Actor Biography
photo credit: Mia Hawk
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Trained at Birmingham School of Acting.
Recent credits include Wrestling the Walrus, Royal Exchange Theatre, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Open Book Theatre Summer tour, Captain Hook in Peter Pan, Forum Theatre Barrow. He has played Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh in two productions both of which toured Ireland. 'On Raglan Road' which premiered at London's Old Red Lion Theatre. And the play 'Kavanagh' His one-man play about Beatles roadie Mal Evans, 'Beatle Mal' was the first ever play to be presented at Liverpool’s iconic Cavern club, before playing at Edinburgh fringe & on a national tour of UK & Ireland. Nik has played English fellwalker & guidebook author Alfred Wainwright in a number of productions including the BBC film ‘The Man who Loved The Lakes, and he voiced Wainwright for three series of the popular BBC4 series Wainwright Walks', as well as Radio 4’s 'The Man Behind The Mountains'. |
General self indulgent Autobiography
In advance of my of book, (when someone advances me! :)
A pirate's life for me, Edinburgh, 1994
I was bored in Manchester in the February when the Beatles were conquering America, and during 'Woman's Hour' on the radio!
Sadly I have thus far failed to conquer America or women! I've always loved the Beatles and like to think that being born during Woman's Hour was rather appropriate because I've always felt especially close kin to women, girls do run strong in my family, my mum is one of 4 sisters, I've only girl cousins, four fabulous nieces and my only sibling's a sister. I was expected to be a girl.
Anyway I had a very happy childhood, occasionally ruined by having to go to school, and I still remember the happiest day of my life so far as being the day I left!
I remember watching a tv version of Wuthering Heights when I was 14 in that year of Wuthering Heights, 1978, Kate Bush had her hit in the early part of the year, (been in love with her ever since), and the best ever version of the book, which also I read for the first time that year and it's been. a favourite ever since. (In fact it's passionate intensity kind of fucked up my view of romantic love, forever afterwards but that's just me and I don't hold that against Emily Bronte!).
This version had a great actor called Ken Hutchison as Heathcliff. Hugely inspired me. While on my own in the house I'd dress in an old ragged shirt and trousers, (I'd always loved dressing up since very young), I messed up me hair up into curly dark tangles like Ken and copied him glowering around the house gripping a lit candle, (no holder), with wax dripping down on my hand, seeing the ghost of Cathy at every window. I don't think the carpets ever recovered!
I never recovered either! Acting wasn't a bug it was an incurable illness that infected me, and many times over the years, I've actually wished It'd just go away and I could have some money, because I've struggled for years with the cash ever since I first began to live the dream. Oh the misery, the anguish, the failed relationships...oh you don't want to know!
Having said that I never wanted to do a so called proper job, proper jobs are hard, miserably hard. Work is hard. Acting, proper acting that someone pays you to do, to me neither seems like work or is particularly hard. Tragically, very tragically only with depressingly infrequency have I been paid not to work thus!
Sadly I have thus far failed to conquer America or women! I've always loved the Beatles and like to think that being born during Woman's Hour was rather appropriate because I've always felt especially close kin to women, girls do run strong in my family, my mum is one of 4 sisters, I've only girl cousins, four fabulous nieces and my only sibling's a sister. I was expected to be a girl.
Anyway I had a very happy childhood, occasionally ruined by having to go to school, and I still remember the happiest day of my life so far as being the day I left!
I remember watching a tv version of Wuthering Heights when I was 14 in that year of Wuthering Heights, 1978, Kate Bush had her hit in the early part of the year, (been in love with her ever since), and the best ever version of the book, which also I read for the first time that year and it's been. a favourite ever since. (In fact it's passionate intensity kind of fucked up my view of romantic love, forever afterwards but that's just me and I don't hold that against Emily Bronte!).
This version had a great actor called Ken Hutchison as Heathcliff. Hugely inspired me. While on my own in the house I'd dress in an old ragged shirt and trousers, (I'd always loved dressing up since very young), I messed up me hair up into curly dark tangles like Ken and copied him glowering around the house gripping a lit candle, (no holder), with wax dripping down on my hand, seeing the ghost of Cathy at every window. I don't think the carpets ever recovered!
I never recovered either! Acting wasn't a bug it was an incurable illness that infected me, and many times over the years, I've actually wished It'd just go away and I could have some money, because I've struggled for years with the cash ever since I first began to live the dream. Oh the misery, the anguish, the failed relationships...oh you don't want to know!
Having said that I never wanted to do a so called proper job, proper jobs are hard, miserably hard. Work is hard. Acting, proper acting that someone pays you to do, to me neither seems like work or is particularly hard. Tragically, very tragically only with depressingly infrequency have I been paid not to work thus!
'They went that way I saw them!" (MYT, 1983)
A year after me dear old dad died, I did Manchester youth theatre, 1983 and again in 1984. Geoff & Hazel Sykes, rehearsing at the Ellen Wilkinson High School, Ardwick and performing at the much missed, (why did they have to get rid of it, because now it's like an empty shell) Library Theatre in Manchester central library.
My abiding memories of this were disappointment the first year, disappointment the second year and so disappointed again in the third that I dropped out in the first few days of the 1985 season!
I remember in the first season setting my heart on playing Dick Turpin in 'Turpin Hero" but instead got a very minor, minor villager who's only line really was "They went this way I saw them!" That was in The Lancashire Witches. God was I disappointed! Well I must have been rubbish at the auditions, but MYT was democratic enough to guarantee everyone a part, no matter how small, and apparently no matter how rubbish! Not getting Dick Turpin still hurts all these years later1
I like to think Geoff Sykes who I liked, and like everyone was a bit scared of, might have seen something in me, to let me in in the first place, He must have deffo saw through my big fibs about acting experience at the initial auditions to get in. Course he might have just been making up the numbers. Not getting the parts I wanted, or anything near them, just made me worse. I always used to think it was shyness or more exactly the lack of courage that has haunted me all my life. Like the Cowardly Lion I've lacked "The Nerve!" Of course I might have just been rubbish at acting.
Lacking the nerve still finds me out occasionally, but I can't really comprehend or recall it's confidence crushing depths within me now. Acting did eventually give me the nerve, the nerve to believe that I'm not rubbish at acting! Although I still do have cowardly lion moments, you see I never did get my medal from the wonderful Wizard of Oz, obviously I still haven't really earned it!
I never used to admit that I actually first auditioned for drama schools like RADA and Central School about that time, too, can't remember much about it, except doing a shouty speech by Mike from Steven Berkoff's East in front of a rather condescending RADA panel, including a couple of well known faces from the telly, and just thinking how bad must I have been, without really knowing if that was the case or not. I'm still not sure whether doing these auditions was courage, determination, misplaced confidence, or masochism. Probably all four if truth be known!
One thing thats always sustained me, and has not changed, has been a constant is dreaming, day dreaming. My favourite movie has always been Billy Liar with Tom Courtenay, where Billy day dreams his life through a dead end job, (literally, in an undertakers) between stringing along girls. He doesn't so much lie to others, well he does 'I can't come out tonight, me dad's having his leg amputated!" But he lies more to himself, seeing himself as this great heroic figure, garnering love and awards.
Now I've never strung girls along, well I'm ashamed to admit, I have wasted their time a few times, but I've honestly never two timed a woman. But dreaming, lying to myself is the absolute best thing I'm good at! It that sense I am Billy you see!
A reoccurring daydream is accepting best actor at the Oscars and talking about Billy Liar, saying I am Billy Liar, and will someone prove to me this isn't just another dream. Movies have always been my first love over theatre, but rarer than living, breathing mermaids in my experience. (I've long loved mermaids!), My other frequent Billy theatre dream goes something like this. I'm being interviewed by tv news in the circular auditorium of The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester's real theatre of dreams, where like an old thesp with great conviction I recount my oft rehearsed speech of how I never felt I was a proper actor until I got to perform at the Royal Exchange, the magical circle venue of fabulous stories like Count of Monte Cristo, Philoctetes, Moby Dick & As you like it! And how just walking though the big hall and looking at the unearthly lunar module landed there would instil excitement in me.
