The Mail on Sunday (London, England); April 22, 2006 ; 650 words

Byline: MAUREEN PATON

James Murray rolls up for our taxi ride in a black Byronic greatcoat made out of what he swears is tyre-rubber and car-carpet.

'It's a bit Withnail-y, isn't it?' grins the 31-year-old thesp, who also has the tufty haircut to complete the just-fallen-out-of-bed look from the cult Richard E Grant film. But blue-eyed, brown-haired, curly-eyelashed James would look good in anything, frankly - he even looked dreamy in the Flowerpot Men hat that he wore to woo Keeley Hawes in ITV1's Under The Greenwood Tree last year. At least he had a Colin Firth wet-shirt scene to make up for it when his character Dick Dewy lived splendidly up to his surname while collecting river scallops; how could Keeley possibly resist?

'That earth-meets-sex moment - wonderful,' he rhapsodises nostalgically, showing a droll sense of humour that must have also come in handy for his latest role as a nosy young reporter called Charles in ITV1's Agatha Christie's Marple: The Sittaford Mystery ('he's quite incorrigible, inquisitive and curious, as most journos worth their salt are'). 'ITV have got me on some sort of ten-year contract,' he mock-laments as our cabbie Martin from Leighton Buzzard picks him up from their HQ, where lanky six-foot James has been making the wardrobe mistress's day with action-man costume fittings for his role in the forthcoming Jurassic Park-style series Primaeval. 'I chase dinosaurs in the London tube - I'm a sort of Rentokil for the 21st century,' he explains.

A Scottish engineer's son who grew up in Manchester and Herefordshire, he's a bit of a tease who once told an interviewer he liked a drink and loved sex because they were both good Scottish traits.

'I don't remember saying that,' says James tantalisingly, 'but then most healthy people like a drink and sex, don't they? So I'm probably not unique in that respect.' James has been acting for only seven years - despite having persuaded Jimmy Savile to fix it for him to be James Bond as an 007-obsessed seven-year-old. After schooling at Malvern College he took three years off to travel and pick fruit in New Zealand - before taking a degree in scriptwriting and directing. But he has wasted no time in making an impact as an actor, registering on all red-blooded women's radars as Liam, an ex-boy-band hunk with a rehab problem, in the final series of BBC1's hair-salon drama Cutting It last year.

Unfortunately, he also registered on the radar of the Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, who was not exactly best pleased. 'Apparently he wrote in to complain that there was a character in the show named after him. Maybe it was a spoof letter. But anyway, he should stop copying me,' James huffs.

But although he didn't even get a decent haircut out of Cutting It, he did get the girl - by walking off into the sunset last autumn with its star, 36-year-old Sarah Parish. 'Sarah is adorable, and above all she makes me laugh a lot. We don't live together yet, we just spend a lot of time toing and froing, but we had a scream on holiday in Belize recently. Humour is a vital component; it's a dreadful mistake to take yourself too seriously in this business,' says James, who has no time for 'this celebrity culture rubbish'.

He's so down-to-earth that he lives in Balham, Peter Sellers's favourite South London send-up. 'I like its slightly rural feeling - and there aren't so many actors living here that you fall over them when you buy your packet of fags in the morning,' says James, having another Withnail-y moment as he points out his favourite tobacconist before we drop him off at his local no-nonsense pub. 'Being from the North, I can't stand being over-serviced and overlooked after,' he explains.

'Twenty years ago, if an actor went missing on set, you were likely to find him down the pub, but these days it's probably going to be the local gym.

Me, I try and balance those two locations - or maybe they should have a bar in every gym,' he muses.

Perfect for the part of the hard-living Charles. If only all actors were this much fun.

James Murray stars in ITV1's Agatha Christie's Marple: The Sittaford Mystery on 30 April at 9pm