Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor specializing in likable idiots, social pariahs, and minor heroes; best known for role in 'Alphides and Pet' and performance in 'Secrets and Lies'.
On the island
Eight records
It every time I hear it, it just instantly takes me straight back to the front room, what we called the front room. Now we weren't really allowed in there, but I used to nip in there and play my mum and dad's record collection.
Again this is my childhood, because on a Sunday afternoon you would all gather around the telly and watch the film, and my parents were very knowledgeable about who was in them.
It reminds me so much of that period when we were me and Pete were a pair of prats in the King's Royal.
Winchester Cathedral Choir and the London Handel Orchestra
When my son was born and he was born at home, then the midwife gave it to me. I just walked around our house, which we'd only just moved into, singing that at the top of my voice, just holding my little boy, you know, my brand new baby, and it always reminds me of that as well.
Mary's PrayerFavourite
This reminds me of my wife and I's young married life with our children growing up because we used to on a Sunday, because we had kids, you know, we had three kids and we were still young, we instead of going out, we used to invite friends over, have a bit of an open house.
My wife didn't want me to put this in because I said to her at the, you know, when I was getting better, I didn't say it at the time. I said to her, you know, you've got to play this at my funeral. And she said, don't even talk about it.
He sang this at my 40th birthday party which was a celebration really of the fact that I survived and lots of friends sung songs and this was this reminds me of that very much and you know I also think it's a lovely lovely song.
It's a song that sums up a certain eccentricity in life that I adore.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:49How much was [the character of Barry in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet] your creation?
Well, I mean, the thing is, what you've got to realize is that Dick and Ian, the writers, are two of the best writers of that kind of drama, comedy in the in the world, really. … they created a wonderful character. with this very pronounced black country accent and the all the concomitant sort of um attributes of a a pedant and a well, he he they thought he was a pedant or a boar, he thought he was a bit of a philosopher.
Presenter asks
6:41Were you aware [as a child] that you were collecting observations that you might use later [as an actor]?
No, I wasn't, but um I was a bit of a hypochondriac. … I have a bit of an odd, uh, quirky sense about the way people behave. … I just started to walk like this old man I saw. And I sort of bent my back, and my arms started moving away, and my feet started to walk, and I started to become this man. And I wasn't doing it because I knew I was going to be an actor, I just decided to be this old man. I felt, although no one was watching and there wasn't, you know, there were no reviewers there, you know, I knew that I'd found something that was right and I'd made a connection by becoming somebody else.
Presenter asks
10:14How early on was your talent spotted? Was it spotted at school?
The keepsakes
The book
Charles Dickens
I think it'd have to be Pickwick Papers, because of what I said about it earlier. It says a lot about a loss of innocence that happened from the Georgian period to the Victorian period. I just think it's all in there.
The luxury
I like to have a drum kit, because I've dabbled with drums. I've played a drummer in a film. Not only is it fun, it's also a great way of getting rid of aggression.
I was starting to think about what am I going to do, what am I going to do um with myself … And then I did the school play. And my drama teacher, Helena Mearz, who was lovely … She said I did the l I played the lion in um uh The Wizard of Oz. And afterwards, because it went down very well for me, she said I've never said this to any of my students. Because it's a very tough business. But I think you should be an actor. all of a sudden all these like this big bang had happened and it all go into that, that's it, I now know what I want to do
Presenter asks
18:31What rescued you in the end [after being typecast and unemployed after Auf Wiedersehen, Pet]?
I stuck out and I eventually went to the National Theatre, back to the theatre, which is I think is a kind of salutary lesson. If you if you're a bit lost, um, go back to where you're challenged. And of course the thing about the theatre is that Casting directors, people like that come and see it. So y you you just remind them that you're a actor and you're not a motorbike enthusiast from Birmingham.
Presenter asks
21:42Did you think you were gonna die [when you had leukemia]?
I had to face that prospect, yeah, I did have to face that and it was very, very tough, but you you either get over it or you don't, and that's one thing I learnt. You either take it on the chin or you don't, and The only truly, truly painful part of it, in a sense, apart from the treatment, was that, you know, I fear of what would happen to my children and my family if I went.
“I think I'm attracted to characters who have that. Well, I suppose it's vulnerability, uh, even if they're totally socially unacceptable or just downright boring or vile. I think it's you as an actor, it's your job to kind of find the humanity in there and find out why they are like that.”
“It was a terrible shock to be very famous and deeply unemployed. You know, um typecasting meant that you'd had it really. And I thought I'm twenty four and I've blown it.”
“one of the wonderful things about getting better in life is that you don't feel guilty about being petty. and being annoyed at silly little things. When you're ill You don't want to offend, or you don't want to upset yourself or anybody else, because it's a bad karmic deal. So you go around a little bit, you know, wrapped up in a kind of feeling of profound um, you know, what's going to happen to me in this. But when you get better, you start shouting at people in traffic jams and uh I can be silly and I can be a bit grumpy without worrying about it.”