The 1980s had started with me being hoovered up by a succession of government schemes with no job prospect at the end, I went to work in Rare Records on John Dalton Street in Manc when I was 16, where Ian Curtis had once worked, a lady who worked there called Maggie who'd known him, told me I reminded her of him. I did 3 schemes in all, the last of which where I was a graphic artist collapsed before it even got to the end, because they didn't really need me.
Like many the 1980s from Falklands jingoism to juggling the unemployment figures, not to mention selling off all the public assets, gave me a long standing hatred of the Conservative party (the 1990s was to give me a dislike of Westminster politics generally, the archaic houses of parliament and ludicrously unfair first past the post electoral system).
I spent at least a couple of years unemployed in the 80s, between the schemes and a few other jobs, can't remember much about it other than writing lots of intense doomy, slightly gothicky poems, about the absence of girls, wasting time & death! I did a bit of archaeology too., in Milton Keynes, got into hot water about unofficially opening up the scummy hostel where us scummies (our own name for our band of diggers), were living, up to visitors to an annual open day at the Milton Keynes Archaeology unit, I made signs directing them to the hostel at Bradwell Abbey so the visitors got to see how we didn't have much including hot water! I've always had a rebellious, non conformist spirit
In 1990 I went off to Jersey for 6 months to work as publicity manager for old fashioned summer shows in a hotel on the esplanade in St Helier, that meant morning 'promotion' me pulling a mock up upright piano that played a tape from the shows music within it accompanied by a selection of the shows dancers, singers every morning giving leaflets out. And then I had to stand outside the hotel before the shows for an hour encourage people to come in. Some of the Portuguese staff in the hotel nicknamed me Basil cause they thought my antics outside resembled a manic Basil Fawlty!
I didn't make the 6 months of the contact, as ended up being fired in the end for getting involved in backstage politics which had seen the cast size dwindle in size dramatically, dancers quitting left right and centre, because the guy that ran it was an arse!
When I came back to Manc I started working at the then, and also I think much missed Granada Studios tour, in their mock up Rovers Return bar, lots of anecdotes about there, which I save for Billy Liaresque interview dreams! I do remember my ironed shirt was never ironed enough for the manager there, and they'd fine you for beer spillage from the anyway very gassy taps. I was the spillage king on the wallchart! I did some extra work on Coronation street and got to see how they filmed in the actual Rovers in between drinking pints of frothy Shandy.
My abiding memories of this were disappointment the first year, disappointment the second year and so disappointed again in the third that I dropped out in the first few days of the 1985 season!
I remember in the first season setting my heart on playing Dick Turpin in 'Turpin Hero" but instead got a very minor, minor villager who's only line really was "They went this way I saw them!" That was in The Lancashire Witches. God was I disappointed! Well I must have been rubbish at the auditions, but MYT was democratic enough to guarantee everyone a part, no matter how small, and apparently no matter how rubbish! Not getting Dick Turpin still hurts all these years later1
I like to think Geoff Sykes who I liked, and like everyone was a bit scared of, might have seen something in me, to let me in in the first place, He must have deffo saw through my big fibs about acting experience at the initial auditions to get in. Course he might have just been making up the numbers. Not getting the parts I wanted, or anything near them, just made me worse. I always used to think it was shyness or more exactly the lack of courage that has haunted me all my life. Like the Cowardly Lion I've lacked "The Nerve!" Of course I might have just been rubbish at acting.
Lacking the nerve still finds me out occasionally, but I can't really comprehend or recall it's confidence crushing depths within me now. Acting did eventually give me the nerve, the nerve to believe that I'm not rubbish at acting! Although I still do have cowardly lion moments, you see I never did get my medal from the wonderful Wizard of Oz, obviously I still haven't really earned it!
I never used to admit that I actually first auditioned for drama schools like RADA and Central School about that time, too, can't remember much about it, except doing a shouty speech by Mike from Steven Berkoff's East in front of a rather condescending RADA panel, including a couple of well known faces from the telly, and just thinking how bad must I have been, without really knowing if that was the case or not. I'm still not sure whether doing these auditions was courage, determination, misplaced confidence, or masochism. Probably all four if truth be known!
One thing thats always sustained me, and has not changed, has been a constant is dreaming, day dreaming. My favourite movie has always been Billy Liar with Tom Courtenay, where Billy day dreams his life through a dead end job, (literally, in an undertakers) between stringing along girls. He doesn't so much lie to others, well he does 'I can't come out tonight, me dad's having his leg amputated!" But he lies more to himself, seeing himself as this great heroic figure, garnering love and awards.
Now I've never strung girls along, well I'm ashamed to admit, I have wasted their time a few times, but I've honestly never two timed a woman. But dreaming, lying to myself is the absolute best thing I'm good at! It that sense I am Billy you see!
A reoccurring daydream is accepting best actor at the Oscars and talking about Billy Liar, saying I am Billy Liar, and will someone prove to me this isn't just another dream. Movies have always been my first love over theatre, but rarer than living, breathing mermaids in my experience. (I've long loved mermaids!), My other frequent Billy theatre dream goes something like this. I'm being interviewed by tv news in the circular auditorium of The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester's real theatre of dreams, where like an old thesp with great conviction I recount my oft rehearsed speech of how I never felt I was a proper actor until I got to perform at the Royal Exchange, the magical circle venue of fabulous stories like Count of Monte Cristo, Philoctetes, Moby Dick & As you like it! And how just walking though the big hall and looking at the unearthly lunar module landed there would instil excitement in me.
The 1980s had started with me being hoovered up by a succession of government schemes with no job prospect at the end, I went to work in Rare Records on John Dalton Street in Manc when I was 16, where Ian Curtis had once worked, a lady who worked there called Maggie who'd known him, told me I reminded her of him. I did 3 schemes in all, the last of which where I was a graphic artist collapsed before it even got to the end, because they didn't really need me.
Like many the 1980s from Falklands jingoism to juggling the unemployment figures, not to mention selling off all the public assets, gave me a long standing hatred of the Conservative party (the 1990s was to give me a dislike of Westminster politics generally, the archaic houses of parliament and ludicrously unfair first past the post electoral system).
I spent at least a couple of years unemployed in the 80s, between the schemes and a few other jobs, can't remember much about it other than writing lots of intense doomy, slightly gothicky poems, about the absence of girls, wasting time & death! I did a bit of archaeology too., in Milton Keynes, got into hot water about unofficially opening up the scummy hostel where us scummies (our own name for our band of diggers), were living, up to visitors to an annual open day at the Milton Keynes Archaeology unit, I made signs directing them to the hostel at Bradwell Abbey so the visitors got to see how we didn't have much including hot water! I've always had a rebellious, non conformist spirit
In 1990 I went off to Jersey for 6 months to work as publicity manager for old fashioned summer shows in a hotel on the esplanade in St Helier, that meant morning 'promotion' me pulling a mock up upright piano that played a tape from the shows music within it accompanied by a selection of the shows dancers, singers every morning giving leaflets out. And then I had to stand outside the hotel before the shows for an hour encourage people to come in. Some of the Portuguese staff in the hotel nicknamed me Basil cause they thought my antics outside resembled a manic Basil Fawlty!
I didn't make the 6 months of the contact, as ended up being fired in the end for getting involved in backstage politics which had seen the cast size dwindle in size dramatically, dancers quitting left right and centre, because the guy that ran it was an arse!
When I came back to Manc I started working at the then, and also I think much missed Granada Studios tour, in their mock up Rovers Return bar, lots of anecdotes about there, which I save for Billy Liaresque interview dreams! I do remember my ironed shirt was never ironed enough for the manager there, and they'd fine you for beer spillage from the anyway very gassy taps. I was the spillage king on the wallchart! I did some extra work on Coronation street and got to see how they filmed in the actual Rovers in between drinking pints of frothy Shandy.
The short lived 'Mishievous Fools', Heaton Park, Manchester 1992. & only pic I can find from this session that thankfully doesn't have me looking like a young Tony Blair!
