Buffy fans will be saying goodbye to Giles for a brief spell this winter when he returns to England in Season 6. But actor Anthony Head is BBC2 bound for a new drama about men having a mid-life crisis, called "Manchild". "I've done things before where you think 'phew, we got away with that'. But with Manchild you really want to watch more of it," he tells TV Plus. It also gave him the chance to spend time in his beloved Blighty.

In BBC2's Manchild Anthony Head plays a handsome but somewhat confused 40 year old in search of fulfilment. He takes up Scuba Diving and hankers after excitement. TV smoothie Nigel Havers co-stars. "In the TV business too much is made of stuff that isn't terribly well written but this will run and run. Id didn't know how it was going to turn out but it is so refreshing. I like things that are innovative and muck around with the genre."

TV Plus caught up with ASH as he promoted his new BBC2 drama Manchild. This was the first UK autumn he has seen for 6 years and he was loving it. "I'll be at home for Christmas and the New Year with the family. I'm waiting to hear when I'm needed back in LA. It might be February. I can do jobs around the house that have been neglected for years. There has been a serious log-jam. I did a flat-packed Ikea table yesterday."

ASH has earned seriously good money from the hit drama so its surprising to learn that he loves doing DIY jobs around his home in Bath. "I've been in the attic for the last 2 days and its full of that horrible glass wool. It was all over my shirt. My girls are 10 and 12 and we were clearing their playroom and taking their toys up to the attic. It was a totally emotional experience for me. It was a closing chapter in one way."

Being separated from partner Sarah Fisher and daughters Daisy and Emily has been tough for Anthony Head. He tells TV Plus: "I would spend up to eight and a half months in the US and parting from them used to cripple me. It would be very hard for a couple of days. We tried to work it so they came out for a couple of months at a time. And we did enrol them in an American school for a while, to give them another experience."

Anthony Head has two more years of shuttling across the Atlantic before he leaves mystical Sunnydale. "I was contracted to do seven years of Buffy and I have done five. Now I am under a new contract as a regular player," he tells TV Plus. "Joss Whedon who created the show won't allow it to go on forever. Whats been so good about it is that Buffy has reinvented itself. Season 4 may not have quite worked out but season 5 was cracking, as is 6."

A British based Giles spin off is in the proposal stage. It means ASH could work here rather than the US. He tells TV Plus: "There is definitely room for a project like this. There is a ready-made audience for it. Giles has a whole side to him that we haven't seen."

One can think of many places in the UK that sit on a convergence of the undead. Sunnydale won't be the same without its book-loving mentor.

SONGS FROM THE HELLMOUTH

The Slayer returns in January for Season 6 of Buffy. Fans are in for a rare treat halfway through the series (after Sarah Michelle Gellar has risen from the dead) when the cast performs an entire episode set to music and song. "We have always wanted to do a musical episode from the beginning," says Anthony Head who plays Giles. "Joss Whedon, the creator is a music buff and has written the lyrics."

In episode 7 of the new Season 6 all the Buffy characters burst into song. Anthony Head (Giles) says, "Everyone has sung themselves, there has been no re-voicing, it's all us. I'd like the BBC to do a Buffy night for the show, as well. But you have to hand it to the BBC, they did what Warner Brothers never did and that is take into account that people over 34 years old watch the show."

The cast of Buffy have developed a deep admiration for Buffy creator Joss Whedon over the last 6 years. "I have no idea what is in his head," admits Anthony Head. "Joss is an absolutely extraordinary man. We will be making Season 5 shows and he is thinking about how to do Season 6. One of the reasons I took the role of Giles is because I wanted a strong role. There is an appealing intensity about making television in the US."

As Buffy's Watcher, Rupert Giles is an expert in handling Demons. British actor, Anthony Head, from Bath, is familiar with ghostly spirits in real life too. He tells TV Plus: "Our house was built in 1813 and it has the spirit of a young girl. We saw some photos from the early 1900s and there was this girl in them with her nanny. Two people have seen her in the house. It's not frightening at all."

British actor, Anthony Head owns a large house in Bath which he shares with his partner Sarah Fisher and two daughters. It has its own ghost of a young girl. "She got a bit stirred up when we first moved there because we had a couple of carpenters come in and take the mickey," says the Buffy actor. "They were doing stuff on the cheap but every time they came back to measure the windows they were different. She doesn't suffer fools."

Fans of Anthony Head will be pleased to see that he returns soon in "Manchild", a new drama for BBC2. It is about 40-something men hunting for more excitement in life. Anthony plays a rich orthodontist called James. "James is leading man material," says Anthony. "He is rich and handsome but flawed. The thing that we all share is that we are men and essentially children. Ultimately we are all guided by women."