Vera Day on ITV

I am so excited Vera is back on the television.  After having loved and read all of Ann’s books and watched all of Vera’s  episodes, never has the North East looked so mesmerizing and creepy at the same time. Brenda Blethyn was on the Jonathan Ross show last night talking about how she came into acting rather late (27) and when she got the part of Vera, this middle aged dumpy and bedraggled woman,  and worried about why they had cast her. She plays the part so well and I see her every time I pick up a vera novel now (and I don’t just mean on the cover)

It was a real honour to film a piece for local television (ITV Tyne Tees)  this week in order to launch the new booktrail site and to talk more about the locations featured in Ann Cleeves novels. Ooh how I wished we’d had time to go to Tyne Valley, Amble and all the rest – but even just on the Quayside, around the corner from the Church where Harbour Street opens and the Lit and Phil  where Vera praises as a haven for every booklover (true) On tonight’s episode, we see Vera and Joe talk to a waiter/manager at the Baltic restaurant on the open balcony (Brave). In the winds the North East has had recently, nearly everyone is wearing Vera style macs ( or they should be)

Vera pet you bring so much enjoyment to  the television screens and having bumped into you in various places in and around Newcastle (there was a pop up Fairground on the Town Moor where Vera films a few scenes and Brenda spoke last night on Jonathan Ross’s show about how they’d filmed the entire sequence only for a woman to come out of the nearby toilets, spot her and shout ‘ Vera!!’

Now if I hadn’t been with my mother that day, this is just the kind of thing she would have done. Everyone loves Vera.

So – ITV tonight 8pm. Vera Day is announced. Enjoy!

Susan Booktrailer