Although I frequently displayed flashes of rebel determination, as I've said lacking the nerve still finds me out, but it was acting that did eventually help me with courage. It's why I believe passionately that drama should be taken seriously by education, governments, schools, all refuse to see, it's confidence boosting potential, especially in shy or less than outgoing kids, because they view it as non vocational. So stupid, because it's just as team building as sports are, if not more so, and sport is also hard to make a career out of. Course It goes without saying that the rotten school I went to didn't take drama seriously, so we never did any.
It was a slow, slow journey for acting to help me though. After youth theatre and London drama school audition disappointments, I gave up. Well more correctly I just didn't do anything about this dream between 1985 and 1991. But then in 1991 I got involved in a theatre group in Salford, and gradually over the course of these weekly evenings over a period of about 4 months, I suddenly could do it, it wasn't just a dream. The course was based around Stella Adler's interpretation of Stanislavski's teachings in New York in the 1950s. Stella Adler's belief in doing shed loads of research & really using your imagination has been the way I have done things ever since.
These classes were taken by actor Andy Devine, later to be known for playing Shadrack Dingle in Emmerdale. Ironically going back to what I said about the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz movie, Andy looked the spit of him!
Everything we did was filmed on a video camera, not for film acting purposes but more to make you aware of changing your physicality when approaching roles.
In early 1992 the agents that ran this group, moved and the 'City Acting Studio' took over an old bank building on Chapel street and we the 10-15 students helped paint up and convert the ground floor old bank premises into a theatre, imaginatively, calling it 'The Old Bank Theatre.
We put on plays & showcases, but easily the most dramatic thing that ever happened there was the big double doors of the old bank building being ram raided by a van mid performance one night, that upstaged us all!
It's City Acting Studio that I have to thank for the blossoming acting mojo, that an additionally being buoyed by seeing a lovely part time nurse/BA stewardess who was in the group!
After this, I tried my hand at forming my own theatre company called 'Mischievous Fools', with the intention of performing in gardens of stately homes & castles, a play I had written adapted from an old English folk tale about Robin Goodfellow. A lovely gang we were, (including my stewardess girlf). I'd always wanted to be in a band, (still do), and we had publicity photographs taken of us cavorting round Heaton Park, and I designed a press pack to send out. Sadly despite grand plans the Mishievous Fools were destined to only ever do one show, in an old peoples home in North Manc!
The following year I thought I'd try drama school again, I was offered a place at two, Arts Ed in London & Birmingham School of speech & drama, (now Birmingham School of Acting). With no grant or funding, I opted for Birmingham as would be more affordable.
Before that I did what I'd wanted to do ever since falling in love with the Edinburgh fringe in 1988, I performed a one-man, street show version of Treasure Island at the Edinburgh fringe. I had written the piece for me and a friend to do, but he'd had to drop out a the last minute, so I went ahead and played all the roles, which was chaotic, but definitely energetic. Great compliment when the assistant curator of the National Museum of Scotland wanted me to perform it in the foyer of the museum, as their own Treasure Island readings to mark the centenary of RL Stevenson's death apparently weren't going down to well!
I was squatting for 2 weeks in the derelict old Scottish & Newcastle brewery, which was roughly where the Scottish Parliament now is with a French & German couple I'd met while camping out. Our host was Geoff Calhoun, a lovely & wonderful fella who was one f the most intelligent people I'd ever met, he'd dropped out of the rat race and had dreams of the old bewery becoming a peoples arts centre. He looked like a ghost of a highlander from Culloden, wearing an antique kilt and coat, and never seem to sleep. I can still smell the herbal tea he'd brew for us in big industrial flasks he's acquired and see him lamp in hand patrolling his castle like brewery at night. Through Geoff I met many people living homeless, who'd sought refuge in the old brewery. Quite a few of them became like camp followers to the play, including strangely enough a guy with one-leg and another guy with a wooden parrot!
It was a slow, slow journey for acting to help me though. After youth theatre and London drama school audition disappointments, I gave up. Well more correctly I just didn't do anything about this dream between 1985 and 1991. But then in 1991 I got involved in a theatre group in Salford, and gradually over the course of these weekly evenings over a period of about 4 months, I suddenly could do it, it wasn't just a dream. The course was based around Stella Adler's interpretation of Stanislavski's teachings in New York in the 1950s. Stella Adler's belief in doing shed loads of research & really using your imagination has been the way I have done things ever since.
These classes were taken by actor Andy Devine, later to be known for playing Shadrack Dingle in Emmerdale. Ironically going back to what I said about the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz movie, Andy looked the spit of him!
Everything we did was filmed on a video camera, not for film acting purposes but more to make you aware of changing your physicality when approaching roles.
In early 1992 the agents that ran this group, moved and the 'City Acting Studio' took over an old bank building on Chapel street and we the 10-15 students helped paint up and convert the ground floor old bank premises into a theatre, imaginatively, calling it 'The Old Bank Theatre.
We put on plays & showcases, but easily the most dramatic thing that ever happened there was the big double doors of the old bank building being ram raided by a van mid performance one night, that upstaged us all!
It's City Acting Studio that I have to thank for the blossoming acting mojo, that an additionally being buoyed by seeing a lovely part time nurse/BA stewardess who was in the group!
After this, I tried my hand at forming my own theatre company called 'Mischievous Fools', with the intention of performing in gardens of stately homes & castles, a play I had written adapted from an old English folk tale about Robin Goodfellow. A lovely gang we were, (including my stewardess girlf). I'd always wanted to be in a band, (still do), and we had publicity photographs taken of us cavorting round Heaton Park, and I designed a press pack to send out. Sadly despite grand plans the Mishievous Fools were destined to only ever do one show, in an old peoples home in North Manc!
The following year I thought I'd try drama school again, I was offered a place at two, Arts Ed in London & Birmingham School of speech & drama, (now Birmingham School of Acting). With no grant or funding, I opted for Birmingham as would be more affordable.
Before that I did what I'd wanted to do ever since falling in love with the Edinburgh fringe in 1988, I performed a one-man, street show version of Treasure Island at the Edinburgh fringe. I had written the piece for me and a friend to do, but he'd had to drop out a the last minute, so I went ahead and played all the roles, which was chaotic, but definitely energetic. Great compliment when the assistant curator of the National Museum of Scotland wanted me to perform it in the foyer of the museum, as their own Treasure Island readings to mark the centenary of RL Stevenson's death apparently weren't going down to well!
I was squatting for 2 weeks in the derelict old Scottish & Newcastle brewery, which was roughly where the Scottish Parliament now is with a French & German couple I'd met while camping out. Our host was Geoff Calhoun, a lovely & wonderful fella who was one f the most intelligent people I'd ever met, he'd dropped out of the rat race and had dreams of the old bewery becoming a peoples arts centre. He looked like a ghost of a highlander from Culloden, wearing an antique kilt and coat, and never seem to sleep. I can still smell the herbal tea he'd brew for us in big industrial flasks he's acquired and see him lamp in hand patrolling his castle like brewery at night. Through Geoff I met many people living homeless, who'd sought refuge in the old brewery. Quite a few of them became like camp followers to the play, including strangely enough a guy with one-leg and another guy with a wooden parrot!
"Fuck them up!"
Memorable times at Birmingham were, well just being a student for the first time! I met some lovely people, in the college & out. Met some lovely girls, played the part of a hell raiser offstage, or at least tried to cultivate that image! Oh and the bells that rang between lessons, and the headmistressy style principal Miss Yardley! Her daily assemblies where she's often berate us with classics like "The college isn't run for the benefit of the students!"
The old Georgian house's main room, known as 'The Regency Room', where the dimmer switch on the chandelier was the height of technical support for first year shows.
There were some good shows, far more dreadful bad ones, such as the worst version of the Tempest that there's possibly ever been where at least I had fun playing Trinculo and wearing a skirt! I enjoyed 'Teechers' by John Godber, loved playing the teacher Mr Nixon, based him on the best teacher I had at Birmingham, the best teacher I've ever had in fact, a great Welshman called Ron Williams. He was the only teacher who made me want to do to work hard, forgetting disappointments of what drama school was like. He never praised, he didn't need to. I was lucky to have Ron for 2 of my 3 years as tutor, and the in the 2nd year when I had someone else, ( a chap called Paul, "I can see you playing estate agents Nik!"), my work definitely suffered.
I loved Ron, he wore Hawaiian shirts with suits, and would rummage in his executive brief case whilst you were doing your piece & throw a foam brick at you when you least expected it. He loved Chekov & made me a fan too.
I remember working on a monologue from Becket by Jean Anouilh with Ron, this was the first time I really got into the depths of a character, I went into Birmingham Cathedral and as Thomas Becket prayed at the high alter, out loud , rising above bemused onlookers wondering what was going on! Genuinely felt I transcended with this, and just wished it had been the whole play I was working on. Dear Ron, he reminded me of my dad, still miss both.
Another one I loved doing was Millwall football hooligan Billy in Nick Perry's 'Arrivederci Millwall' This was suggested by Larry Rew for a show we were doing about 80s Britain. I liked Larry a lot, although never got to do any real work with him.
I did Billy's Henry V inspired, rousing speech calling the firm to arms, (or in this case stanley knives), right in front of Miss Yardley sat in front row in our tiny little theatre, sat there as she did, legs akimbo, hairs poking through her tights, "FUCK THEM UP!" I yelled!
The old Georgian house's main room, known as 'The Regency Room', where the dimmer switch on the chandelier was the height of technical support for first year shows.
There were some good shows, far more dreadful bad ones, such as the worst version of the Tempest that there's possibly ever been where at least I had fun playing Trinculo and wearing a skirt! I enjoyed 'Teechers' by John Godber, loved playing the teacher Mr Nixon, based him on the best teacher I had at Birmingham, the best teacher I've ever had in fact, a great Welshman called Ron Williams. He was the only teacher who made me want to do to work hard, forgetting disappointments of what drama school was like. He never praised, he didn't need to. I was lucky to have Ron for 2 of my 3 years as tutor, and the in the 2nd year when I had someone else, ( a chap called Paul, "I can see you playing estate agents Nik!"), my work definitely suffered.
I loved Ron, he wore Hawaiian shirts with suits, and would rummage in his executive brief case whilst you were doing your piece & throw a foam brick at you when you least expected it. He loved Chekov & made me a fan too.
I remember working on a monologue from Becket by Jean Anouilh with Ron, this was the first time I really got into the depths of a character, I went into Birmingham Cathedral and as Thomas Becket prayed at the high alter, out loud , rising above bemused onlookers wondering what was going on! Genuinely felt I transcended with this, and just wished it had been the whole play I was working on. Dear Ron, he reminded me of my dad, still miss both.
Another one I loved doing was Millwall football hooligan Billy in Nick Perry's 'Arrivederci Millwall' This was suggested by Larry Rew for a show we were doing about 80s Britain. I liked Larry a lot, although never got to do any real work with him.
I did Billy's Henry V inspired, rousing speech calling the firm to arms, (or in this case stanley knives), right in front of Miss Yardley sat in front row in our tiny little theatre, sat there as she did, legs akimbo, hairs poking through her tights, "FUCK THEM UP!" I yelled!
Holding court in my bedroom at 127 Rotten Park Road, Birmingham in 1996
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I almost got kicked out of Birmingham, not because of that, but through a mixture of struggling to pay fees. Between them, me dear mum & equally proud to say, Anthony Hopkins funded me and I had to work in various bars & occasionally Waterstones to support myself. Also through mooning about because of various impossible women I'd fallen for, and made me just not bother going in sometimes. I'm not sure what I was more disappointed by, the drama school or the trouble with girls!
The final year play Dancing at Lughnasa was easily the best thing done there. Still the best director I've ever had was John Adams who cast me despite my misgivings, as the narrator Michael in Brian Friel's 'Dancing at Lughnasa' a production I found it as moving to act in, as people told me they found to watch. |
my first Hooky 1997
In the showcase at London's Criterion theatre I got to play Captain Hook for the first time. This piece was a showcase for a stage fight, me as Hooky versus Peter Pan played by Vanessa Smith, and was in the show solely because of Derek Ware, (the only other teacher I've ever had who believed in me) I always called Derek 'The Master' he was a sword master and had been both stuntman & actor in some great British films including The Italian Job, (mini driving) and sword master as well as actor in the sublime 1967 Far from the Madding Crowd. I couldn't get the simple fight choreography just like I couldn't with dancing, but Derek was as much a master at instilling confidence in you as he was of the sword. I wish both him & Ron Williams were around to thank in person. But I thank them here instead.
I got very drunk at the end of the London showcase downing countless glasses, disappointed at the almost zero attendance of worthwhile agents and casters that had been promised, so after standing next to a long table with loads of poured wine for all the invited guests, I decided to fill my boots in true hell raiser style, necking countless glasses and then in walked Anthony Hopkins then wife Jennifer who managing the trust that had given me a few thousand to get through drama school, I was introduced to her by one of the teachers and then got all gushy and sentimental about how Anthony Hopkins was my favourite actor! later that night I was dancing on the tables at All bar One on Leicester Square absolutely steaming and got barred. I never liked All by Ones!
I got very drunk at the end of the London showcase downing countless glasses, disappointed at the almost zero attendance of worthwhile agents and casters that had been promised, so after standing next to a long table with loads of poured wine for all the invited guests, I decided to fill my boots in true hell raiser style, necking countless glasses and then in walked Anthony Hopkins then wife Jennifer who managing the trust that had given me a few thousand to get through drama school, I was introduced to her by one of the teachers and then got all gushy and sentimental about how Anthony Hopkins was my favourite actor! later that night I was dancing on the tables at All bar One on Leicester Square absolutely steaming and got barred. I never liked All by Ones!
Carry on Up the Easter Rising L-R: Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale & Sid James! (1916 Kings Head, 2001)
I came to London in 1998 and tour guiding became my mainstay between planning my own self produced version of 'Silent Night', a new version of Steven Berkoff's solo play 'Harry's Christmas' (always loved Berkoff"s writing). I did this over that first Christmas in London at the Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice, at the time under the artistic directorship of actor and comedian Marc Wooton.
Few came despite my best efforts and I ended up not even being able to pay the director and lovely fella that did the lighting, (eternally sorry to them) as well as everything the venue wanted. Haven't been back there since!
After this I worked a lot on various fringe shows in London, (got some hilariously bad reviews which I save for my Billy celebrity interview anecdotes!), mostly they were just profit share, which meant beer money. I rehearsed around tour guiding on various open top sightseeing bus companies which paid the rent on flat shares from Greenwich to Streatham, New Cross to Sydenham. Always liked South London the best when I lived in London town.
A favourite was a new play, 1916, about the Easter Rising in Dublin, written by friend & frequent future collaborator John Dunne.
Dear old John, we've had more fallings out than the Irish Guards over the years, but I still love the old blighter.
I loved it because I got to play legendary Irish socialist & one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, James Connolly. I've always loved playing real people, especially people I count as heroes. I've long been drawn to Ireland too. Remember tales of my dad, who was born in Liverpool of Welsh parents, having a mysterious relative called Miss Wood from Dublin, (Dubs always been a favourite place), where possibly the root of the Wood in my name comes from. And there was dad being nicknamed Paddy when he was in the RAF in WW2!
1916 was a mess really, but then again so was Dublin's post office after the rising! A cast of over 12 on the tiny stage at the Kings Head in Islington with lots of heavy artillery sound effects which often drowned out the dialogue, And the action bordering on the carry on films at times. But I loved playing Connolly, even though the director Syd Golder wouldn't let me play him as the Scotsman he was. "Nah fuck off, they'll only think you can't do an Irish accent!"
Few came despite my best efforts and I ended up not even being able to pay the director and lovely fella that did the lighting, (eternally sorry to them) as well as everything the venue wanted. Haven't been back there since!
After this I worked a lot on various fringe shows in London, (got some hilariously bad reviews which I save for my Billy celebrity interview anecdotes!), mostly they were just profit share, which meant beer money. I rehearsed around tour guiding on various open top sightseeing bus companies which paid the rent on flat shares from Greenwich to Streatham, New Cross to Sydenham. Always liked South London the best when I lived in London town.
A favourite was a new play, 1916, about the Easter Rising in Dublin, written by friend & frequent future collaborator John Dunne.
