Shetland star on why BBC show is a 'gift that keeps giving'

“I mean, I never take it for granted – we all know it depends on budgets and viewing figures, and that each series is a gift and might be the last,” says the Motherwell-born actor, earnestly.

“So we always come in to each series wanting to push it, and make it more ambitious, more exciting - more ‘Shetland’.”

She adds: “It’s the fans, who are so loyal, who have got us this far and we’re all very grateful.”

Alison and her character Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh have come a long way since the pilot for Shetland, when she was a nervous rookie cop, sidekick to DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall).

(Image: BBC)

Last year,  after Henshall’s departure, Hollywood star Ashley Jensen joined the series as the team’s new boss DI Ruth Calder, and now Tosh has been promoted to work alongside her.

“My life is unrecognisable from when I started out on Shetland,” admits Alison. “Tosh maybe less so, but we have both become mothers, which is transformational, and we've both grown in confidence, that sense of maturity in the job…

“It is very weird for me to be one of the people on the show who is more experienced, rather than having almost none.”

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She adds: “It’s good as an actor to have roles that stretch you because they are very different from you, but also to have parts that are very close to you, where you can develop an authentic rhythm. Tosh is definitely one of those jobs.”

As unstarry a star as can be, even though she has been a universally adored co-anchor of a hit primetime show for almost a decade, Alison is unassuming and funny, and frank about the demands of juggling work and life since her children, aged four and seven, came along.

“It’s hard to keep on acting when you have a tiny baby,” she nods. “I needed some kind of creative outlet, so I started doing a bit of writing when my daughter was born.

“It’s all happening at a glacial pace – it’s quite disheartening how long it takes, actually - but there are a few things sort of out there now.”

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She won’t be drawn on when, or where, or even if these “things” might be aired publicly.

“Oh it’s all very mercurial,” she says, airily. “Who knows, really what will happen? I’ll just keep pushing on.”

Alison and Ashley and the crew have been spotted filming around Glasgow over the summer – just a few weeks are spent on Shetland, where this year, Alison stayed outside Lerwick.

(Image: BBC)

“My family and I were in a little chalet house in Whiteness,” she says.

“It was lovely to be somewhere more remote. We were surrounded by sheep which were a source of endless fascination and amusement for my kids.”

She laughs. “And also for me. Sheep are hilarious, right?”

Alison is delighted Ashley is back.

Tosh and Ruth find personal and professional lives colliding in the new series (Image: BBC)

“We both felt like we had only really scratched the surface of that dynamic, so it’s great to be doing it again,” says Alison. “They have a restless relationship. They get on well, have a laugh and then it’s like, you’re actually getting a bit annoying now…which is very relatable in a work relationship, isn’t it?”

Alison had a proper “lightbulb” moment about acting, when she was a law student, three months into a course she was struggling to find engaging.

“I did well academically at school, so you know what it’s like, you’re encouraged by well-meaning teachers and parents to go to university, to get a degree,” she explains,

“I ended up in a slipstream, and suddenly I was falling asleep in lecture halls full of hundreds of people.”

She adds: “Then one day I was standing outside the library listening to fellow students going on about how they’d always wanted to be lawyers, like their dads and granddads, and one of them turned to me and asked, ‘so Alison, have you always wanted to be a lawyer?’”

She laughs.

“And I said, no, I want to be an actor,” she says, flatly. “It was that sudden. I just thought, WHAT am I doing here? I went home and told my dad, and he said – finish your first year, see how it goes…but I told him I couldn’t go back.”

Alison switched to drama school, and never looked back. Her parents also came round, she says, smiling.

“Both my parents have always been so supportive,” she says. “I think they were understandably just worried. I remember my dad asking, ‘but will it be financially stable?’ and me saying, ‘well, no, obviously not, but that’s not what’s important….’”

She breaks off with a laugh. “Anyway, it’s okay - I’ve been able to make it work so far…”

Shetland returns on Wednesday, November 6, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, at 9pm.