How 12 years as Tosh on BBC’s Shetland has shaped Alison O’Donnell

That was back in 2012 when Alison O’Donnell first donned the parka and sturdy boots of Detective Constable Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh, rookie cop and apprentice to Douglas Henshall’s Jimmy Perez, newly arrived in Shetland, keen and green.

Fifty one episodes later, Tosh has seen more than her fair share of murder and mayhem in the BBC crime drama series that has tracked her rise through the ranks to Detective Inspector, mirroring the series’ trajectory to ratings star, with last year’s series drawing audiences of seven million, making it the second biggest drama of the year after Happy Valley, across all channels and streamers.

Now Tosh is back in season nine of the drama based on the books by Ann Cleeves, made by ITV studios, with filming due to start soon on series ten. Joined last year by Ashley Jensen as DI Ruth Calder after the departure of Douglas Henshall, this season looks set to be another hit, with cast regulars including Steven Robertson as DC Sandy Wilson, Lewis Howden as Sgt Billy McCabe, Anne Kidd as Cora McLean, joined by guest stars such as Ian Hart (The Responder, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Harry Potter), Vincent Regan (House of the Dragon, Traces, Luther, Aquaman) and Robert Jack (Annika, My Son).

Kicking off a few months from the last, season nine, written by Paul Logue and Denise Paul, produced by Louise V Say and directed by Andrew Cumming and Ruth Paxton, sees DI Calder settled in as part of the team grappling with a new mystery.

“The storyline for this year starts out with something happening in Tosh’s personal life,” says O’Donnell when we meet in her local cafe on Glasgow’s south side.

“It’s Saturday, her day off, and she’s got this pal who wants to talk to her, but when Tosh arrives at the arranged place she’s not there. This doesn’t make sense, she calls her partner Donny and is picking away at this, then eventually goes to the station and talks to Calder who says come on, you have good instincts, what do you want to do? and it escalates and becomes a police matter. Then there’s a reveal at the end of the first episode and… I can’t say any more….”she says, keeping us hanging, something Shetland fans will be used to as it teases out the tension, one weekly episode at a time.

So we have a missing person, a friend of Tosh, which means a personal/professional conflict.

“Shetland is a small place and conflict of interest is baked in so Tosh has traversed this terrain before but this is close to home. She’s good at navigating but the people around her make it more tricky.

“Friends know I have all this information,” says O’Donnell, slipping into being Tosh before my eyes, businesslike and focused, “and want me to tell them and I feel like I’m not being loyal, and at the same time they find out loads of stuff they shouldn’t. It’s stressful and I don’t know that the friendships will survive.”

“But Tosh is always so professional so she does what she needs to do,” she says, and O’Donnell is back in the room and taking a sip of her coffee, waving to friends and patting a dog cruising past the table.

After seeing her inhabit Tosh for more than a decade, it’s hard to separate the two, but O’Donnell is in no doubt that she could never be a detective. How much of her has gone into Tosh?

“I’d love to say I’m unrecognisable and I’m such a great actor,” she laughs, “but I think it’s very close. I think that’s why I got the part. The main point about her is she’s empathetic which I’ve always been. Also I’m a bit of an apple polisher like Tosh. My partner and I joke that if there’s a Keep Off The Grass sign, for him that’s an invitation to walk on it, whereas I’m ‘Don’t Walk On The Grass!!’.

“At the start Tosh was keen, green and willing to learn and I think I have those qualities. And being honest. People say ‘you’re an actor so you’ll be a good liar’ whereas it’s the total opposite. As an actor you have to keep your emotions near the surface so everything’s quite raw all the time because you never know when you’re going to be required to be angry or sad, so I find it almost impossible to fake anything. There’s a sort of authenticity and a blurred line between what’s real and what’s acting.”