Dear old John, we've had more fallings out than the Irish Guards over the years, but I still love the old blighter.
I loved it because I got to play legendary Irish socialist & one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, James Connolly. I've always loved playing real people, especially people I count as heroes. I've long been drawn to Ireland too. Remember tales of my dad, who was born in Liverpool of Welsh parents, having a mysterious relative called Miss Wood from Dublin, (Dubs always been a favourite place), where possibly the root of the Wood in my name comes from. And there was dad being nicknamed Paddy when he was in the RAF in WW2!
1916 was a mess really, but then again so was Dublin's post office after the rising! A cast of over 12 on the tiny stage at the Kings Head in Islington with lots of heavy artillery sound effects which often drowned out the dialogue, And the action bordering on the carry on films at times. But I loved playing Connolly, even though the director Syd Golder wouldn't let me play him as the Scotsman he was. "Nah fuck off, they'll only think you can't do an Irish accent!"
Paddy Kavanagh sat with a weird bloke that dresses up as him!
Looking back over the last 10 years, my most enjoyable role was playing Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh in the plays 'On Raglan Road' (2007 & 2008) and 'Kavanagh' (2009) Produced by my old, long suffering buddy John Dunne. Particularly because it gave me the opportunity to tour all around Ireland over 2 consecutive years.
On the second tour I even got to play him at the annual Patrick Kavanagh weekend in his birthplace Inniskeen, at his old church now a vistors centre, with himself buried in the churchyard there.
The audience was made up of scholars from not just Ireland, but around the world who revere his work. If I'm honest, I think half the audience liked me, the other half hated me, which wasn't bad going!
Playing Paddy Kavanagh was actually one of my most satisfying acting experiences.
I'd love to play Paddy Kavanagh again, and particularly in Dublin.
One or two close friends still call me Paddy to this day in recognition of how often I played him and it’s a nickname I quite enjoy. My Liverpool born dad was nicknamed Paddy in the RAF in WW2 and theres a mystery over lost Irish relations which has always captured my imagination.
And then there was Wainwright. Wainwright was the most successful I've ever been, or as near as I've been to a rung up the ladder of the impossible dream.
I was cast as Alfred Wainwright or AW in the BBC drama documentary 'The Man who loved the lakes' I'd once worked for the YHA, so was aware of the almost cult following AW's little guidebooks inspired amongst outdoor types! I was lucky as I think I was the only one they saw that morning who was a tall as him and from the north.
Luck and lazyness, (or both), on the part of casters/directors is what it's really all about I've found!
The director, who's background was current affairs, had never done drama before. He said to me one day into the shoot, "You're from oop norf aren't you, you can do his voice?!" So although uncredited for voicing him, you did end up hearing me as, as well as seeing me as him in the film. And this bit of luck was to lead to me voicing AW in a highly successful spin-off series 'Wainwright Walks', fronted by Julia Bradbury. This ran to 3 series broadcast between 2007-2009 and became best selling dvd's! In addition to this Cumbria tourism hit upon the idea of me recording podcasts, with myself as Wainwright guiding walkers, thereby coining the phrase: 'Flat-Cap Nav' ! I went on to record more for the publishers of the Wainwright books Francis Lincoln. Later I recorded AW's prose for a Radio 4 programme: 'The Man Behind the Mountains', The old fella's been good for me, though I'm sure he wouldn't be impressed with the programmes popularity inspiring many more walkers on the mountains!
On the second tour I even got to play him at the annual Patrick Kavanagh weekend in his birthplace Inniskeen, at his old church now a vistors centre, with himself buried in the churchyard there.
The audience was made up of scholars from not just Ireland, but around the world who revere his work. If I'm honest, I think half the audience liked me, the other half hated me, which wasn't bad going!
Playing Paddy Kavanagh was actually one of my most satisfying acting experiences.
I'd love to play Paddy Kavanagh again, and particularly in Dublin.
One or two close friends still call me Paddy to this day in recognition of how often I played him and it’s a nickname I quite enjoy. My Liverpool born dad was nicknamed Paddy in the RAF in WW2 and theres a mystery over lost Irish relations which has always captured my imagination.
And then there was Wainwright. Wainwright was the most successful I've ever been, or as near as I've been to a rung up the ladder of the impossible dream.
I was cast as Alfred Wainwright or AW in the BBC drama documentary 'The Man who loved the lakes' I'd once worked for the YHA, so was aware of the almost cult following AW's little guidebooks inspired amongst outdoor types! I was lucky as I think I was the only one they saw that morning who was a tall as him and from the north.
Luck and lazyness, (or both), on the part of casters/directors is what it's really all about I've found!
The director, who's background was current affairs, had never done drama before. He said to me one day into the shoot, "You're from oop norf aren't you, you can do his voice?!" So although uncredited for voicing him, you did end up hearing me as, as well as seeing me as him in the film. And this bit of luck was to lead to me voicing AW in a highly successful spin-off series 'Wainwright Walks', fronted by Julia Bradbury. This ran to 3 series broadcast between 2007-2009 and became best selling dvd's! In addition to this Cumbria tourism hit upon the idea of me recording podcasts, with myself as Wainwright guiding walkers, thereby coining the phrase: 'Flat-Cap Nav' ! I went on to record more for the publishers of the Wainwright books Francis Lincoln. Later I recorded AW's prose for a Radio 4 programme: 'The Man Behind the Mountains', The old fella's been good for me, though I'm sure he wouldn't be impressed with the programmes popularity inspiring many more walkers on the mountains!
Pigeons in flight?
As Mal Evans in 2013, but looking more like John Shuttleworth in this pic!
Then I wrote a play about Beatles roadie Mal Evans. I've always loved the Fab 4, my sister got me into them, as she had their red & blue best of double albums in the 1970s, (my sister got me into lots of good stuff, David Bowie, Tom Courtenay, the Bronte's too!).
So being the same height and build as this gentle giant, friend and close confidante to the boys who. almost certainly gave Paul McCartney the idea for Sergeant Pepper, as well as helping with lyrics to a couple of songs, I came up with an idea for a one-man show with original music based around the Sergeant Pepper album tracks. A lovely fella called Sylvester Campion helped me write music for it. I wrote a tune, and hummed a basic riff, and Sylvester put magic to it. I wanted to do something imaginative, as a homage to the Fab 4 and not just another dull, run of the mill, biographical one-man play,
It began at The Cavern in Liverpool, as a lunchtime show, I had Sylvester and another fella playing bass guitar live to me singing. It was huge fun fronting a band at the Cavern, but I was too busy treading on me nerves to notice, the audience was largely made up of my family from the Wirral and Mals extended family from Liverpool and London. I am really proud that this was the first straight foreword play ever to be put on at the Cavern.
I went onto do 3 weeks at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in a venue that looked like the Cavern, but with a distinct lack of Cave dwellers! Think I averaged about 8 or 9 a night in a venue that could seat 40, but at least never had to cancel. Even the worst audience of 3 turned out to be the best show! The following year I planned an ambitious 11 week tour of England & Ireland with as many venues. The play received good notices & audience reaction was very positive, but regional touring theatre is sadly in the doldrums and the audiences were just not coming out for it and a succession of venues went down like dominoes, as I had to cancel a succession of shows, as audiences just weren't interested.
I always imagined returning to Birmingham in a blaze of glory, but I just was spreading myself too thin & nights like the Brum gig, where the venue didn't help you push for an audience were destined to have to be cancelled. It's an old joke about a one man show so called because only one man came to see it.
Leeds & Liverpool, and London & Crawley too in England were exceptions, I did local radio interviews and the venues really helped, and the following month there were great nights on the tour of Ireland in Dublin, Wexford and Mayo.
The whole experience however put me off ever producing my own work again, but the best thing about playing Mal was the reaction from Mal's family, his son, Gary and daughter Julie & her children, (Mal's grandsons) And I'm really happy to say I now count them as friends.
By Hook or by Crook.
Me doing my exhausted actor in dressing room between shows look!
I did three years running of pantos between 2014 & 2016, despite them these days being very singey dancey affairs where everyone has to dance and me and dance, don't you know, we just get on, or rather I just let it get on and leave me behind!
