TURN on your TV this month and there’s a distinct possibility you’ll see Joe McFadden. He’s already raising eyebrows as the new all-action copper in ITV1’s Heartbeat, and over on the other side he has a part in the BBC’s period drama Cranford.

Appearing in two such high profile programmes on both the main channels at the same time is certainly going to get Joe noticed. But the Glaswegian actor is humble in his hopes for what these roles might do for his own profile.

“In Scotland I will always be ‘the little guy from High Road’ so perhaps I might be recognised for something different,” he laughs.

Joe played High Road’s lovable layabout Gary McDonald for six years before he quit the soap in 1996.

Since then he has gone on to star in the adaptation of Iain Banks’ novel The Crow Road, played a budding guitarist in the ’60s drama Sex, Chips and Rock ’n’ Roll and the lead role in Sparkhouse, BBC’s modern update of Wuthering Heights.

For Scottish viewers, however, he will always be associated with the character he first played when he was 15.

“Gary was a bit of a rogue when he first came into it,” recalls Joe. “A lot of people associate you with your character and I did have people having a go at me in the street now and again.

“I remember one occasion when Gary and a gang he was running around with had just beaten up another character and I went to the theatre where a woman accosted me and attacked me with her handbag!”

Joe has made a similar impact on Heartbeat — although at least this time he has the law on his side.

Joe plays namesake PC Joe Mason, who has initially been posted to Aidensfield as a temporary replacement for PC Rob Walker (Jonathan Kerrigan).

PC Joe is waiting to be transferred to the Met in London and didn’t take kindly to his short-term assignment at first. But the villagers — and viewers — are warming to him, and a tragedy that hits the police station this month makes it hard for him to leave. 

“Mason ruffled a few feathers when he first arrived but he quickly learns you can’t go around behaving like that in a small community like Aidensfield,” says Joe of his character.

“He has a heavy-handed approach to begin with, his own way of doing things, and doesn’t respect authority very much.

“He’s certainly different from the other guys in that role, which is nice. Jonathan’s character was very popular and quite strait-laced and I also watched some of the old episodes with Jason Durr in.

“I think this is getting back to the Nick Berry character — he brought an edge to it as an outsider who was very different from everyone and saw things with a fresh pair of eyes, and that’s what Mason brings as well.

“It’s nice to go against the grain a bit, and hopefully the fans won’t hate him for being a maverick.”

In his very first episode PC Mason was tackling armed robbers with his bare hands, something Joe found quite amusing.

“I asked them why he was so good at fighting. Was it because he’d had some combat training in his background? I was told ‘it just looks better on screen’.

“He grew up in Glasgow in the ’60s and I think they’ve just assumed, therefore, that he would be able to look after himself!”

After making the highly acclaimed Small Faces and The Crow Road in his native land, when Joe quit his role in High Road, he moved to London.

Scottish actors such as Ewan McGregor and Dougray Scott were flavour of the month, and it looked as if Joe was destined for great things too.

But the plum roles eluded him and his career took a different route.

However, the 32-year-old takes issue with the suggestion that things haven’t worked out as he’d hoped, pointing out that other people’s expectations were not necessarily his own.

“I don’t feel that way at all. I’m very lucky to have had a variety of jobs. Earlier this year I was doing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Lyceum in Edinburgh, and last year I did a play at the Royal Court directed by Richard Wilson — which was a fantastic experience.

“I did Cranford for BBC and now I’m in Heartbeat. I get to do a wide variety of things, so I don’t feel like I’ve come down to London and now I’m being forced to go back home.

“Heartbeat was too good an opportunity to miss, to be part of a television institution and knowing you’re going out to a really big audience every Sunday night. It has such a loyal fan base.

“It’s lovely when someone asks you what you’re doing, so you tell them and they instantly know what it is — you don’t have to explain for 10 minutes what it’s all about.

“I auditioned for the part like everyone else. I think at first they wanted a Yorkshireman to do it and there had been a couple of stages of auditions before I arrived.

“They even asked me if I would do it in a Yorkshire accent and I said I could but I would prefer not to. 

“It was very last minute — we met on a Tuesday, I had a screen test on the Thursday and two weeks later I was on the set.”

Rumour has it that the Heartbeat producers knew straight away they’d got their man. But modest Joe offers a far more unassuming reason for landing the top job.

“I was convinced I only got the role because I looked like the stunt double!” he laughs. “He’s a very good likeness for me and had to do all my motorbike scenes for the first few months while I learnt to ride the bike. For the close-ups I’d be wheeled in for the last metre, which was a bit embarrassing.

“Apart from that it’s a great show to be in. It’s television you can watch with your mother and grandmother and not be embarrassed by it. There’s definitely a place for that.

“My mother is a very loyal fan and has watched Heartbeat since the beginning. I’ve got really vivid memories of sitting watching the show on a Sunday night with my family.

“That said, it’s a lot grittier and darker than I thought it would be. Now and again a fight or a bedroom scene is called for. I’ve already had my fight scenes and I do have a bedroom scene in an upcoming episode — but I can’t tell you any more about that.”

Joe’s own love life is something of a blank sheet at the moment, since he split up with Scottish actress Kirsty Mitchell (who played Iona MacLean in Monarch of the Glen). He explains that his current work schedules make having a relationship very difficult.

“It’s not an intentional thing but it’s certainly a blessing not being attached,” he tells me. “With the schedule that we have on Heartbeat and then, when I’m not filming, I’m either learning lines or learning to ride the motorbike, it’s good that I don’t have to consider someone else, that I don’t have to be on the phone to someone I’m missing. It’s a difficult thing to juggle both a working life and a relationship.

“I’m living in Yorkshire during the week at the moment and I go home to London most weekends. I’m also fortunate that work takes me back to Scotland a lot to see my family.

“I was in Edinburgh for three months doing Chitty, which was great, although there was one hairy moment when the car went off on its own track,” he recalls. “It had this set flight path and one night it didn’t go where we wanted it to go and went in the opposite direction. 

“I was terrified — I’m not good with heights anyway, and it was a steep gradient that it went on. But we acted our way through it, so I don’t think the audience knew anything had gone wrong!

“I’m looking forward to coming home for Christmas, although the plan is to go on to Donegal where both my parents are from.

“And I’ll definitely be in Glasgow for New Year — it’s a great place to spend Hogmanay.”