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 Hotel Babylon
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Hotel Babylon
Starts Thursday 19 January at 9.00pm on 91Èȱ¬ ONE
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Dexter Fletcher plays Tony Casemore, Concierge
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In order to play the role of Tony Casemore, the ever-efficient concierge of Hotel Babylon, Dexter Fletcher spent some time with a real-life concierge whose identity he is reluctant to reveal.
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"I can't really tell you who he is because I don't want to compromise him – he was very good to me and gave me a real insight into the job and into the more unsavoury side of the job, which I hope I've managed to convey.
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"He also lent me his Golden Keys, which I wear on set on my lapels.
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"What I loved about Tony was that he is fixer, a mover and a shaker and has his finger on the pulse of the hotel," says Dexter.
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"Tony is the character in Babylon who manages to get a handle on situations and get things back on track… the man who people turn to in a crisis... and that is a role I hadn't played before and ultimately is what appealed to me about the part," he adds.
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"But primarily the scripts were really good and the great thing about the hotel is that it throws up all these different situations, so as an actor I get to play out various scenarios like throwing people out of the hotel, the prostitutes have to be worked and managed, and then Tony has to deal with the management as he is somewhere in the middle ground between the office and the guests," explains Dexter.
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"And of course Tony has his own agenda, which is trying to cream as much cash off the books as possible to achieve this other thing he is working towards - ie his retirement fund - so it is a nicely layered drama."
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In Babylon, the drama focuses on the lives of the hotel staff and patrons and the audience never travels beyond the walls of the hotel.
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Dexter wasn't that surprised about his discoveries but it has made him curious and more aware of the business.
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"It's like any industry that you take for granted - there is a life behind every business, whether it is an undertakers' or owning a greasy spoon.
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"If you look at Six Feet Under in the US, that show has taken both the UK and US by storm because it lets you inside a world that most of us aren't privy to.
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"But what makes it successful are the characters set within the context of this 'alien' environment," he explains.
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"And what's interesting and fun about Hotel Babylon,' he continues, 'is that the drama makes this world accessible to the audience, who may aspire to either work or stay in a five-star hotel."
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Fletcher began his television career very early on by going to a drama club in Islington two nights a week. He got some small extras parts in films and TV at the age of seven, before going on to do Steptoe and Son, playing Diana Dors' son. He then landed a part in the cult transatlantic movie Bugsy Malone.
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"I played Babyface over 30 years ago in Bugsy Malone when I was nine years old, alongside Scott Baio and a very young Jodie Foster. I then went on to work on numerous films before joining the RSC full time at Stratford at the age of 16."
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Despite being best-known in the UK for his role as Spike in the children's drama Press Gang, Dexter has worked with some of the world's greatest writers, directors and actors - including Alan Rickman, Mel Gibson, Steven Poliakoff, Hayley Mills, Derek Jarman, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Jeff Goldblum, Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston - and the list doesn't stop there!
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After a break from screen acting to concentrate on theatre again in his twenties, Fletcher returned to film in his early thirties when he landed a part in the cult movie of the Nineties – Guy Ritchie's Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
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The HBO/91Èȱ¬ hit drama Band of Brothers followed, along with Mike Leigh's Topsy Turvy.
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His latest films, Tristan and Isolde with Mark Strong, and Doom with The Rock, are both due for release in 2006, but there is still much more that Fletcher would like to do.
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"I'd love to play some leading villains and mature adult roles and perhaps work with writers like Jez Butterworth and Patrick Marber, who I really admire.
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"I would also like to work with Joe Wright, who just directed Pride and Prejudice. I've written a film script that my friend Jason Flemyng from Lock, Stock will produce and hopefully I will direct, but we both keep getting acting roles," he laughs. "So it might be some way off before it happens!"
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