I did a little bit. I had two teachers at my school in mind. I was thinking about both of them because they were a bit of a good cop, bad cop duo. You never wanted to get sent to one of them because he was terrifying and if you got sent to the other, he was a bit more like your mate and would go for a bit of a roll of the eyes, but then if you disappointed him, that would be worse than getting told off.

I remember one of them being very imposing, when he walked on the playground, everyone knew he was on the playground and I feel like Mr. Savage has got a little bit of that, and the other teacher, he had that charming exterior and everyone liked him, staff loved him, and I actually think he went on to save a few schools.

What were you like as a student?

I was one of those ‘in the middle kids’. I wasn't dead bad, but I wasn't dead good either. I wasn't great at football, but wasn't the worst, I was just in the middle and I just had a laugh. 

That was the main thing, I just got stuck into all the drama and music and I was involved in all the plays, which is funny because there's parts of the story where Steve Savage, has to make some big decisions about the drama and music department, and it's quite funny, because he makes exactly the opposite decisions that I would make when it comes to drama and music.

Can you tell us about any funny moments on set?

We got into this thing with a couple of directors, where you do a scene and they would go, ‘right, that's a take’. And you were like ‘what, first take?’ which is sort of unheard of, really, it usually takes 2,3,4 goes at everything. So, we ended up doing a ‘league of one takes’. I got a trophy for it somewhere because I got the most one takes that they'd ever had.

There's obviously two ways of looking at it, which is, you were so good that the director's gone ‘It doesn't get better than that. That's the take. Thank you!’ Or you're so bad they've gone ‘Well, it's not going to get better than that!’ So it depends on how you take it but it did get really competitive.

It became like a thing, we joked that if you did really well at the league table, you might get promoted to Line of Duty or you might get relegated to something else. So it got very competitive, but it was very funny and god forbid what happened when they got to the edit and all they had were one takes.

How fun was it to be able to film in your hometown of Manchester?

That was brilliant, and actually what was amazing was nobody found out while we were doing it. I got to stay at home and so I was back home every night and able to hang out with the kids. Even the location stuff, we filmed some scenes right near my mum and dad's house and they walked down with the dog and came and watched.

Waterloo Road has always broached difficult topics. Has the new series continued this?

Definitely. We deal with a lot of subjects, even away from my main storyline, which deals with things like bullying and the care system and whether certain kids get left behind. You know, there's lots of big issues like that. We also had an episode where a group of deaf children are transferred to the school and showing the difficulties they have integrating with hearing kids and that was really powerful, it's a really important episode.

How do you think Waterloo Road reflects modern life in a school?

I've got mates who are teachers who really enjoy the show because of its realism. What's nice is everyone feels like a three dimensional, real life character and with layers and problems. 

Nobody's all good, nobody's all bad. And that's real life. I do think it reflects what a lot of schools, certainly big schools in the big cities can be like and the difficulties they face and hopefully points a little mirror at the education in this country.

• All episodes of Waterloo Road will be on iPlayer from 6am on Tuesday, with episode one airing on BBC One at 9pm.

Published: 8 Sep 2024