I've become much choosier about the parts I'll accept...

Canon Clement Mysteries star Amanda Redman on playing strong women, becoming a grandmother and why Trump shouldn't sue the BBC over its Panorama documentary FIRST, it was Grantchester, just about to come to an end with its tenth and final series. Now the Rev Richard Coles has stepped into the breach with his ecclesiastical, cosy crime Canon Clement Mysteries. The first, Murder Before Evensong, topped the best-seller book charts before being turned into a six-part TV series, shown initially on Channel 5 and out this week on DVD.

- BY RICHARD BARBER

Our hero, Canon Daniel Clement, is played by Matthew Lewis (late of Harry Potter and All Creatures Great & Small) with Amanda Redman as his lemon-lipped mother Audrey, an unapologetic dispenser of tough love and effortlessly acting everyone else off the screen.

"Well, thank you but she's a wonderful character," says Amanda, "and such fun to play. Parts like that don't come along very often. The second I read the script I realised she had all the best lines. She's a woman, not unlike myself, who speaks her mind." Amanda's nickname, she reveals with a throaty chuckle, is "WYSIWYG" (What You See Is What You Get). It's apt for a woman of strongly held opinions who does not hold back.

It's 1988 and Audrey is of that generation who not only survived the war but it made her stronger. "Women like her just had to shut up and put up, as they say. I think that's a very healthy attitude. I admire it.

"She doesn't suffer fools gladly. She just gets on with it. There's a line in the book I like: if she hadn't been a housewife, she'd be running the United Nations." To play the role, the eternally glamorous Amanda, 68, had to don a permed wig and somewhat matronly outfits. "In my opinion, Audrey was in love with the late Queen and Mrs Thatcher. She's a blend of the two." Nor is she complaining.

"I always enjoy playing non-glamorous parts, perhaps more than any others. It forces you to concentrate on the character, gives you something to get your teeth into." Richard Coles was a regular visitor during filming. "I had met him anyway on a few occasions. He'd interviewed me when he was co-presenting Saturday Live on Radio 4.