John Hannah isn't a household name in the USA yet, but he's working on it. He's best known to American TV audiences as the title character in the British series
McCallum. But he's even better known in the States as "Jonathan Carnahan" from the Brendan Frasier films
The Mummy and
The Mummy Returns, playing the brother of Rachel Weisz's female lead character "Evelyn."
Hannah and Frasier have recently been filming the 3rd film in the series,
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which is co-written by
Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh join the fun, with former
ER doc Maria Bello taking over the role of Rick O'Connell's wife, Evelyn (Weisz declined to return), and Luke Ford of
McLeod's Daughters taking over the role of their son, Alex.
Wow, that's a lot of movie talk for a TV site! But the point is that John Hannah's been busy just prior to that with his 2006 BBC program called
New Street Law, which just finished its second year of episodes:
New Street Law is a drama series that follows two professional lawyers' cases and exploits in Manchester. The court which deals with defending clients is headed by Jack Roper (John Hannah), and the other court, which deals with prosecuting them, is headed by Laurence Scammel QC (Paul Freeman), who was Roper's mentor.
Koch Entertainment, who was behind the North American DVD releases of
McCallum and
McLeod's Daughters, is planning a year-end release of
New Street Law - The Complete 1st Season. This 3-DVD set will arrive
December 4th in the USA, and two weeks after that in Canada. Cost is $39.98 SRP in both areas. Here's a look at the cover art:
