Philip Glenister: Your Man of the Month for May

Shut. Up! Stone the crows! You guys have voted Philip Glenister as your Man of the Month!

We’re sort of gob smacked at this turn of events. We included Philip Glenister on an impish, geeky whim. The Geeky Girls have long been fans of DCI Gene Hunt, but we’ve never told anyone about our closet lust for Mr Glenister. We thought you might point your cursors and laugh, but nay! You think he’s kind of lovely too!

Philip is best known for his portrayal of DCI Gene Hunt in BBC 1’s excellent 70’s sci-fi drama, Life on Mars. But recently it’s been his reprisal of Hunt in the spin off sequel series, Ashes to Ashes that we’ve been concentrating on – including the show’s stunning finale.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching Philip in action as Gene Hunt let us summarise for you. Gene Hunt is politically incorrect, brutish, hugely chauvinistic and yet incredibly likable and exciting to watch. We strangely couldn’t get enough.

Speaking to The Telegraph Philip has this to say of the great man: "Gene is a guilty pleasure. He couldn't have worked as a character before New Labour – you need that cultural distance from the Seventies and early Eighties. He was supposed to be this awful dinosaur, and I don't think anyone realised how popular and cultish he would become. He's an antidote to our thin-skinned world.”

A cult figure indeed. Gene Hunt has been described as a "national hero" by The Independent newspaper and the Guardian noted the character had been "taken to the nation's hearts". We can back up the hyperbole too. Gene Hunt was voted the United Kingdom's favourite television hero in 2008, receiving over 25% of the popular vote, ahead of both 24's Jack Bauer and Doctor Who.

And with Ashes to Ashes we’ve seen a new dimension to Hunt’s character that we think you rather liked – the loooove connection with Alex Drake.

Jane Featherstone, executive producer of both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes says of their barely concealed lusting, “The relationship between Gene Hunt and Alex Drake is critical to Ashes to Ashes. It is tumultuous, sexy, intellectual, instinctive and totally different to his relationship with Sam.”

Alas, Ashes to Ashes has now come to its end, but we were promised by producers that we’d finally discover the secrets of the ever enigmatic Gene and we weren’t disappointed. MASSIVE SPOILER BELOW! So we've kindly hidden it for all you crazy folk yet to watch the final episode!

Quite simply the best finale we have seen in a long time: In the final episode, we learn that Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes world was a kind of purgatory for lost (and obviously dead) police officers. Gene, Ray, Chris and Shaz are all dead and it’s finally revealed that Alex Drake has also died. They all eventually “move on” apart from Gene, who stays, continuing with his responsibility to guide other lost souls.

So farewell Gene Hunt – will we see you again? Who knows? But if you want to see the lovely Mr Glenister in action, he’ll be gracing your screens again soon! He has begun filming a new Sky1 HD drama, Mad Dogs, starring Philip, Max Beesley and Marc Warren and.. John Simm!

5 Glenister Facts:

• Philip Glenister is 6’0 tall 
• His brother is Robert Glenister of Hustle fame
• Philip has said that he based the character of Gene Hunt on Brian Clough (a Brutish, British football manager, back in the day)
• Mr Glenister managed a time of 1.54 on Top Gear’s Star in a Reasonably Priced Car challenge. It was a wet track and we’re reliably informed, that’s not a bad time.
• In fact we hear that Philip does a lot of his own stunt driving in the Quattro! Speaking to the BBC, Philip said, “"I was putting my foot down, slamming on the brakes and trying to hit certain marks which meant I had to do several rehearsals to get it right. But I'd hate to get back into my car on the weekends because I'd be driving with my missus and she'd say 'you're driving awfully fast dear, can you slow down - you can do it at work but this is Richmond...'"

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