Forbes Masson and I got together to shoot a video of our song Kelvinside Men for BSkyB. The video was directed by Ashtar Alkhirsan who went on to be not just a great friend to both of us and also a Victor and Barry collaborator, working with us on the script of a sitcom idea and the show In The Scud
Top Nation And All That
I took part in the Radio 4 programme Top Nation and All That, in honour of the Sellar and Yeatman classic 1066 and All That celebrating its diamond jubilee as well as the introduction of a National Curriculum. Historians Raphael Samuel, Jonathan Clark and Paul Gilroy commemoratd these two events with the help of Nicholas Le Prevost as W.C. Sellar and me as R.J. Yeatman.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
This Royal National Theatre production toured Britain before opening at the National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in 1990. I played The Madman and I also co-adapted the Dario Fo play with the play's director Tim Supple (published by Metheun Books). The role called for many disguises and changes, and the adaptation caused some controversy because of its criticism of the British government for the wrongful imprisonment of The Guildford Four and The Birmingham Six (who were all later released, some during the run of the play). Accidental Death of an Anarchist was nominated for Best Revival at the 1990 Olivier Awards, and I won an Olivier for Comedy Performance of the Year. Here are some production stills and me in rehearsal with Dario Fo himself.
Tim and I worked really hard on this. We wanted to retain the wit and the farce of the original but also to be truthful to the political issues that were at stake at the time when Dario Fo had written it. So we went back to the original Italian translation, and then decided that the wrongful imprisonments of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four (two groups of innocent people who had been accused of IRA bombings) were comparable political issues of our time, and so we wove them into the dialogue and the plot. It was really successful because although it is very funny, it also was very shocking and that was what Fo intended. So even though we were quite radical in our approach we felt we were being more faithful than other adaptations had been. What was exciting was that during the run of the play we had to make changes all the time, because the Birmingham Six were released, and shortly afterwards so were the Guildford Four.
Come Away In
Victor and Barry returned to the airwaves after their Scones and Tea with Vand B, and recorded this live show at the Paris Studios in London. Their guests, and former members of the Kelvinside Young People's Amateur Dramatic Art Society were Barbara Windsor and Bonnie Langford.
Victor and Barry - Clean Ripe Gentlemen
Victor and Barry returned to the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for a few shows during the 1990 Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. Forbes and I hadn't been working together very much for a while so it was a bit of a reunion. We called the show Clean Ripe Gentlemen.
RSC Fringe Festival
When the RSC company moved from the Stratford-on-Avon season to its month long residency in Newcastle at the beginning of 1990, there was a small festival of work put on by the acting company held in the foyer of the Newcastle Playhouse (now the Northern Stage).
I wrote and directed three monologues, collectively entitled Listen I'm Talking. One of them, Butter, I later developed and made into my first film.