The Stage

Spall screen - Timothy Spall

Published Wednesday 5 April 2006 at 11:10 by Liz Thomas

Acting great Timothy Spall tells Liz Thomas how a Jimmy McGovern script made him call off his summer break and return to TV

From the widely acclaimed Auf Weidersehen, Pet to the award-winning Secrets and Lies, Timothy Spall has been one of the leading lights in British drama for more than 20 years.

One of an elite group that counts among its members Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Kathy Burke and Helen Mirren, Spall has won plaudits for his work in theatre, television and film.

This year alone sees him star in three major productions, the first of which is the BBC’s much-lauded drama The Street. Penned by top screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, the series is set in a fictional northern city and follows the lives of various protagonists in each episode. Hard-hitting and bleakly comic it bears all the hallmarks of a McGovern drama. Spall plays a cab driver with something of a social conscience. He collects a Nigerian migrant and tries to drop him off at his destination, only to find that they won’t take him, so he lets him stay with his family. He says: “He is just a straight guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. He does not know much about wider society. He’s something of an everyman character from a certain generation.”

The star says it was the strength of the script that attracted him to the project. “I decided to take the summer off work. Now I’m not just saying that because I couldn’t get any, I know that phrase is used as a euphemism for ‘you’ve had it’ but I did just want a break. Then the script came through for this, I read it and I thought, ‘I have got to do this’.

“I am in the fortunate position of being able to do what I really like and not having to worry about it. Jimmy McGovern captures the humour in tragedy - great dramatists capture those things about human nature.”

He also stars in Pierrepoint, a multi-million pound film made by Granada. Originally planned as a teleplay, it is released in cinemas around the country later this month, before transferring to the small screen. The drama is based on the life of Britain’s most prolific hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who spent more than 20 years travelling round the country conducting state executions and is estimated to have hanged around 450 people. He became Britain’s chief executioner in 1940 and oversaw the hanging of around 200 convicted Nazi war criminals as well as traitor William Joyce - Lord Haw Haw - and the Rillington Place mass murderer, John Christie.

Spall took to the role with gusto, admitting with a ghoulish hint of admiration: “It’s an extraordinary feeling, the actual physical act of hanging someone. Pierrepoint was master craftsman though. He was an ordinary man in a remarkable job.”

The portly actor, who picked up an OBE in 2000, was first introduced to the acting world aged 16. Starring as the cowardly lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz, he says that the experience flicked a switch in his head. Within a couple of years he had made it into RADA but admits that he was a little different to the traditional intake. “On my first day I was mistaken for a window cleaner,” he laughs.

He was soon snapped up by the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring in roles such as Andre in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters with the likes of Ian McKellan.

In the early eighties Spall teamed up with Mike Leigh for the TV movie Home Sweet Home, kicking off a relationship that has lasted as long as his career. He jokes: “I’ve been married to Mike as long as I’ve been married to my wife.”

Then came the gig as builder Barry Spencer Taylor in Auf Weidersehen, Pet and Spall’s television career went from strength to strength. While shows such as Our Mutual Friend and Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise bagged him nominations for Best Actor at the Baftas, it was Leigh’s ground-breaking Secrets and Lies which led to more Bafta and Critics’ Circle [film] nominations, cemented his place in British acting’s hall of fame and led to more offers of work arriving from across the pond.

While Spall has continued his television career, most recently appearing in BBC1’s Mr Harvey Lights a Candle and in Cherished - the harrowing drama based on the true story of Angela Cannings who was wrongly convicted of murdering her babies - he has also been dedicating more time to the silver screen.

He had a cameo role in Tom Cruise’s Vanilla Sky and worked alongside Jennifer Aniston in the film Rock Star. Spall has ensured he has cross-generational appeal starring as weak villain Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail in the Harry Potter films. There are more films in the pipeline and the actor reveals he is on the brink of signing another contract for a Hollywood feature film.

You only have to take a look at the genealogy of UK acting to realise it is a real family business, whether it be dynasties such as the Redgrave/Richardson and Fox/Harris clans or the heritage of stars such as Toby Stephens, Tom Stoppard and Jamie Glover.

It looks like Spall’s son Rafe too is making waves. Having starred in BBC2’s popular The Rotters’ Club and Andrew Davies’ racy drama The Chatterley Affair, he can now be seen in Noel Clarke’s gritty film Kidulthood alongside Jamie Winstone, the offspring of another of the UK’s acting elite.

Spall says he has offered up some simple advice. He explains: “I said, ‘Do your homework and be kind’. I also told him something Dickie Briers once told me, ‘Don’t tell me you want to be an actor, wanting to be an actor is not enough, if you have to be an actor that is something different’.”