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Everyday of filming Inspector George Gently takes me back to the Sixties. I am one of the few people on the set who can remember it and who was there! I've become a bit of an unofficial consultant as I get asked so often when people have a query. We have a brilliant designer on board, Maurice Cain, it's all very nostalgic, like a time machine. I love detail and it enriches and enlightens a drama. It's great to see the girls going up into the make-up bus and their hair being piled up higher and higher and you think: "Oh yeah"!

What was it like filming in the North East?

It added an extra layer to the films, as you always want to be in the right place for a series: the reality rather than a set. It releases your imagination, as you don't have to rely on the geography. It's a dream come true for Peter Flannery. Everything came together beautifully on this series, better than ever before.

The landscape and accents made such a difference and, at the centre of Durham, was the Cathedral, 900 years of worship. I would drink it in any spare moment I had.

Filming in the North East made more of a difference than any of us expected. Not least of all because Durham was so compact it saved on a lot of time with traveling between locations, as everything was so close, so great saving on filming time.

It was a nice place to be. Great weather – we had spring in Durham and not winter in Ireland. We only had one uncomfortable day on the beach, more annoying, really, because of the wind blowing all over the place – but the sound crew did a great job.

Gently and Bacchus

Peter Flannery says that Inspector George Gently is more a "whydunnit" than a "whodunnit" and it's more about the relationship between Gently and Bacchus. We're not so much a crime fighting duo like Bodie and Doyle or Batman and Robin, it's the chemistry between us – the longer we work together the more I want to punch him, but I keep missing!

That's what I hope is interesting, it's the exploration on how these two get on. And then there are the crimes that we solve together.

Lee and I certainly have fun filming together. As an actor, I always think of Lee as the English Edward Norton. It's a team and we enjoy working together.

This series, Bacchus is having marriage problems and he doesn't like it that Gently has befriended his wife. All the things that Bacchus has said about Lisa in the past in reality are very different, so he is worried about what Gently will think. Bacchus is an unreconstructed male, where men and women can't be friends – it's subtle of the period. Gently is more liberal and before his time.

The period

Music and fashion makes me an instant convert to hippy-dom, caftans, long hair, flared jeans and playing the guitar. I even had a frame with a mouth organ! I don't have that anymore but I still have a couple of guitars though.

This series is set in 1966 and set against the World Cup, which was a bit better than this time round! When we originally started it all, it was 1963 and we have moved forward chronologically. We have changed the style a bit. My hair's a bit longer and we won’t have to execute everyone at the end of an episode now.

There was descent and protest back in 1966 – people don't seem to protest anymore.

In Peace And Love it explores free love and the shame and terror associated with homosexuality – all these issues are raised in context of the period and shows how so much has changed in the last 40 years.

We have great guest stars, which is one good thing about a recession! In Gently Evil, the little girl, Natalie Garner who plays Agnes, is spookily good – quite extraordinary.

It would be great to do more Inspector George Gently, especially if they are as good as these last two and filmed in the North East. We've found our home and it would be good to do more.

One of England's most popular actors for more than two decades, Martin is noted for his versatility. He's currently starring in a new production of the classic Clifford Odets' The Country Girl on national tour, which is opening in the West End this autumn at The Apollo Theatre.

He has starred in over 100 TV roles, his long TV career beginning in 1967 with Love On The Dole. His theatrical career has been very distinguished with a string of West End successes, with the first revival of Look Back In Anger and on Broadway as Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, which won him a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk award for Best Actor.

The Professionals was an international hit and, more recently, Martin has starred in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Always And Everyone, Judge John Deed and Apparitions.

He lives in a beautiful Quaker house (once owned by an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln) in Norfolk, with his wife, Vicky. He is a pilot and owns and flies two vintage biplanes.