Waterloo Road's Melanie: 'I don't want Maggie to find love too soon after Grantly'

Waterloo Road's Melanie Hill does not want her character Maggie Budgen to find love again too soon after the exit of her husband Grantly.

Philip Martin Brown, who plays Grantly, is leaving the BBC drama tonight (Thursday) after six years and Melanie told Digital Spy she thinks it would be disrespectful if Maggie moved on too quickly.

She said: "I would like them to wait a while. I wouldn't like it if it happened too soon. Maybe next year, but if it happened too soon I think that would be disrespectful to the character of Grantly. The way we're taking it is that Maggie is concentrating on the kids and keeping herself busy at the school and the schoolhouse. She'll be getting involved in all of the kids' lives. In the future some romance would be great, but not at the moment."

The actress, who has only been in Waterloo Road since 2012 admitted she did think her character may be written out of the show when Philip announced he was leaving, but she wants to stay as long as possible.

She revealed: "I wondered whether she would move away and how they were going to handle it. What's brilliant is that they've moved her into the school, so she has a firm link with Waterloo Road and she has a great relationship with the kids. I'm really happy with the way it's all turned out.

"I love Scotland - I'm actually loving it more every month that I'm here. The show itself is great too and there's such a brilliant energy on set. The only hard part is that you get really close to the kids, but they can only stay for a certain amount of time, because they have to grow up and go out of the school. There's a couple just leaving now who we're really going to miss, but I suppose that's what keeps it fresh."

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.