At drama school when we were streamed in the first year according to ability, advanced, intermediary & basic, they had to invent a new group of ineptitude below even basic for the likes of me! One teacher late on at Birmingham Nicole Ribet was actually really kind to me, where others had given up on me. She took extra curricular time to teach me to tango, Nicole was an attractive woman about my age with a fabulous figure and that actually helped, so i can still remember how to dance in that clockwise square when i think of her of dancing with her! Singing was another thing. We had a singing teacher who did help me to get best marks for singing amongst the fellas in our first year assessments, I remember singing 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Mis with gusto and loving it. However he departed and wasn't replaced, so I went the next year to getting the lowest! Keep meaning to have singing lessons again!
Anyway back to dance, when I did Jack & the Beanstalk in Clacton in 2014 the director hated me. He was all "And 5-6-7-8!" And my King Bumble, was I think appropriately at least a 9, though 5-6-7-8 didn't see it that way. BLIMEY I nearly asked him if he shagged to 5-6-7-8 beat as well! Luckily I had an ally in the star of the show, lovely fella Charlie Condou, who'd been in Coronation Street, or I might have been kicked out.
And the last time I did panto, I got to play Captain Hook for the first time since drama school showcase and without having to dance or suffer the embarrassment of choreographed bows, and 5-6-7-8…..9! Sadly can't see me getting panto again, not unless I've done a fair bit of telly or suffered such a blow to the head that suddenly I can dance!
At drama school when we were streamed in the first year according to ability, advanced, intermediary & basic, they had to invent a new group of ineptitude below even basic for the likes of me! One teacher late on at Birmingham Nicole Ribet was actually really kind to me, where others had given up on me. She took extra curricular time to teach me to tango, Nicole was an attractive woman about my age with a fabulous figure and that actually helped, so i can still remember how to dance in that clockwise square when i think of her of dancing with her! Singing was another thing. We had a singing teacher who did help me to get best marks for singing amongst the fellas in our first year assessments, I remember singing 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Mis with gusto and loving it. However he departed and wasn't replaced, so I went the next year to getting the lowest! Keep meaning to have singing lessons again!
Anyway back to dance, when I did Jack & the Beanstalk in Clacton in 2014 the director hated me. He was all "And 5-6-7-8!" And my King Bumble, was I think appropriately at least a 9, though 5-6-7-8 didn't see it that way. BLIMEY I nearly asked him if he shagged to 5-6-7-8 beat as well! Luckily I had an ally in the star of the show, lovely fella Charlie Condou, who'd been in Coronation Street, or I might have been kicked out.
And the last time I did panto, I got to play Captain Hook for the first time since drama school showcase and without having to dance or suffer the embarrassment of choreographed bows, and 5-6-7-8…..9! Sadly can't see me getting panto again, not unless I've done a fair bit of telly or suffered such a blow to the head that suddenly I can dance!
Not getting cast as the new Worzel is the last straw!
I always said that if I wasn't a successful actor by the time I was 50 that I'd give it up. I didn't kid myself, as I've said already, it's an incurable illness, terminal in fact.
I wrote a poem in my 40's called 'Black gels best to Highlight' in a attempt to explain the "silly illness" and how even if i had could see the path would never bring me success, I'd still walk down it.
Anyway my 'inner Billy' will never go away, I'll still be dreaming of acting glory with my last waking dream before my Viking funeral, complete with wonderful, rousing score from the 1958 Kirk Douglas movie, (Kirk, my all time favourite actor btw).
Course the way things are going I'll never be able to afford to leave money for even the most basic crem funeral! Oh just throw me on a bonfire like Percy Shelley's friends, who burnt his dead body on an Italian beach!
I dream of being allowed to play 'the great game' ....well it's not dreaming so much as absolutely gagging for it! Let me be in something like Jamestown, Outlander. Peaky Blinders, Britannia, Happy Valley, Endeavour, Banished, or Benidorm! on tv.
Dream roles would be pirates, Celts, Romans or Vikings. Captain Hook or Long John Silver. I've always loved Robert Newton and wanted his career, Bill Sikes to old Long John. I'd really want to play old Long John again, first time since playing badly hopping round Italy in 2009, always made a point of not copying him though, as he was so definitive., found myself instead referencing John Huston's growling intonation, my all time favourite film director.
Also it'd be an absolute dream to play Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, could do a lot with this I think, Oh and Cyrano de Bergerac, although honestly, I could never ever play him as well as Depardieu!
Oh and I'd give anything to put Worzel Gummidge's head on in a revival for tv. Jon Pertwee's straw would be hard to fill, but I'd have a go at making 10-Acre field my my own.
I wrote a poem in my 40's called 'Black gels best to Highlight' in a attempt to explain the "silly illness" and how even if i had could see the path would never bring me success, I'd still walk down it.
Anyway my 'inner Billy' will never go away, I'll still be dreaming of acting glory with my last waking dream before my Viking funeral, complete with wonderful, rousing score from the 1958 Kirk Douglas movie, (Kirk, my all time favourite actor btw).
Course the way things are going I'll never be able to afford to leave money for even the most basic crem funeral! Oh just throw me on a bonfire like Percy Shelley's friends, who burnt his dead body on an Italian beach!
I dream of being allowed to play 'the great game' ....well it's not dreaming so much as absolutely gagging for it! Let me be in something like Jamestown, Outlander. Peaky Blinders, Britannia, Happy Valley, Endeavour, Banished, or Benidorm! on tv.
Dream roles would be pirates, Celts, Romans or Vikings. Captain Hook or Long John Silver. I've always loved Robert Newton and wanted his career, Bill Sikes to old Long John. I'd really want to play old Long John again, first time since playing badly hopping round Italy in 2009, always made a point of not copying him though, as he was so definitive., found myself instead referencing John Huston's growling intonation, my all time favourite film director.
Also it'd be an absolute dream to play Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, could do a lot with this I think, Oh and Cyrano de Bergerac, although honestly, I could never ever play him as well as Depardieu!
Oh and I'd give anything to put Worzel Gummidge's head on in a revival for tv. Jon Pertwee's straw would be hard to fill, but I'd have a go at making 10-Acre field my my own.
Marian didn't need any merry men!
Since very young I'd always wanted to be Robin Hood, still do. Albeit an ageing one now, Russell Crowe was an interesting older Robin opposite wonderful Cate Blanchett in an otherwise, surprisingly dull film by Ridley Scott, But it was Sean Connery who's finest hour and a bit was Rob in Robin and Marian, love that film to bits.
Sometimes I think I'd just be happy living in Dublin, playing Paddy Kavanagh in some of the old pubs, telling his life to any literary tourist who might want to hear it for enough euros to buy beers, Or at other times living by the sea, (I've always dreamt of a cottage on the old harbour in Weymouth - a special place for me), painting big canvases of mermaids, better still living with a mermaid! Course I'd still daydream, about being in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie and my Oscar acceptance speech.
Frequently I dream of the acting Gods of inspiration now departed from the casting books, somehow seeing fit to use their influence to help me from beyond. Movies have always been my touchstone to the magic of acting. Apart from anything else they never die, playing the film releases the spirit all over again.
OH! Peter Sellers, Charles Laughton, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Marlon Brando. Jack Lemmon, Robert Newton, Roger Livesey.... And I'll just sadly update this to include you dear Albert Finney, (see my blog Feb 2019), actors I have loved & been inspired by, all my life and who still live on in the magical movie afterlife, give me a little nudge from the spiritual upper circle once in a while! x
Black Gel's Best to Highlight
Monstrous thought of got that out of your system,
Give me the strength to make real what I dreamt.
Like an arrow continually being fired and never getting tired and or ever letting go.
Only one string on the finest, sharpest bow.
Free me from shadows where I too easily despair,
a confined time of past time well beneath the stairs,
Where I continually rummage and undermine all courage,
Emerging from the dark, albeit well into fourth part and ask 'where do I start?
Something to fall back on... my arse!
Can you climb up a ladder without any rungs there?
Is there such an energy after years of starving hunger?
Does a speck of modest success between some soulless job
stop you suspecting horrid hobby, terminal folly, and what a silly illness to die of?
