Derby actor Nicholas Burns is preparing for arguably his biggest role to date: he has secured a part in the new series of the long-running ITV crime drama Unforgotten.

You may know Nick from when he played the lead role in the Channel 4 comedy Nathan Barley. That was all of 20 years ago. He was also in four series of the ITV holiday comedy series Benidorm alongside Sheridan Smith and Johnny Vegas.

Now he will be a regular in the seventh series of Unforgotten which stars Sanjeev Bhaskar as Detective Inspector Sunny Khan who investigates cold-case murders. More than seven million viewers watched the last series which was streamed more than 24 million times on the free platform ITVX.

Nick reveals he’ll be playing a podcast producer: “He’s quite a flawed character. It’s a fun character to play because he’s a bit edgy.”

If you’ve any doubts that acting can be fun, you need to speak to Nick for only a few minutes and he’ll tell you what a thrilling profession it is.

Comedy characters come naturally to Nick: “I seem to play people who are a bit tw*ttish, I suppose for want of a better word. But they’re fun characters to play – the more awful the better, I think.”

“It was a real Who’s Who of young talent at the time. A lot of them have gone on to amazing things. It was a really exciting project to be part of.”

Nathan Barley, the character who gave Nick his first major television role, definitely fell into that category.

“He was a new-media idiot who thought he was cool and wasn’t. He was a very annoying person who buzzed around and irritated people. That was hugely fun to play because he was a real type – I still see those sorts of people knocking about London. If you go to East London it’s full of Nathans.”

Written by Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris, the series Nathan Barley had a fabulous cast including Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Whishaw. “It was a real Who’s Who of young talent at the time. A lot of them have gone on to amazing things. It was a really exciting project to be part of,” says Nick.

His next major role was in Benidorm as Martin Weedon, the laid-back holidaymaker whose wife thinks the Solana hotel is below her class.

“Martin was quite sweet but hapless, pretty weak and totally dominated by his wife.

“They got together such an amazing cast: Steve Pemberton, Siobhan Finneran, Sheila Reed and Abigail Cruttenden as my wife Kate. It was just a really fun job with brilliant people and I loved every minute.”

Nicholas Burns was born at the old City Hospital in Derby in 1977. He went to Repton School where he did lots of acting.

“They cast me in nice parts so it was definitely a huge part of my decision (to become a professional actor). When I was talking to careers advisers they weren’t massively encouraging but they weren’t discouraging either. I was told it was fine for a hobby but not for a profession. But I was pretty adamant and they went with it.”

Nick’s parents loved watching him perform and he says they were “quite an arty family”. But they advised him to have something to fall back on. So he went to Royal Holloway, part of the University of London, where he got a degree in English and drama.

Afterwards he secured a place at LAMDA – the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art – and was thankful for his parents’ guidance.

“I think I would have struggled if I’d gone to drama school when I was 18. It’s not like university where you do seven hours of lectures a week. It’s very full on and intensive and I don’t think I’d have had the maturity at 18 to cope with that.”

Nick picked up his first television job while he was still at drama school – “it was a weird thing. It was on the Play UK channel which became BBC Choice and then BBC3. It was called Swivel On The Tip. I don’t think you can watch it anywhere now.

“It was a comedy thing and it was huge fun. I had a really brilliant time doing it. That introduced me to the comedy department at the BBC and they started getting me in for little parts.”

A few months later Nick did his first play, William Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, at Nottingham Playhouse. He played Lucentio, one of the young lovers.

Nowadays most of Nick’s work is in television and he also acts in the occasional film. He loves the theatre but plays “are such a huge undertaking. I’ve got a family. It takes up so much of your time and makes home life quite hard. I have to be very judicious about what theatre I do and keep it to one play a year if I can.”

A recent highlight of Nick’s career was appearing in three episodes of the psychological thriller The Girlfriend, a television mini-series for Amazon Prime Video. It was directed by Robin Wright who played the President’s wife Claire Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House Of Cards, earning her a Golden Globe award for best actress.

“My ambition is to play interesting characters in good projects. And if I can do that, I’ll be happy.”

“It was real thrill to work with her,” says Nick. “She was brilliant and lovely, so that was a really fun experience.”

So what is Nick most proud of in his career? “I’m proud of a lot of it but what I think most about is Nathan Barley. That changed everything for me really.

“There are lots of things I’ve loved. I did a job a couple of years ago called A Small Light which was a Disney+ show about Anne Frank. That was a thrill to be a part of and the end result was really great. So it’s difficult to pick one thing out.”

As for ambition, Nick is no different from a lot of actors in that he just wants to continue working.

“My ambition is to play interesting characters in good projects. And if I can do that, I’ll be happy.”

One thing Nick would love to do would be to star in his own detective series.

“Funnily enough I’ve just done a couple of detective jobs. I wasn’t a detective but I was in Grantchester (alongside James Norton and Robson Green) and Death In Paradise. I asked myself what it would be like to be a detective on a show like that and I suppose it would be really fun.

“It’s all about the writing but that would be something I would definitely not be averse to. I love watching whodunnits. The really great detectives, the ones you remember, Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Miss Marple, Columbo, they’re all really interesting characters. I would want it to be a fun, interesting character to play. But that would be amazing.”

Acting takes up so much of Nick’s time but when he gets the chance he watches his favourite team Derby County. His dad was a big fan and took Nick to games and now “they’re my team and always will be.”

His sons Arthur who is 15 and 13-year-old Ralph go to matches with Nick. But his wife Louise doesn’t go to games. Nor does their 11-year-old daughter Dora even though she plays football at school.

Nick is optimistic about the Rams’ prospects this season: “I don’t think the top six is out of the question. We’ve got a good squad, a good manager and something is beginning. So if it’s not this season, then hopefully next season we’ll make it to the promised land.”

People may remember Nick Burns as Nathan Barley, Martin Weedon in Benidorm or even for his new role in Unforgotten. But what would he like his legacy to be?

“As a good bloke, a kind person and a selfless actor. I think that’s how I’d like to be remembered.”

* This article originally appeared in Country Images magazine