They might look similar, but Tosh’s life is very different to O’Donnell’s. Born in Motherwell, the youngest of three sisters, she started her acting career in theatre, doing a lot of new writing and comedy and playing a lead role in My Romantic History, written by her now partner, playwright DC Jackson, which won a 2011 Fringe First Award. She moved into TV with small roles before becoming DC Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh in 2014 and has worked on the series since, while giving birth to two children, a daughter in 2017 and son in 2020.

Twelve years on she’s taken the character from rookie cop to Detective Inspector who calls the shots.Her mentor Perez has left, she’s seen more than anyone’s fair share of violent crime, experienced sexual assault and settled with her family in the Isles. How does O’Donnell think all this has changed the character?

“Fundamentally she’s the same. She’s always been smart, an empath, had a cheeky side, but she’s got older, Perez has left and she’s been promoted and is dealing with things in a different way.

“One of the biggest changes is how much agency she has, which as a performer is nice, because being the second in command was great and had so many lovely elements, but it’s so nice to be the person in the room making decisions, going ‘this has happened, you’re going to go call the station, you’re going to get the SOCOs up and I’m going to do that’. I feel like at this point in my life I’m ready for that.”

While Perez has gone, the shadow of his peacoat still looms large for Tosh, and O’Donnell too. Is there anything she learned from acting with Douglas Henshall that she’s taken forwards?

“TV acting is so technical and that was a wilderness to me, so I learned from him how to be technically proficient. Your relationship with the crew and the camera, how things work, he’s so good at that stuff and seeing the big picture, so being able to watch somebody being that proficient, that was huge, because with TV I was basically starting from zero.”

“Sometimes I catch myself delivering lines and think ‘oh, that’s like Perez’. The thing that stands out for me the most is the character’s integrity. I used to say he was a bit like Aslan, this enabling male authority figure who has justice and integrity at the forefront, so you feel safe and know he’s going to do the right thing. I think that’s partly why the show is so loved, because don’t we all want that? And I think Tosh absolutely carries that on.”

With a new sidekick in Ruth Calder, a colleague on a more equal footing, Tosh has come into her own, a dynamic O’Donnell enjoys.

“Calder is so instinctive and Tosh is an empath, so Calder gets things done and Tosh respect that even though occasionally there’s collateral damage. I think they complement each other.

“One thing that’s nice is they’re not best pals and they’re not enemies. We’re not leaning into any of those cliches. They’re just two women working together. Some days they really get on and make each other laugh and some days they piss each other off. That’s so relatable.”

What does she think Ashley Jensen has brought to the team?

“Loads of things, but one of the things I loved most was confidence. Because it’s tough coming into an established show, but she had this cast iron characterisation of Ruth Calder and every single scene knew what she was doing.

“And I love our dynamic off screen. I think we come at this job from a very similar place in terms of how we see our work/life balance and we’te both mums so I feel I have an ally in her.

“Also her whole approach, work hard but have fun doing it. She wants to get to know everyone in the crew and so do I, especially when you’re away in Shetland. We spend time hanging out, so it’s like having a gang of pals, which makes it so much easier and more fun because it can be intense and long hours away from your family. You want to look forward to it and enjoy it.”

For an actor, having a regular job is a bonus and for O’Donnell it’s given her a continuity that has had implications for her personal life.

“It’s allowed me to have a family. It’s hard to square the circle of being in a precarious profession and provide a stable home and I’ve been in the warm embrace of Shetland as I did it. We didn’t know from season to season if it would go again, but I was lucky that it did, so being able to have my kids and be supported through pregnancy and breastfeeding and having tiny children and coming out the other side, whenever that will be.”

When she’s not working on Shetland or with her family, does she have time for any other work?

“I’m very focused on writing because my kids are still so wee, and filming takes me away for four or five months, so in the downtime I’m enjoying working on something I can do at home. I’ve got a film which is being developed, a Christmas romcom set in Glasgow, and I’m working on some ideas.”

“You learn a lot by osmosis being in a long-running show that is so well written by people who are masters of their craft so I think I now understand scripts and structure. I’m going to have a go. Why not? Let’s just see.”

