TV: Non-stop cop picks up the beat

By LOUISA CLEAVE

Steve Bisley has cause for celebration - he has been given an early pass from the set of Water Rats.

For the actor who plays Jack Christey it is a rare but welcome afternoon off from a schedule which involves his character in most scenes of the hit Aussie drama.

Since taking over the lead male cop from Colin Friels, whose character Frank Holloway sailed his yacht out of Sydney harbour and the show two years ago, Bisley has found himself in one of his most demanding television roles.

He has worked on some of Australia's top-rating dramas, including Police Rescue, Frontline (as the tight-jeans-wearing cowboy producer Prowsey), Halifax f.p and G.P.

But the pace set by Water Rats - running down the jetty to jump on the police launch, sprinting after the bad guys - is more physically demanding than any of his other roles, says Bisley.

On the phone from Sydney, the actor says Christey has become something of a lone wolf since the death of his partner in love and work, Rachel Goldstein. She exited the show in an emotional death scene which had Christie cradling her stabbed body.

Looking back, Bisley says the three to four episodes surrounding the death was some of the best writing on the show, and the acting was "really full-on."

Christey, who had always been pretty loose anyway, became even more unconventional and independent in his policing.

Bisley equates Christey's approach to his job to the Stockholm Syndrome - when a hostage will gradually start to come over to the terrorists' side.

"Similarly, to do good criminal work, the detective needs to move closer to the crim."

Bisley is not sure whether cops like Christey exist, but he recalls the day some police detectives bailed him up and said of his character: "He's a beauty, mate."

He says Christey is still dealing with the death of Goldie and we will soon see her ghost appear to him.

But he will also move on, brought out of his shell by personal developments.

Bisley says we are not likely to see a repeat romance with Goldie's replacement Alex St Clare, (Dee Smart). "There could be a romance but I don't think it's going to be with St Clare."

Bisley married recently and spent his honeymoon in Fiji just before the coup. He expected to be just another anonymous tourist but did not realise the popularity of Water Rats in Fiji.

He gets away from fans by escaping to his holiday home at Leura, in the Blue Mountains.

"People come and approach you because they think they have the right. That's okay, but sometimes all you want to think about is nothing to do with the show. You tend to get a bit reclusive."

After the departure of two major characters, Holloway and Goldstein, Water Rats is probably not in a hurry to lose Bisley. But, should it happen, he has thought about his exit.

"I suppose if you were going to go the best way would be with a death.

"It severs you from the show in a very clean way. If they send you up the road for milk and you don't come back people think you're going to pop up again later."