Shetland's Tosh actress opens up co-star's exit and major change to character

Alison O'Donnell opened up for the first time about her co-star Dougie Henshall leaving the fan favourite programme, Shetland.

The pair had worked side-by-side on the show for seven seasons, kicking off their incredible bond on the crime drama series back in 2013. But over two years ago now, Dougie announced that he was leaving and fans were and still are gutted about that decision to this very day.

Viewers had fallen in love with his character DI Jimmy Perez created by author Anne Cleaver, with Alison playing his junior - Detective Sergeant Alison "Tosh" McIntosh

After series seven, Dougie bidded farewell to his alter-ego and was replaced by Ashley Jensen as DI Ruth Calder in series eight which was a huge gamble made by producers at the time to switch things up when they already had a huge following.

On the programme, Jimmy made a noble sacrifice to help an innocent man, later resigning from the police force and fleeing the area for good with his new love Meg (Lucianne McEvoy), with the pair hoping to start a new life together elsewhere.

Despite the gamble to switch up the cast, it appears that producers made the right choice in the end, not to simply replace much-loved Jimmy but instead write in a totally new character - Ashley Jensen’s DI Ruth Calder.

The show is still thriving and even Lorraine, who is a big fan of the programme appeared to be shocked at how much she was enjoying the contrasting dual female cast.

Addressing the switch up which is very much still a talking point, Lorraine kicked off the chat, saying: "Do you know what's really interesting, obviously hugely successful we have Dougie Henshall as Jimmy Pérez, fantastic and originally with the books by Ann Cleeves and now we've got a new person coming in Ashley."

The Scottish host complimented: "And it works beautifully." She added: "And the two of you it's like Shetlands Cagney and Lacey."

A picture of Alison and Ashley appeared on the screens for viewers at home to enjoy, the host chimed in saying: "Look at them there. But it has worked really well and it's a totally different dynamic."

In response to Lorraine's probe, Alison explained: "What I think was so clever is we have such a lovely loyal following who have been with the show from the start and they were really used to that first aberration of the show and so what I think what was so smart was we never tried to impersonate that."

Speaking for the first time about her co-star's exit, the actress best known for her role as Tosh on the show, continued: "How can you impersonate Dougie? Nobody could ever live up so what they did was just shifted it all up and said, 'How about something a little bit different?'"

She further elaborated on Ashley joining the team, adding: "Here are two women, totally different flavour profile, new dynamic lots of different sort of textures to play with but I always felt really responsible for also maintaining like the house style because you don't want the show to be unrecognisable for those who have taken it to their hearts."

Lorraine airs weekdays on ITV1, from 9am.