2009 is set to be a monster year for some of Bradford’s brightest young actors and actresses… literally!

That’s because the district’s hot thespians are starring in some of the biggest movies and TV series featuring out-of-this-world beasties and fantastic creatures to be either released or produced over the next 12 months.

It’s a fantasy fright-fest with the third movie in the Narnia series scheduled to be shot (pending financial problems), the third series of monster mash Primeval due to air, and the latest in the Harry Potter franchise to be released, all starring local talent.

But the action starts tonight as hotly-tipped new ITV Saturday night drama Demons gets its first outing with Bradford actor Christian Cooke in the lead role.

Christian appears alongside Philip Glenister, Mackenzie Crook and Richard Wilson in this sexy and smart updating of the Dracula legend. The young actor, who has also appeared in Echo Beach, plays the last surviving descendent of the vampire-hunting Van Helsing line.

Christian’s character Luke Rutherford has no idea about his heritage until Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes actor Philip Glenister’s character Rupert Galvin, a larger-than-life American, bursts into the life of his young Godson, Luke.

Together they uncover a hidden world of monsters and spooks largely unseen and ignored by most normal people.

Christian says: “The thing I like most about Luke is that he is someone you can relate to. He is not a superhero figure or someone you even necessarily look at and think ‘it’d be so good to be like him’.

“He’s just a normal kid who has had this immense pressure of a destiny put on his shoulders and is forced to deal with it. I think the audience will be able to follow his journey as he discovers what he has to do and what he physically can do. The audience is part of the journey and I think that is quite cool.”

Another “unlikely hero” set to hit our screens again early this year is Connor Temple, the uber-geek scientist in the hit show Primeval, which is returning for a third series on ITV1. Connor, of course, is played by Wibsey-born actor Andrew Lee Potts.

ITV has not yet formally released a broadcast date for the third series, but it is expected to be either later this month or in February.

Once again, Connor and the team will be dealing with incursions of beasties from the prehistoric past and the far-flung future.

Young Horsforth actor Matthew Lewis will be reprising his role as Neville Longbottom in the sixth Harry Potter movie, the Half-Blood Prince, which is scheduled for a cinematic release in July.

According to a Warner Bros press release from a couple of weeks ago: “Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching.”

Meanwhile, Bradford Grammar School pupil and former Ilkley Upstagers theatre school attendee Georgie Henley, of Ilkley, should be getting ready for the filming of the third movie based on the Narnia books of CS Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which sees Lucy take to the high seas and battle dragons in of Narnia.

Having played Lucy Pevensie in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005 and last year’s Prince Caspian, Georgie was due to begin filming the latest movie this spring.

However, it was announced on Christmas Eve that Disney, co-producers with Walden Media, had pulled out, citing “budgetary reasons”.