Two Tayside actors have been lighting up the small screen this week by starring in BBC One’s latest drama.
The Control Room, a three-part series set and filmed in Glasgow, started on Sunday and ends on Tuesday.
Produced by the teams behind Dracula and Sherlock Homes, it tells the story of emergency call handler Gabe (Iain De Caestecker) who receives a 999 call from a person from his past.
It drags the ambulance worker into a web of problems that sees him under investigation from the authorities.
Viewers have been gripped by Gabe’s attempts to get himself out of trouble.
The show has gathered some rave reviews from critics, with two actors from Tayside playing starring roles.
Joanna Vanderham
According to IMDB, Joanna Vanderham, 30, was born in Perth and raised in Scone where she attended Robert Douglas Memorial School.
She later became a student at the High School of Dundee, which features Vanderham on its list of famous alumni – alongside the likes of Eilish McColgan, Mark Beaumont, KT Tunstall and Martel Maxwell.
At 17, Vanderham moved to Wales to study acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
She went on to be nominated for an Emmy for her role in the 2011 Sky drama The Runaway, and has since appeared in more than 30 films and TV series, including The Paradise, Crime and What Maisie Knew.
Her Dutch dad, Tom Vanderham, is a businessman while her mum, Jill Belch, is a professor of vascular medicine at Dundee University.
In 2015, Jill was awarded an OBE for her services to medicine and led the research institute in the medical school until May 2015.
Vanderham and her mum spearheaded a campaign in 2020 that raised more than £250,000 to provide PPE to frontline health workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
The actress now lives in Hackney in east London.
Stuart Bowman
Bowman has connections to both Tayside and Fife, as he was born in Dundee and grew up in Newport-on-Tay.
His mother died when he was just 12, which led to Bowman and his brother enrolling at Dollar Academy – a boarding school in Clackmannanshire.
After studying business for a couple of years, Bowman worked as the assistant manager of a precast concrete firm in Monifieth.
He told the Herald in 2018 that he was then offered a promotion in Dundee, which he turned down to pursue a career in acting.
That led to him working at the Edinburgh International Festival and eventually studying at Mountview Theatre School in London.
Since then he has played roles in Taggart, Gary: Tank Commander and Bodyguard, as well as Guilt – written by Broughty Ferry’s Neil Forsyth.
Bowman plays Gabe’s father, Ian, in The Control Room.
The final episode of the show is on BBC One at 9pm on Tuesday and all episodes are on iPlayer.
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