Character: Lawrence Gascoigne
Actor: Oliver Ford Davies
Episode: A Lesson In Murder

Oliver Ford Davies makes a return to the legal profession for his role as Judge Lawrence Gascoigne in Foyle's War.

"I played Peter Foxcott, the Head of Chambers, in Kavanagh QC and wanted to work with the director David Thacker again. My take on Lawrence is that he's not a successful barrister so decided to become a judge, which is more prestigious, but doesn't pay more.

"He married Emily, who has inherited an enormous house but has no money, so he has to keep up the house on a County Court Judge's wage. He is snobbish and enjoys being a big fish in a little pond. He's also a stiff, unbending man who likes getting into his country tweed clothes and sees himself as a great landowner."

Gascoigne lords it over his wife, played by Cheryl Campbell, and his daughter Susan (Sophia Myles).

"Susan regards him as a bully, which he is, essentially. I think he belongs to that generation that grew up before the First World War, then found the 20s and 30s hard to take. He can't deal with things like the emancipation of women or jazz - at heart he is a true Victorian."

Adds Oliver: "I had worked with Cheryl before in The Way We Live Now so that helped when we met again in Foyle's War. Sophia has a truthful, emotional naturalism about her, and with Cheryl's experience I couldn't have asked for a better family."

Oliver began work in the 1960s after first working as a history lecturer at Edinburgh University. He has worked extensively for the RSC and Royal National Theatre and won an Olivier Award as Best Actor in 1990.

His other television credits include A Very British Coup, The Cloning of Joanna May, Goodbye Cruel World, Anglo Saxon Attitudes, Between The Lines, David Copperfield, My Uncle Silas and Bertie and Elizabeth, while on film he has appeared in Defence of the Realm, Scandal, Sense and Sensibility, Mrs Brown, Titanic Town and Star Wars Episodes I and II.

Oliver played King Lear at the Almeida this year and a diary of his experiences is published this autumn. He has also completed two films, Johnny English, a spoof James Bond, starring Rowan Atkinson and directed by Peter Howitt, and Hanif Kureishi's The Mother.

"In Johnny English I play the Archbishop of Canterbury, but Rowan doesn't know if I am real or false, which was fun. The Mother stars Ann Reid as a widow in her 60s, who starts a sexual relationship with a younger man. She also has a fling with me, playing Bruce - but alas it's only a one night stand."

September 2002; Publicity Release