“It was so disturbing,” admits the 45-year-old, who’s best known as David Mitchell’s self-assured boss Alan Johnson in the hit Channel 4 comedy. “It worked out that on a Saturday I went up from London to Birmingham to do Peep Show, and on the Sunday Johnson sacked everybody.

“Then I came back on the train and on Monday morning I was down a coal mine in Survivors, and then on Tuesday I went back to David Mitchell with a Hitler moustache and I was thrown off set for giggling.

“Then on Thursday I was being attacked by thugs and chained, and woke up on Saturday morning in a hotel room, going ‘Where am I?’.

“It really was a stretch, but I hope I did justice to both shows.”

The second series of BBC drama Survivors, which follows a group of individuals who have somehow survived a deadly virus that’s killed 99% of the population, promises to be darker than the first.

“It gets very dark, but not to the point that a 15-year-old couldn’t watch it,” says Joseph.

“My son’s six-and-a-half and there’s no way he’s watching it until he’s at least 12.”

The show, a remake of the 1970s original, has taken on greater significance in a year that saw the threat of a global pandemic become more real with the outbreak of swine flu.

The scare stories were at their height when the cast of the show was filming in the summer. The young daughter of actress Julie Graham, who plays mother figure Abby Grant, even had a bout of the virus.

But Joseph doubts swine flu will prove as prevalent as the Survivors virus.

“I think we’ve cranked up the panic here in the UK but it shows we are vulnerable to viruses, we’re not superhuman and some of us will be immune and some of us won’t. I think the programme highlights that and serves to warn us about our fragility.”

Joseph’s character Greg Preston was shot in the last episode of the 2008 series and, as this series begins, he’s fighting for his life.

The actor obviously hoped his character would survive.

“It’s such a great thing to be a part of, so if I died sometime during episode one, it still would have been a great run,” says Joseph, revealing that he will be back in episode two at the very least.

We also find out more about Greg’s past through his delirium, caused by blood loss and shock.

“When I first heard about it, I was so excited, because there’s an idea planted in one of the flashbacks that pays off massively later on. The sci-fi geek in me is very excited that I get that little message about the future.”

As for his bullet wound, Greg is stitched up by Dr Anya Raczynski (Zoe Tapper) in a scene sure to make most people squeamish.

Joseph proudly produces a picture of himself with the prosthetic wound, captured on his mobile phone.

“It was awful, because it was so brilliantly done, you could almost feel it. You’d genuinely think it was a bullet wound, it was blended into the skin and Zoe actually puts her finger in it,” says Joseph, grinning.

After a day of filming Survivors, whether on a deserted motorway or down a bleak mine, it’s hard for the actors to switch off.

“It’s not an indulgence to say that you are affected by the stories that you’re telling -- and we did 80 days’ filming on this, so of course you think about the world unpeopled,” admits Joseph.

“I still do it, I sometimes look at the street, any street and just imagine it with no traffic, no people and no electricity, nothing. Just the sounds of birds maybe and the bleakness of it.”

Joseph was born in London and trained at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

He’s appeared in numerous stage productions and television shows, and last year it was rumoured he would take over from David Tennant as the first black actor to play the Time Lord in Doctor Who.

“I was in South Africa doing a thing about the Nigerian oil industry and I was about to film The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana, so when the story hit, I wasn’t privy to any of it apart from what I’d seen on the internet,” he says. “Mates were texting me saying, ‘You’re two-to-one on Paddy Power’.”

But was he approached about the role, which went to Matt Smith?

“There was a chance that I could have been the Doctor.”

And would he have accepted?

“Oh God yeah! I would have hesitated, but I think I would have done it -- I think I would have had to have done it. The worst that can happen is that you get typecast, but then you can’t be as the Doctor because the show is so old.”

But Joseph insists he’s not disappointed. “When I do workshops with young actors and they ask me about rejection and how I cope with it, I say you can’t get them all and shouldn’t get them all. The ones you get, you must love and cherish, but also you must say, ‘That’s that, I didn’t get that’.”

Whatever happens to Greg in Survivors, fans of Joseph will be pleased to know he’s returning to our screens in another series of Peep Show next year.

Before then, he’s itching to get back to the theatre.

“Studio stuff’s great because that’s what’s going to sell you and it’s interesting to work in that detailed way, but for me, it’s all about that unrepeatable moment on stage -- there’s nothing like it.”

 

Joseph was born in London on June 22, 1964.

He has starred in a range of TV shows including Peep Show, Casualty, and Doctor Who.

On stage, he’s played Othello, as well as having parts in Henry IV, King Lear and Hamlet.

He met his wife when filming In The Name Of The Father in 1993.

His film credits include The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio.