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TV star Martin Shaw is back in Durham shooting what is believed to be the last-ever series of Inspector George Gently.

Cast and crew will be there on Saturday - Shaw’s 72nd birthday - to film the latest scenes for the hit BBC police drama.

To fans’ dismay, the series - which stars Shaw as the eponymous crime-cracking inspector - is said to be coming to an end with two final feature-length stories.

They make up the eighth series of the sixties-set drama which is based on novels by Alan Hunter which have been adapted for TV by Gateshead-born writer Peter Flannery who created Our Friends In The North.

Despite being set in the region, the initial series were filmed in Ireland until a grant from Northern Film & Media encouraged producers to make a move to its “proper” home.

In 2010, Martin Shaw and Lee Ingleby - who plays Gently’s sidekick Detective Sergeant John Bacchus - filmed in Durham for the first time, making use of such stand-out locations as Palace Green, giving Durham Cathedral and Castle background roles.

Its star called the local scenery “breathtaking” and “spectacular”.

The period drama, which sees him play Gently as an old-school detective, began in 2017 and its storylines have moved on in time over the years.

Its North East debut, which featured the murder of a woman in Northumberland, was based in World Cup year, 1966.

The new stories - Gently Liberated and Gently and the New Age - are said to be set in the 1970s and to feature a possible miscarriage of justice and a case involving corrupt police officers.

A miners’ strike is also rumoured to feature. In 1972 a real-life miners’ strike involved a dispute between the NUM and Edward Heath’s Conservative government.

Fans will hugely miss the series which has brought further acclaim to Shaw, former star of The Professionals and Judge John Deed.

He picked up the Best Drama accolade for Inspector George Gently at the Royal Television Society awards on Tyneside in 2015, where it beat competition from other North East-set successes including ITV’s Vera and the CBBC mini-series Harriet’s Army.