Sarah Parish rolled back the years for ITV drama Bancroft

CRIME has replaced crime for ITV’s big drama offering across this week.

We were due to see Hatton Garden, a four-part retelling of the audacious raid in London’s jewellery quarter.

But it was pulled from the schedules at short notice and, starting tomorrow, its place will be taken by dark cop thriller Bancroft.

Sarah Parish is the driven Detective Superintendent in the mini-series originally planned to be screened on ITV Encore.

We see Elizabeth Bancroft as a young copper more than quarter of a century ago and Sarah revealed how technical wizardry helped to roll the clock back to 1980.

“We use an amazing company that has managed to achieve this incredible anti-ageing effect on some of us,” says Sarah.

“Those scenes were technically quite tricky as your movement is limited.

“ It’s much easier for the technical team to face map you if you’re fairly static.

“There were slight restrictions but not anywhere near as much as I thought there would be.

“I saw tiny bits on screen when we were filming and it looks amazing. It doesn’t really look like you when you were young. It looks like a younger version of who you are now.

“It’s much better than simply using a different actor for the younger scenes.”

There was also plenty of real stuff for Sarah to get stuck into, including several action scenes.

“I did do quite a few stunts,” she adds.

“I was black and blue at the end of some weeks just from doing a lot of falling over and other things. It was quite hard work.

“It was absolutely exhausting, with a lot of night shoots. It was a very full-on job for me. I hadn’t played a big lead like that for quite a long time.”

Bancroft, ITV, Monday to Thursday, 9pm.