Primeval actor Andrew-Lee Potts has claimed that producers have “shocking” storylines ready for the new series. The 30-year-old will return to his role as Connor Temple on the sci-fi show.

The programme was recently recommissioned for 13 more new episodes after concerns that it would be axed as a result of budget cutbacks at ITV.

In an interview with IESB, Potts said: “It’s great coming back to play him. And then, also, I get to work with my fiancée Hannah Spearritt.

“When it was cancelled, it was such a shame because we enjoyed working with each other so much and we thought, ‘We might never do that again’.

That made us sad. But, we’re going to be able to do that again.”

“When I first got a call from my agent to go in and read for Alice I thought, ‘Oh, wicked! That sounds fantastic and right up my alley,” enthuses Potts. “Then I found out that it was for the character of the Hatter, and straightaway everything felt right for me, and even more so when I eventually received the script and discovered it was written using the type of humor that I often use in my work. 

“So I taped my audition with the British casting director and I just did my thing. [Director/writer] Nick Willing wasn’t there in the room; it was just me and the casting director. And sometimes with that type of situation, especially when you’re doing overseas casting, things can get lost in the translation – i.e. how you should be playing the part. 

Douglas Henshall has predicted that Primeval will have a bright future following its recent revival.

The 43-year-old actor, who left his role as palaeontology expert Nick Cutter in the last series, told the Chester Chronicle that he can understand why the dinosaur drama has proved so popular with fans.

“I thought that the writing was good enough and the premise was good enough, [and] if people liked it, it could go pretty much as long as it liked,” Henshall explained.

“As long as people had faith in it who were making it, then I thought it would be fine. It taps into an eternal thing in young people, dinosaurs, monsters and myths and legends.”

“Thank God I was energetic on that audition because that’s why they brought me back. Obviously, once I knew they were interested in me, I knuckled down, did my homework and learnt how to properly pronounce the names of the dinosaurs. I went back for a second audition and got the job. At the time, though, we had no idea how big the series was going to be. I didn’t even know it was for primetime Saturday night. They didn’t tell us that. So I was reading the first script and thinking, ‘They can’t pull these effects off on British TV.’ Doctor Who had just come out and they were trying their [visual] effects, but nothing like this.

“Then, however, we found out that Primeval was being made by the same people who did [the BBC documentary miniseries] Walking With Dinosaurs and all the CGI [computer-generated image] dinosaurs. We [the cast] were then taken to Framestore, the company that does the visual effects for the Harry Potter films. They showed us a rough video of what our show was going to look like, and the five of us came out of there so excited and saying, ‘This is going to be wicked!’”

Billie Piper (Doctor Who, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, The Shadow In The North) returns to BBC One to star as Betty, a young wife and mother who falls deeply in love with a Polish neighbour with disastrous consequences, in Kay Mellor’s A Passionate Woman.

Filming starts in Leeds this month and the drama will screen on BBC One next year.

Mark as an adult is played by Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval).

It was declared extinct – but Primeval lives to fight another day!

Cash-strapped ITV1 bosses decided the dinosaur show was as dead as a dodo earlier this year because it was too pricey to keep making.

But new life has been breathed into the sci-fi drama, thanks to a deal with UKTV to share it.

Now series four will premiere on ITV1 in 2011 while series five will be shown first on pay-TV channel Watch (but swiftly repeated on ITV1).

The CGI show – featuring lots of monsters and people caught in time-slips – will again star real-life lovebirds Hannah Spearritt and Andrew Lee Potts, with help from Jason Flemyng.

WITH the third and final season of Primeval out on DVD, fans are waiting for news on plans to stop the show becoming totally extinct.

Impossible Pictures, which makes the dino-drama, had sold the movie rights to Warner Bros and has also been in talks for a US version of the series.

The show was screened in the UK on ITV1 until it was axed last month.

Impossible founder Tim Haines has clarified the reasons for its cancellation and has also explained what they have in mind for the American version.

Haines was speaking in a recent article in Broadcast Now, which has just been drawn to my attention.

He said: “There was a lot of talk when Primeval was cancelled that it must have been because it is a big show, with lots of CGI and special effects.

“That’s not the case. ITV wasn’t paying the whole costs anyway but we offered to lower the price further and bring in 50 per cent of the funding with co-production deals. It would still have been been getting a show worth more than £1million for less than £600,000.”

Andrew, 29, was back at his family home in Wibsey at the weekend after taking a break from a gruelling six-week filming schedule in Canada.

The actor played Connor Temple in the hugely popular ITV Saturday night monster-fighting drama, which was cancelled by ITV last month because of the huge cost of producing each special effects-heavy episode.

He said: “We suspected there was something wrong because ITV were taking so long to announce whether they were re-commissioning the show for a fourth series. We all knew ITV’s position regarding money and Primeval is a very expensive show to make.”

Andrew received a phone call with the bad news from Tim Haines, head of Impossible Pictures which produces Primeval, while he was filming in Vancouver for his new project.

He said: “It was very disappointing. Primeval was averaging five million viewers an episode and the show has ended on a cliff-hanger, with Connor and Abby and the rest lost in time.

The 29-year-old actor, who played Connor Temple on the hit sci-fi series, revealed that he sympathises with fans who feel frustrated over the programme’s cliffhanger ending.

Speaking to The Telegraph & Argus, Potts explained: “It was very disappointing. Primeval was averaging five million viewers an episode and the show has ended on a cliffhanger, with Connor and Abby and the rest lost in time.

“But we’ve got to roll with the punches. We were all gutted, but this is the way it is. I’ve played Connor for three seasons now, and we knew it wouldn’t last forever.

“I feel most for the fans who have been loyal to Primeval throughout, especially the way the series ended. I’d like to thank everyone for their support.”

Red Mist (or “Freakdog” in the States) is directed by “Shrooms” helmer Paddy Breathnach and stars Arielle Kebbel (”The Uninvited”, “Gilmore Girls”), Andrew Lee Potts (”Primeval”, “Ideal”), Alex Wyndham (”Little Dorrit”, “Rome”) and Colin Stinton (”House of Saddam”, “The Bourne Ultimatum”), the film hits UK theatres on 3rd July 2009.

The thing that struck me more than anything was the sheer quality of performance from Arielle Kebbel and Britain’s own Andrew Lee Potts. Arielle makes a fantastic protagonist for the picture, and despite the far-fetched premise you really feel yourself sympathising, and dare I say identifying with her plight. As previously stated her acting is superb, someone give that lady a blockbuster lead already!