Geraldine James has said she could not believe what she was reading the first time she saw the scripts for Utopia.

The Sherlock Holmes actress plays Milner in the Channel 4 show, about a group of people who discover a comic book said to have predicted the worst disasters of the last century, and find themselves targeted by a sinister group called The Network for which she works.

She said of her first look at the scripts: "I didn't know where the story was going when I read it and I was just completely fascinated by it.

"When I was meeting them originally for the part, I hadn't finished all the episodes, I'd got to about episode five, so I was talking about the character and talking about what I thought the themes of the piece were, and they were nodding and saying, 'You really should read episode six, because you might just see some things slightly differently'."

Geraldine went on: "I was on holiday in Spain going, 'I've got to finish it, this is an amazing thing,' and reading it and suddenly going, 'What!' and ripping through the pages to get to the end.

"It's fantastic to find something that is that creative that things just happen, as they do in life, unexpectedly and truthfully and totally surprisingly."

:: Utopia returns to Channel 4 with a double bill tonight (July 14) and tomorrow (July 15).