Can you dare more than you care, without ever being scared
and never being spared all the just not fucking fairs!
And all the pain and the gain and the fallen down again!
Only to rise up on an impossibly hopeless refrain..
Like untrained dancer that simply holds the show together,
This means that even if I can't get on...I'll still try forever.
(NWJ)
Films have always mattered hugely to me and these are the ones that have mattered the most.
In no particular order, though Billy Liar has always been special to me...
Billy Liar (1963)
Being There (1980)
The Apartment (1960)
A Matter of Life & Death (1946)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Vikings (1958)
Napoleon (1927)
Grease (1978)
Robin and Marian (1975)
Lost Horizon (1937)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1991)
The Dresser (1983)
Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
Shadowlands (1993)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
The Field (1990)
Brazil (1985)
Orlando (1992)
Spartacus (1961)
Help (1965)
Holy Smoke (1999)
Comrades (1986)
Big Fish (2003)
1492 (1992)
Leon (1994)
The Rebel (1961)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
After the Fox (1966)
Fearless (1993)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Paris, Texas (1984)
The African Queen (1951)
Withnail and I. (1987)
The Horses Mouth (1958)
Birdman (2014)
The Englishman who went up a hill.... (1995)
Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Fisher King (1991)
Gladiator (2000)
Irma La Duce (1963)
MY DESERT ISLAND DISCS!
(I’ve always fantasised about being on the programme, but I’d have to break the rules!)
My choices reflect both strong memories of associating q piece of music with strong feelings, happy & sad, reminding myself in isolation that I can still feel it.
1 Beesley Street. JOHN COOPER CLARKE
I love this, the poetry describing squalor & awfulness is both funny & powerful . It conjures up such visions that make you squirm with delight! “A lightbulb bursts like a blister the only form of heat”
Loved it since my sister had Snap, crackle & bop. My sis got me into the best music inc Bowie (who’s absence on this list concerns me, so I’ll deffo have to smuggle in a 9th record by him without you knowing!)
Dr JCC is unique. I know the words off by heart it’s a rare epic of a piece & I particularly love the musical backing the invisible Girls gave to it on the album.
This first inspired me to try to write poems & continues to inspire & thats why I’d need it.
2 Feelin Good. NINA SIMONE
A massively feel good song, but not just that. “Birds flying high you know what I mean” It is about freedom, it’s about appreciating life in all the little wonderful ways. Unusually for my choices here I don’t associate this with a particular place & a time in my life. I can’t remember where I heard it first, it’s just always been there making me feel uplifted every time I hear it & reminding me of how I need to be feelin good when I’m blue. And no one gives life to this song the way Nina Simone does. I’d really need it alone on a desert island. PLAY LOUD!
3 Girl: THE BEATLES
Associate this with first hearing the Beatles on my sisters copy of the Red album sometime in the mid 70s. Loved that album, and this particularly stood out. I didn’t really discover their stuff after 1966 until a few years later, when songs like I am the Walrus & A Day in the Life, Revolution, Come Together & I Want You, gave me a huge love of the fab 4!
Later on its words resonated with me She’s the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry, still you don’t regret a single day!”
I especially love the sharp intake of breath every time Lennon sings ‘girlllllll’ says so much. I’ve always loved the very word ‘girl’ and for that I do really mean woman! I know some women don’t like being called girls so I don’t mean to be sexist, tho I’ve always absolutely loved a girl calling me her boy! And although sadly girls have been a rarity intimately my life, they have been the most important.
4 Atmosphere JOY DIVISION
This takes me back to having just left school, which is still the happiest time of my life, to working in Rare Records Manchester (where coincidentally Ian Curtis had worked about 5 years earlier) This had come out before Ian died but didn’t really make an impact with me until it was rereleased in the Autumn of 1980 and was big, the sound, the wonderful heavy drums & excellent vocal
delivery of Ian take me back instantly to that time.
6 Paddy’s Lament SINEAD O’CONNOR
Ireland’s hugely important to me both emotionally & creatively. I’m one of those sad Englishmen who wished he’d been born there. My Liverpool born dad who always told of a mysterious relative of his called Miss Wood from Dublin? the reason he attached Wood to his name Jones was nicknamed Paddy in the RAF in WW2. Later I was nicknamed Paddy by Irish waiting staff at a conference centre in Birmingham that I worked at whilst at drama school, because they said I looked Irish. Also one of my most enjoyable roles was playing Paddy Kavanagh on stage touring lots of little venues all over Ireland.
Sinead’s voice affects me deeply & one of my top ten albums would be her Irish standards collection Sean-Nós Nua (pron: Sean nose nua. Means new old style) which this is from, though I most loved it when I heard her sing it a capella on an RTE show
7 King of the Mountain KATE BUSH
I’ve loved Kate Bush since first hearing Wuthering Heights in 1978. She made a huge impression on me. 1980s Never For Ever is still my favourite album, but I love everything she’s ever done equally as much. I nearly put Moments of Pleasure here as that is gorgeous, so many of her lyrics and music connect with me, beautiful & sensual. But this song about Elvis ultimately I love the most. I particularly loved her live rendition at the Before the Dawn shows, a highlight. She contiinues to inspire.
8 High Hopes PINK FLOYD
Big fan of Floyd, particularly their early Sid Barrett stuff, tho not so keen on the more prog rock band that they became in the 70s, (although Wish you were here is a favourite album), this much much later track resonates with me in so many different ways, not least the year it came out 1994 was the year I went to drama school & I had High Hopes! Also I love the video & the Syd Barrett references & it reminds me of a happy although ultimately doomed romance I had with a woman in Cambridge when I was in panto in Grantham & I’d get the train to see her passing Ely which features so prominently in the video on the way
SMUGGLED IN 9th CHOICE
Has to be Bowie. but which one?
Life on Mars or Absolute Beginners
Rocking good extra
Indy Cindy: THE PIXIES
(Like in You Never Can Tell, I never can tell what my mood will be & would rather the 'Seven hundred little records' it mentions in the song to just 8, but all these songs have mattered hugely in my time on earth !
MY TOP TEN ALBUMS
1 The Smiths: STRANGEWAYS HERE WE COME
every always says the Queen is dead as their favourite Smiths album but for me its easily Strangeways, its the full album like playing more than all the others.
I was slow getting into the phenomenon of Morrissey, although by 1987 and this I was hooked
2 Peter Gabriel: 4. (Security)
3 David Bowie: HUNKY DORY
4 John Lennon: PLASTIC ONO BAND
5 Are you experienced? JIMI HENDRIX
(US reprise edition)
6 The White Album or Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper (depending on mood): THE BEATLES
7 Closer: JOY DIVISION
8 Piper at the Gates of Dawn: PINK FLOYD
9 Never Forever: KATE BUSH
10 Sean-Nós Nua : SINEAD O’CONNOR
BOOKS I couldn't be without
Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
Borstal Boy. Brendan Behan
Red Shift & The Owl Service. Alan Garner.
Weir of Hermiston. Robert Louis Stevenson
Complete Short Stories. RLS
Burning Your Boats, Collected Short Stories of Angela Carter
The Piano Players. Anthony Burgess
The Dancing Stones. Catherine Feeny
The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexander Dumas
Collected Poems Dylan Thomas
Collected Poems TS Elliot
Collected Poems Percy Shelley
Sometimes I think I'd just be happy living in Dublin, playing Paddy Kavanagh in some of the old pubs, telling his life to any literary tourist who might want to hear it for enough euros to buy beers, Or at other times living by the sea, (I've always dreamt of a cottage on the old harbour in Weymouth - a special place for me), painting big canvases of mermaids, better still living with a mermaid! Course I'd still daydream, about being in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie and my Oscar acceptance speech.
Frequently I dream of the acting Gods of inspiration now departed from the casting books, somehow seeing fit to use their influence to help me from beyond. Movies have always been my touchstone to the magic of acting. Apart from anything else they never die, playing the film releases the spirit all over again.
