Clarke aims for a hit with Deputy PM drama

He may have a tough guy image on screen, but in the real world Warren Clarke is a family man, and self-confessed “pussy cat.”

Primarily known as the surly detective Andy Dalziel in the BBC cop show Dalziel and Pascoe, Clarke, 55, has admitted it’s “getting harder to make (the show) come alive” and is working on new projects.

One of these, one-off drama The Deputy, will see him starring as the Deputy Prime Minister in a BBC political drama, although he is adamant he is not portraying John Prescott.

“I’d only play John Prescott if it was a comedy,” he told the Daily Mail’s Night and Day magazine, describing Prescott’s infamous punching incident as “pathetic.”

“It was handbags at five paces,” he said. “I’d have knocked the guy out.”

Clarke will also soon be hitting the screen in a two-part thriller, The Debt, in which he plays a former safe-cracker who wants to go straight but his forced to do one last job.

But it’s his four year-old daughter Georgia, with his wife Michelle, who Clarke enthuses about.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “I love it.

“She goes with her friends and their mums to see children’s shows and gets really excited about seeing everything in front of her on stage.

“At times she exasperating, like any child but the only downside is when mother and daughter gang up on me and I get it from both of them.”