Bradford’s Duncan Preston hopes his role in a new television comedy drama will fly the flag for older actors.

In Love and Marriage, a six-part series which started this Wednesday, Alison Steadman plays Pauline Paradise, who finds life begins at 60 when she retires from her job as a lollipop lady and leaves her husband.

Mr Preston, 66, plays Pauline’s non-communicative husband, ‘Silent Ken’, the catalyst for her decision to change her life.

Pauline is fed up with his indifference, and being taken for granted by her adult children, so moves in with her glamorous sister, played by Celia Imrie.

Pauline’s children react to her walkout in different ways, and each episode focuses on the marriages within her family.

Mr Preston, who is from Eccleshill, hopes the series, which also stars Larry Lamb, heralds a new era for older actors.

“All the soaps these days are about young kids, but they haven’t had any life experience,” he said. “It’s wonderful that a large percentage of the population is now being reflected on the screen.”

A former Bradford Grammar School pupil, Mr Preston started acting in a pantomime at St Luke’s Church, Eccleshill, and attended drama classes at the Bradford Civic in Little Germany.

He is well known for roles in sitcom Surgical Spirit and Victoria Wood comedies, including Acorn Antiques and Dinnerladies, and he played Doug Potts in Emmerdale.

Speaking about Love and Marriage, he said the script drew him to the role.

“The writing is so real. You keep coming across bits where you think, ‘I’d say that’,” he said.

“I’ve done a soap and seen actors on their first day say, ‘My character wouldn’t say that’. I’m sorry, but it’s not your place to say that. Writers spend a lot more time writing scripts than we do acting them.”