If you watched BBC One in the 2000s, you knew Brian Lane: the anxious, meticulous detective on New Tricks who kept everyone else’s files in perfect order while his own life fell apart around him. The man behind that character is Alun Armstrong, a County Durham-born actor with nine years of Royal Shakespeare Company work behind him (BBC Originals (BBC profile)).

Born: 17 July 1946 · Occupation: English character actor · Known For: Brian Lane in New Tricks · Spouse: Sue Armstrong · Son: Joe Armstrong (actor)

Quick snapshot

1Confirmed facts
2What’s unclear
  • Exactly why he left New Tricks, beyond a stated wish for new roles
  • Whether Brian Lane was intended as autistic; fans have speculated, the show never confirmed
  • The full story behind James Bolam’s reported rift with Rodney Bewes
  • Whether Dennis Waterman and Amanda Redman were ever more than co-stars
  • Whether any New Tricks reunion could happen; no official plans have been announced
3Timeline signal
4What’s next

Nine rows, one pattern: Armstrong built the stage career first, then the television career.

Detail Fact
Full Name Alun Armstrong (born Alan Armstrong)
Date of Birth 17 July 1946
Birthplace Annfield Plain, County Durham, England
Occupation Character actor
Years Active 1971–present
Known For Brian Lane in New Tricks (2004–2013)
Spouse Sue Armstrong
Children 3 sons, including actor Joe Armstrong
Stage Heritage Nine years with the RSC; six Dickens adaptations

What Is Alun Armstrong Doing Now?

He is doing what he has always done: working. The BBC Originals profile describes him as a prolific character actor, and the label holds up — nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and six Dickens screen adaptations sit underneath the television fame. That stage background is what made Brian Lane possible; the same actor had already played everything from Dickens grotesques to musical leads.

  • Funny Cow (2018), a drama set on the northern working-men’s club circuit
  • The Bookshop (2019), adapted from Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel
  • Possum (2019), a psychological horror film

Rotten Tomatoes lists all three among his credits in the years after New Tricks (Rotten Tomatoes (filmography database)). Streaming databases push the story further: Plex records the 2024 crime drama After the Flood and the 2025 production The Choral (Plex (streaming index)). The range matters — horror, period drama, crime, comedy — because it shows a performer still choosing variety over comfort.

He belongs to the same school of British character actors as Andrew Sachs — performers who spent decades building a craft before one television role fixed their public identity (Andrew Sachs: Biography, Career, and Manuel in Fawlty Towers).

The upshot

Now in his late 70s, Armstrong is doing what he did at 27: taking the work, not the fame. That discipline is rarer in television than it should be.

The implication: New Tricks gave Armstrong a public face, but the post-2013 filmography is the career he had been building all along.

Why Did Alun Armstrong Leave New Tricks?

Armstrong played Brian Lane from 2004 to 2013, his longest continuous television role, before choosing to leave after nine series because he wanted new challenges (Wikipedia (career biography)). Lane was the show’s nervous engine — a detective with obsessive-compulsive traits who pieced entire cases together from a single misplaced file. Brian was written out gently by comparison: he left the police force, and the door was left open in a way TV departures rarely are.

The catch

By the time Armstrong left, the show had already lost James Bolam. Two of the original trio gone within a year — and the chemistry behind New Tricks never fully recovered.

What this means: actors rarely walk away from a hit BBC series without a scandal or a pay dispute. Armstrong left for the most old-fashioned reason in the business — he wanted to act in other things. Then he did.

Is Alun Armstrong’s Son an Actor?

Yes. Hello! Magazine, in a profile of his family, names three sons — Tom, Joe and Dan — and notes that Joe is in showbusiness, while Dan is a musician in the indie rock band Clock Opera (Hello! (celebrity coverage)). Joe is an actor himself, with television and stage credits that are entirely his own. A third son, Tom, rounds out the family.

Armstrong has been married for decades, and his IMDb biography lists three sons from the marriage (IMDb (database biography)). The striking part is how little of this the family publicizes; the sons’ work gets attention, their home life does not. It is the same approach Tessa Peake-Jones, another beloved BBC fixture, has taken with her own family (Tessa Peake-Jones: Real Accent, Husband, Children & Latest).

Why this matters

Showbusiness families usually market the connection. The Armstrongs have done the opposite: three careers, one surname, almost no joint publicity.

The pattern: in this family, the craft was the inheritance — not the fame.

How Was James Bolam Written Out of New Tricks?

James Bolam played Detective Superintendent Jack Halford, one of the original New Tricks trio alongside Armstrong and Amanda Redman — and when Bolam left, the writers gave Halford a brutal exit: dismissed from the Metropolitan Police, then killed in a car crash in the Series 9 finale (Wikipedia (career biography)). Bolam never returned to the show.

His departure has long been linked to a famous rift with Rodney Bewes, his co-star from the 1960s sitcom The Likely Lads. The feud was reportedly the backdrop to his exit, though neither actor has ever explained it in detail.