When I ask O’Donnell what’s been her favourite moment over the years her answer is surprising.

“Season three, the sexual assault story. It just meant so much and there was a scene in particular where Tosh has been holding it all in then it finally just all comes out. That was such a challenge. The director Jan Matthys knew I was nervous and it was the first scene of the day, and so I didn’t have to come in and be the first person to shout in a room full of colleagues, he shouted to make it normal, so when I came in and had to scream, it felt safe to be able to do something sort of dangerous. And I was pleased with how it went. When I watched it back thought ‘yeah, we did that justice.’”

“Actually, this season, the sexual assault story comes up to the surface and what she knows on a cellular level from having lived through it becomes important.

“This is why I could not do that job, because she can’t unsee things. Things which to us are ideas but for her are truths with people and faces and memories, it’s hard to understand how she’s not just in a puddle on the floor.

“I don’t know how people do it. The most convincing acting I do as Tosh is that she’s somebody that copes well in a crisis. I would be just having a panic attack, a complete mess. I’m not that person.” She laughs, an infectious sound that travels up an octave.

“She’s in the right job, temperamentally suited, because she hasn’t allowed it to make her cynical or get on top of her. She’s professional and still sees good in the world and good people. Ruth Calder’s the same. They’re both motivated to get to the truth and energised by the job.”

What’s been the worst moment over the 12 years of playing Tosh?

“The absolute low point was when I had unbelievable sickness in my pregnancy and possibly a stomach bug on top of it and was just lying on the stairs where we were filming and the crew were hefting things up and down past me and I couldn’t move. Trying to do those long days with sickness and tiredness, I remember that being a nadir,” she laughs.

One of the things that makes Shetland so popular is that it isn’t just a police procedural, it also takes on issues large and local.

“We’ve had big meaty political and global issues,” says O’Donnell, “far right activism, people trafficking, environmental terrorism, but also the smaller stuff. Last season was more about the Isles, one house, one family, simmering secrets. Shetland can handle big dramatic stories but also keep everything small and low.”

Ask O’Donnell what are the best things about being in Shetland for so many seasons and she immediately comes back with the place.

“One of the drivers added up how much time I’d spent there and when we film season ten I’m going to make it to a full year spent on Shetland. It gets under your skin.

“And something has crept this year which is new and comes over me. It’s not home, but I feel homesick for it. Quite often at the weekend I’ll be sitting and think ‘ah, I would just like to walk down to the book shop, wander round that gift shop, just be next to the sea on the beautiful beaches and breathe the sea air. It has got into me. It’s a sense memory. I feel really lucky with that.”

“Also, the privilege of being with a character so long and watching her grow. They’ve let her experience so much and as an actor I’ve been able to chew on so many different things. What a gift!” .

Does O’Donnell get any say in storylines or appearance? What if she wanted to cut her long mane of hair short or dye it crazy colours?

“They’d put a wig on me. One year I did have highlights and nobody cared, so within reason…”

What about different clothes, although given the terrain, climate and job, that might be difficult?

“Well, because Perez always had jumpers they had me in shirts, so when he left I got liberated from them and now I’m in jumpers. Wait till you see my jumpers this year!

“That one with the yoke last season created a bit of a storm on mumsnet, so this year our costume designer, Lesley Abernethy who is amazing, really leaned into jumpers to the point where we had too many and had to choose. Just wait till you see my jumpers this season - jumper frenzy!”

Alison O’Donnell sars as DI Alison McIntosh in series nine of Shetland, weekly from Wednesday 6 November, BBC One and BBC iPlayer, 9-10pm

Read 2018 Alison O’Donnell interview here

WATCH THE BBC ONE SHETLAND SERIES NINE TRAILER HERE

We have a fabulous new subscription offer running – An annual digital subscription to The Scotsman comes with a year's access to the New York Times here