OH! Peter Sellers, Charles Laughton, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Marlon Brando. Jack Lemmon, Robert Newton, Roger Livesey.... And I'll just sadly update this to include you dear Albert Finney, (see my blog Feb 2019), actors I have loved & been inspired by, all my life and who still live on in the magical movie afterlife, give me a little nudge from the spiritual upper circle once in a while! x
Black Gel's Best to Highlight
Monstrous thought of got that out of your system,
Give me the strength to make real what I dreamt.
Like an arrow continually being fired and never getting tired and or ever letting go.
Only one string on the finest, sharpest bow.
Free me from shadows where I too easily despair,
a confined time of past time well beneath the stairs,
Where I continually rummage and undermine all courage,
Emerging from the dark, albeit well into fourth part and ask 'where do I start?
Something to fall back on... my arse!
Can you climb up a ladder without any rungs there?
Is there such an energy after years of starving hunger?
Does a speck of modest success between some soulless job
stop you suspecting horrid hobby, terminal folly, and what a silly illness to die of?
Can you dare more than you care, without ever being scared
and never being spared all the just not fucking fairs!
And all the pain and the gain and the fallen down again!
Only to rise up on an impossibly hopeless refrain..
Like untrained dancer that simply holds the show together,
This means that even if I can't get on...I'll still try forever.
(NWJ)
Films have always mattered hugely to me and these are the ones that have mattered the most.
In no particular order, though Billy Liar has always been special to me...
Billy Liar (1963)
Being There (1980)
The Apartment (1960)
A Matter of Life & Death (1946)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Vikings (1958)
Napoleon (1927)
Grease (1978)
Robin and Marian (1975)
Lost Horizon (1937)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1991)
The Dresser (1983)
Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
Shadowlands (1993)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
The Field (1990)
Brazil (1985)
Orlando (1992)
Spartacus (1961)
Help (1965)
Holy Smoke (1999)
Comrades (1986)
Big Fish (2003)
1492 (1992)
Leon (1994)
The Rebel (1961)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
After the Fox (1966)
Fearless (1993)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Paris, Texas (1984)
The African Queen (1951)
Withnail and I. (1987)
The Horses Mouth (1958)
Birdman (2014)
The Englishman who went up a hill.... (1995)
Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Fisher King (1991)
Gladiator (2000)
Irma La Duce (1963)
MY DESERT ISLAND DISCS!
(I’ve always fantasised about being on the programme, but I’d have to break the rules!)
My choices reflect both strong memories of associating q piece of music with strong feelings, happy & sad, reminding myself in isolation that I can still feel it.
1 Beesley Street. JOHN COOPER CLARKE
I love this, the poetry describing squalor & awfulness is both funny & powerful . It conjures up such visions that make you squirm with delight! “A lightbulb bursts like a blister the only form of heat”
Loved it since my sister had Snap, crackle & bop. My sis got me into the best music inc Bowie (who’s absence on this list concerns me, so I’ll deffo have to smuggle in a 9th record by him without you knowing!)
Dr JCC is unique. I know the words off by heart it’s a rare epic of a piece & I particularly love the musical backing the invisible Girls gave to it on the album.
This first inspired me to try to write poems & continues to inspire & thats why I’d need it.
2 Feelin Good. NINA SIMONE
A massively feel good song, but not just that. “Birds flying high you know what I mean” It is about freedom, it’s about appreciating life in all the little wonderful ways. Unusually for my choices here I don’t associate this with a particular place & a time in my life. I can’t remember where I heard it first, it’s just always been there making me feel uplifted every time I hear it & reminding me of how I need to be feelin good when I’m blue. And no one gives life to this song the way Nina Simone does. I’d really need it alone on a desert island. PLAY LOUD!
3 Girl: THE BEATLES
Associate this with first hearing the Beatles on my sisters copy of the Red album sometime in the mid 70s. Loved that album, and this particularly stood out. I didn’t really discover their stuff after 1966 until a few years later, when songs like I am the Walrus & A Day in the Life, Revolution, Come Together & I Want You, gave me a huge love of the fab 4!
Later on its words resonated with me She’s the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry, still you don’t regret a single day!”
I especially love the sharp intake of breath every time Lennon sings ‘girlllllll’ says so much. I’ve always loved the very word ‘girl’ and for that I do really mean woman! I know some women don’t like being called girls so I don’t mean to be sexist, tho I’ve always absolutely loved a girl calling me her boy! And although sadly girls have been a rarity intimately my life, they have been the most important.
4 Atmosphere JOY DIVISION
This takes me back to having just left school, which is still the happiest time of my life, to working in Rare Records Manchester (where coincidentally Ian Curtis had worked about 5 years earlier) This had come out before Ian died but didn’t really make an impact with me until it was rereleased in the Autumn of 1980 and was big, the sound, the wonderful heavy drums & excellent vocal
delivery of Ian take me back instantly to that time.
6 Paddy’s Lament SINEAD O’CONNOR
Ireland’s hugely important to me both emotionally & creatively. I’m one of those sad Englishmen who wished he’d been born there. My Liverpool born dad who always told of a mysterious relative of his called Miss Wood from Dublin? the reason he attached Wood to his name Jones was nicknamed Paddy in the RAF in WW2. Later I was nicknamed Paddy by Irish waiting staff at a conference centre in Birmingham that I worked at whilst at drama school, because they said I looked Irish. Also one of my most enjoyable roles was playing Paddy Kavanagh on stage touring lots of little venues all over Ireland.
Sinead’s voice affects me deeply & one of my top ten albums would be her Irish standards collection Sean-Nós Nua (pron: Sean nose nua. Means new old style) which this is from, though I most loved it when I heard her sing it a capella on an RTE show
7 King of the Mountain KATE BUSH
I’ve loved Kate Bush since first hearing Wuthering Heights in 1978. She made a huge impression on me. 1980s Never For Ever is still my favourite album, but I love everything she’s ever done equally as much. I nearly put Moments of Pleasure here as that is gorgeous, so many of her lyrics and music connect with me, beautiful & sensual. But this song about Elvis ultimately I love the most. I particularly loved her live rendition at the Before the Dawn shows, a highlight. She contiinues to inspire.
8 High Hopes PINK FLOYD
Big fan of Floyd, particularly their early Sid Barrett stuff, tho not so keen on the more prog rock band that they became in the 70s, (although Wish you were here is a favourite album), this much much later track resonates with me in so many different ways, not least the year it came out 1994 was the year I went to drama school & I had High Hopes! Also I love the video & the Syd Barrett references & it reminds me of a happy although ultimately doomed romance I had with a woman in Cambridge when I was in panto in Grantham & I’d get the train to see her passing Ely which features so prominently in the video on the way
SMUGGLED IN 9th CHOICE
Has to be Bowie. but which one?
Life on Mars or Absolute Beginners
Rocking good extra
Indy Cindy: THE PIXIES
(Like in You Never Can Tell, I never can tell what my mood will be & would rather the 'Seven hundred little records' it mentions in the song to just 8, but all these songs have mattered hugely in my time on earth !
MY TOP TEN ALBUMS
1 The Smiths: STRANGEWAYS HERE WE COME
every always says the Queen is dead as their favourite Smiths album but for me its easily Strangeways, its the full album like playing more than all the others.
I was slow getting into the phenomenon of Morrissey, although by 1987 and this I was hooked
2 Peter Gabriel: 4. (Security)
3 David Bowie: HUNKY DORY
4 John Lennon: PLASTIC ONO BAND
5 Are you experienced? JIMI HENDRIX
(US reprise edition)
6 The White Album or Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper (depending on mood): THE BEATLES
7 Closer: JOY DIVISION
8 Piper at the Gates of Dawn: PINK FLOYD
9 Never Forever: KATE BUSH
10 Sean-Nós Nua : SINEAD O’CONNOR
BOOKS I couldn't be without
Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
Borstal Boy. Brendan Behan
Red Shift & The Owl Service. Alan Garner.
Weir of Hermiston. Robert Louis Stevenson
Complete Short Stories. RLS
Burning Your Boats, Collected Short Stories of Angela Carter
The Piano Players. Anthony Burgess
The Dancing Stones. Catherine Feeny
The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexander Dumas
Collected Poems Dylan Thomas
Collected Poems TS Elliot
Collected Poems Percy Shelley
