Frequent-Mileage Actor : From London to Los Angeles, Trevor Eve does Shakespeare or sitcom

When U.S. television makes political drama, it inevitably focuses on whatever romance the subject might contain, as in the case of the recent “A Woman Called Jackie.”

British television does the same in “Parnell and the Englishwoman,” a four-part series that begins this week on PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre.”

But in this case romance is integral to the story of the long political battle for Irish independence led by Charles Parnell in the 1880s: Parnell eventually winds up sacrificing his life’s work for love.

“If it were fiction,” says Trevor Eve, who plays the charismatic Parnell, “you’d question the story’s plausibility. You’d say, ‘That’s a bit far-fetched.’ But it happened.”

Eve is a classically trained British actor who has worked for American TV in such dramas as “Lace” and “The Corsican Brothers” and in a short-lived 1985 sitcom, “The Shadow Chasers.” Direct from a run in London as Leontes in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” he’s in Los Angeles now in case ABC picks up a pilot he made called “Up to No Good.”

Eve sits back on a couch in his house on a canal in Venice to try to recollect “Parnell,” which he made two years ago. His full “Parnell” beard returned to a cupboard, the actor has tied back his long brown hair, left over from his recent return to Shakespeare.

Parnell, he explains, was Ireland’s main hope in the 19th Century for peaceful separation from England. “If Parnell had achieved his political goals, we wouldn’t have the situation we have in Northern Ireland now,” Eve says.

Parnell’s policy was to reject violence while keeping implacable pressure on successive British governments for home rule. But he made the mistake of falling in love with the wife (played by Francesca Annis) of one of his lieutenants, Willie O’Shea. Their attachment was an open secret until O’Shea named Parnell as correspondent in a divorce petition. Parnell’s conduct during the resulting scandal split his supporters and led to his downfall and death soon afterward.

Curiously, this would-be savior of Ireland was a Protestant who had an American mother and an English education. “The English politicians had to listen to Parnell because he sounded like one of them,” Eve says.

If Parnell was so adept at steering a middle course between his excitable Irish friends and his stony English foes, why did he let Ireland, which he boasted he held “in the palm of my hand,” slip through his fingers?

“Maybe it was the Mrs. Simpson syndrome,” Eve suggests, referring to King Edward VIII’s abdication because he refused to part from Wallis Simpson. “Parnell may have felt insecure and needed the protection of this Earth Mother. Or Mrs. O’Shea may have been an absolute vamp. Our version shows some of both ...

“I can’t say anything for sure. They give you the beard, you read all the books, you assimilate the period, then you make a dramatic lunge at it. ... I confess I haven’t seen the full four hours myself.”

He has been too busy with his multinational career. Eve starred in Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” for British TV (the U.S. airing should be next season). He spent a month at California’s Big Sur doing “In the Name of the Father,” a 30-minute film for an American Film Institute graduate, Paul Warner. He did the ABC sitcom pilot and “A Winter’s Tale.” He starred in the French film “Love at First Sight.”

Few actors enjoy so varied a career. In particular, few make the journey from Shakespeare to sitcoms.

Eve says, “I admire American sitcoms. We don’t do them as well in England. I never watch them in England and I wouldn’t do one. Here, I laugh hysterically at ‘Cheers’ and ‘Perfect Strangers.’ I love the slow burns American actors do.

“I do think the classics and sitcoms help each other. My experience in American TV taught me to look for the humor in situations.”

Eve’s previous series, “The Shadow Chasers,” aired opposite “The Cosby Show” and consequently left the schedule quickly. Afterward, he says, “I had a development deal with ABC for several years for some reason. I got together with Jeff Franklin, the creator of ‘Full House,’ and came up with ‘Up to No Good.’ It’s about this wandering con man who finds himself in the home of a rich grandparent and a little boy. He gets the boy out of his shell.”

Eve dates his interest in the United States to his experience making the film of “Dracula” in England in 1979. “America is a great place for a holiday, and the opportunity to work here makes it doubly attractive.

“In the mid-’80s, my wife (actress Sharon Maughan, the woman in the Taster’s Choice coffee ads) and I lived in L.A. for nearly two years. Our son was born here. We just felt at home, and we’ve always kept a home here since then. I’m as likely to be here as London. I’m Welsh by background, so London isn’t my home anyway.”

“Parnell and the Englishwoman” begins its four-part run on “Masterpiece Theatre” tonight at 8 on KVCR, 9 on KCET and KPBS and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on KOCE.