The pattern

First Jack Halford was killed off, then Brian Lane walked away. Within two years, the original trio was gone from New Tricks.

The catch: Bolam’s exit was the first crack in the show’s original formula. Armstrong’s departure, a year later, closed the chapter for good.

Which Actors from New Tricks Are Still Alive Today?

Of the four main cast members who defined New Tricks — a series Hello! Magazine notes ran on BBC1 from 2003 to 2015 (Hello! (celebrity coverage)) — three are still alive:

  • Alun Armstrong (b. 1946) — alive and still acting
  • James Bolam (b. 1938) — alive, and as private as ever
  • Amanda Redman (b. 1965) — alive and still working in television
  • Dennis Waterman (1948–2022) — died in 2022 at age 74

Waterman was the loss fans felt most. He joined the show partway through its run, stayed until the end, and became as essential to its second era as the original trio had been to the first.

The dating rumor that followed Waterman and Amanda Redman for years never had evidence behind it. Neither actor ever confirmed a relationship, and the story remains exactly that — a rumor.

What to watch

Armstrong and Redman are the last two original leads still regularly appearing on screen. That makes Armstrong’s post-2013 output a continuation, not a comeback.

The implication: every rerun of New Tricks now carries a little more weight. The cast is smaller than it was, but Armstrong keeps adding to his own story.

Alun Armstrong’s Career Timeline

Six milestones, one pattern: a career that kept compounding instead of peaking early.

Year Milestone
1946 Born 17 July in Annfield Plain, County Durham
1971 Began acting professionally
2004 First appeared as Brian Lane in New Tricks
2013 Left New Tricks after nine series
2018–2019 Films including Funny Cow, The Bookshop and Possum (Rotten Tomatoes (filmography database))
2024–2025 After the Flood and The Choral listed on his page (Plex (streaming index))

The pattern: the gaps between rows are where the theatre work happened — the stage kept the screen career alive.

Confirmed Facts and What’s Still Unclear

Confirmed facts

  • Born 17 July 1946 and raised in County Durham
  • Played Brian Lane on New Tricks and left in 2013
  • Nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company; six Dickens screen adaptations (BBC Originals (BBC profile))
  • Three sons, including actor Joe Armstrong and musician Dan Armstrong

What’s unclear

  • The full reason he left New Tricks, beyond a stated wish for new roles
  • Whether Brian Lane was intended as autistic; the show never confirmed a diagnosis
  • Why James Bolam really left, and the details of his rift with Rodney Bewes
  • Whether Dennis Waterman and Amanda Redman were ever a couple
  • Whether any New Tricks reunion is possible; no plans have been announced

The balance here matters: the confirmed list is short, the open questions are longer — which is exactly what you would expect from a private actor who never gave tell-all interviews.

In His Own Words

BBC Originals quotes him on the question of range:

“I’ve played the full spectrum of characters, from the grotesque to musicals.”

— Alun Armstrong, as quoted by BBC Originals (BBC profile)

The profile that tracks his career reaches the same conclusion from the other direction:

“A prolific character actor with six Dickens adaptations and nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company.”

— BBC Originals (BBC profile)

The pattern: two voices, one verdict — a working actor with a stage pedigree most television stars never acquire.

The Takeaway

For anyone who knows Alun Armstrong only as Brian Lane, the past decade offers a correction: he was never just the nervous detective. The stage years, the Dickens adaptations, the steady post-New Tricks filmography — they add up to a working actor who treated the BBC hit as one chapter, not the whole book. For fans still hoping the old team reassembles, the evidence is clear: the original cast has moved on, and so has he. Armstrong keeps making new work in his late 70s, and that makes him worth following beyond the reruns.

Additional sources

imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, amazon.com, nndb.com, premierleague.com, gateshead-fc.com

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Brian on New Tricks?

Brian Lane left the police force and was written out of the series in 2013, when Alun Armstrong decided to move on after nine series.

Is Brian from New Tricks autistic?

The show never addressed it. Brian Lane displayed obsessive-compulsive traits that led some fans to speculate about autism, but New Tricks never confirmed a diagnosis on screen.

Why did they write Brian out of New Tricks?

Because Armstrong chose to leave. The character was not killed off; he was written out as having left the police force, which kept the door open for a return that never came.

Did Rodney Bewes and James Bolam fall out?

Yes, famously. The rift between the two actors dates back to The Likely Lads in the 1960s, and it has been cited as background to Bolam’s departure from New Tricks, although neither man has discussed it in detail.

Did Dennis Waterman and Amanda Redman have a relationship?

There is no evidence they did. The rumor circulated among fans for years, but neither actor ever confirmed a romance, and it remains speculation.

What else has Alun Armstrong been in since New Tricks?

Rotten Tomatoes lists Funny Cow (2018), The Bookshop (2019) and Possum (2019), while Plex lists After the Flood (2024) and The Choral (2025) among his recent credits.

Related Reading

Two profiles of British actors who, like Armstrong, became inseparable from a single defining television role: