Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner)

September 2014

IT is one of the most-talked-about books of the new century, a harrowing tale of childhood friends, raised in Afghanistan, whose innocence is destined to be torn apart when their divided country begins to move inexorably towards war. Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner became an international bestseller, a hit film and also a stage success, the latest production of which opens a UK tour at Nottingham Playhouse tonight. Hosseini, who now lives in California, where the play was first performed on the stage at his local theatre in San Jose, was born in Kabul and grew up in a middle-class family. By the time he was 11, with war looming, the family fled Afghanistan for Paris, then sought political asylum in the US, where they settled in 1980.Hosseini studied medicine, which he practised for ten years. The Kite Runner, published in 2003, was his first novel.

Were you surprised at the success of The Kite Runner?

The success of the book continues to be an enormous surprise to me. I really worried that it wouldn’t find a readership. Partly because it was so intense and so sad, with a central character that was frankly unlikable for much of the narrative. And all the characters that you love meet their demise in horrible ways. The fact that it continues to be read widely more than ten years after it was published continues to be a surprise to me – it’s the antithesis of what a bestseller should look like.

Have you seen the stage production?

Yes, in my home town of San Jose. I went over the script with Matthew Spangler, a script he’d already written. He asked me to look at it and we tweaked it. And I attended one rehearsal session but that was it for my involvement.

How did you feel it translates to the stage?

I think it translates incredibly well.What I really love about the play is that so much of the book is preserved in it. You have freedoms with stage adaptations that you don’t have with film. One large chunk of the book is the main character’s Amir’s internal monologue, where he judges his own actions and has insights and comments about the people in his life. In the play the lead actor can break from the action, turn to the audience and share his thoughts. In film that can’t be done. That’s not to put down the film at all.

Did you like the film?

I’ve seen it a number of times because I went to different screenings with the actors and the director to introduce it. I like the film quite a lot. It’s sort of a break from the usual way that Hollywood treats that region of the world; political violence and terrorism. This was a simple family story – yes, with a political backdrop but the focus was on the intense human dramas and the themes are universal. 

You left Afghanistan aged 11. How vivid are your memories of your life there?

Surprisingly vivid and rich. I didn’t realise how vivid and rich until I set out to write The Kite Runner and I was suddenly able to mentally teleport myself back to that time and place, in those final few years before war broke out. I was surprised how vividly I remembered Kabul, the geography of it and the sights and sounds of it. And what it was like to be part of an upper-middle-class, somewhat Westernised, family living in Kabul. So the first third of the book I had no difficulty in writing.

How Westernised were your family?

Kabul is very different from the rest of the country. It has always been more modern and progressive and liberal. In the 1970s we had an influx of cultural influence from the West and the Soviet Union. So we had a huge influx of films, theatres opening, jazz clubs, cabaret clubs, books... and my family weren’t were devoutly religious. They enjoyed a cocktail and they liked The Beatles and Elvis. 

So your move to Paris wasn’t such a culture shock?

It would have been a much bigger culture shock if I’d have grown up in a village just outside Kandahar, you might say. But it was still a culture shock. One can’t compare Kabul and Paris. The technology, how convenient life was... all these things I’d only seen in movies. Those first few months I was in perpetual wonder.

When did you first return to Afghanistan?

I left in 1976 and returned 27 years later, the only member of my family to do so. That was in March 2003 and I went with my brother-in-law. We stayed in Kabul for two weeks. We’d been dying to go back and visit the place where we were born and raised. Man, that was a culture shock. I had an image in my head the way I remembered it and then to see how it was after various cycles of conflict... entire neighbourhoods I’d known as a boy completely razed to the ground, every building had bullet holes. It was really overcrowded, so many widows and orphans, a huge presence of guns and weaponry – it took us a few days to adjust to what we were seeing.

Do you still have family and friends there?

Most of my family and friends got out by the mid-1980s. We were one of the earlier ones – we left before any of the wars began. We lost family members and friends, some were injured. Very few stayed behind. I have a cousin who still lives there but she’s the only surviving family member who does. 

How long would it take for Kabul to be the sort of place you’d want to live again?

There are so many hurdles in the path of that happening. The country has enormous challenges to get back to the way it was in the 70s. 

The problems aren’t just security but institutional corruption, warlordism, the presence of militias, the constant intervention of neighbouring countries... it’s hard to put a timescale on it. 

“I guess the biggest question is what will happen when the foreign troops do leave? Whether the country will devolve back into the kind of internal conflict that really tore it apart in the 1990s? 

“That’s one scenario we are all hoping and praying doesn’t happen."

The Kite Runner runs at Nottingham Playhouse until September 6 2014. Tickets are priced from £9.50 to £28.50 from the box office, 0115 941 9419 or nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk. 

Due to adult themes and occasional use of strong language there is a 14 plus age restriction. 

THE STORY

KITE “fighting” is a popular regional pastime in which boys cover their kite strings with broken glass and try to sever the strings of opposing kites. When kites are severed from their strings, boys chase and retrieve them – these are the kite runners.

Amir and Hassan are close friends, even though the former comes from the dominant Pashtun group and the latter, son of the family servant, from the Hazara minority. 

The Kite Runner of the title is Hassan, who recovers the kites of his well-to-do young friend Amir. 

While chasing a kite, Hassan becomes the victim of a gross assault – innocently witnessed by Amir – with consequences for both boys.

After the Soviet invasion Amir and his father emigrate to California. Following his father’s death Amir, now married to Soraya, returns to Afghanistan, where the Taliban has had a brutal impact on Hassan and his family. Can Amir atone for a secret guilt by finding Hassan’s missing child Sohrab? 

THE CAST

THE 2014 UK tour features two new actors Bhavin Bhatt (Wali) and Andrei Costin (Hassan/ Sohrab). The returning cast are: Ben Turner (Amir), David Ahmad (Kamal), Antony Bunsee (General Taheri), Emilio Doorgansingh (Baba), Nicholas Karimi (Assef), Ezra Khan (Ali), Nicholas Khan ( Rahim Khan), Lisa Zahra Jouzakini (Soroya), Hanif Khan (Mohammad Hanif Dewaka).

THE THEATRE

“I AM delighted that following its success in Nottingham and Liverpool that the production will have a longer life. 

“The power and relevance of The Kite Runner doesn’t diminish and I have no doubt that this will prove to be a timeless story. It seems to me that it has another profound connection to Britain; as we move towards a complete troop withdrawal from Afghanistan it is good, and important, to be reminded of the Afghans’ own stories and histories. 

“It is easy to forget that the Afghans are a people with a complex and rich culture, with their own story to tell, and that story won’t stop, or cease to be relevant, when our troops come home.”

Giles Croft, artistic director, Nottingham Playhouse

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

“A hit 5/5”

The Telegraph

“Mesmerising”

Daily Mail

“Exhilarating”

The Times

“Gripping”

The Guardian

Rebecca Grant

July 2014

IT was the breakdown of their parents’ marriage that was the catalyst for the three Grant sisters to go into showbusiness.

So says Rebecca, 32, the youngest of the three.

“They split up when I was one. My mum had a choice of either being really upset about it or investing that energy into the arts.

“She’d take us to the Morrison School of Dance in Hyson Green and I think that was very fulfilling for her. She also became involved with costume making for the school, which she still does now.”

Model and actress Rachel, who starred alongside Pierce Brosnan as a Bond Girl in Die Another Day, now lives in New York, while eldest sister Angela runs a dance school in London.

Rebecca now lives in North London with husband Ivan Pierson, who works in publishing. Their wedding in 2009 was covered by OK! Magazine.

“We got married in a place called Ham, which is near Sandwich, would you believe,” she laughs.

The Morrison School of Dance was the beginning of Rebecca’s life on stage and screen, that over the past 30 years has included Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End show Bollywood Dreams, a play with Christian Slater, a role alongside Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in the film The Other Boleyn Girl, plus TV roles in Emmerdale, Prisoners’ Wives and Holby City.

“I think my dancing lessons at the Morrison School of Dancing were so magical, it was like stepping into a fairytale book. That’s where I started.

“And I don’t think I’ve ever properly left; I always pop in to see Miss Morrison and her pupils. She was such an inspirational teacher and she brought out a feeling and passion for dance.”

Mum is Isabel Grant, who still lives in Mapperley where the sisters grew up. She moved from the Philippines in her early 20s.

“Mum was in labour for 24 hours with me,” grimaces Rebecca, who plans to have children in the next few years.

“She says that whenever I heard music I used to dance in my cot. Well, not dance, more like wriggle.”

Dad, who she has remained close to despite the separation, is a GP. And it is through his family that Rebecca has a connection to the future king.

“It’s true – we are the fourth cousins of William and Harry. We always knew about it growing up because my dad used to talk about it.

“My grandfather’s mother was Ernestine Bowes Lyon, the first cousin of the Queen Mother. I was very intrigued with the story of how she met my great-grandfather.

“She was already married and had two sons in Scotland until she fell in love with my grandfather [Ronald Grant, Baron de Longueuil] and eloped with him. She shot herself in the heart and recovered and lived until she was 96.”

The Grant sisters went to Hollygirt, the independent girls’ school, where she picked up ten GCSEs, including four A*s.

Rebecca then studied performing arts at Clarendon College.

“I’d heard that Samantha Morton had gone there and I really admired her. I loved the two years I was there.

“At the same time I was in shows at the Co-op Arts Theatre, which I’d been doing for years as a dancer and actor.

“And I was in a play at the Playhouse with Helena Bonham-Carter when I was 11.

“I thought she was very beautiful. She had this bed backstage which she used to lay on and look at the ceiling. I found that intriguing. She’s beautifully eccentric and is one of my idols.

“After Clarendon College I wanted to go to Rada but couldn’t really afford it.

“I was doing a lot of dancing jobs, and eventually got a role as a flamenco dancer in Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall.

“I did a few short films, including one in the Philippines which I won an award for. It was English-speaking but I had to do a Filipino accent,” she says, adding that it is something she can do quite easily as her mum’s partner is Filipino, so it’s the language she hears when she’s visiting them in Nottingham.

Her break came after numerous auditions for West End shows, when she landed a role in the musical Bombay Dreams as one of the principal dancers.

“I had the ambition to appear in the West End before I was 20. I was 19.

“We did a lot of TV shows, including the Royal Variety Show, The Generation Game and Michael Barrymore’s My Kind Of People.”

In her second year with the Lloyd Webber musical, Rebecca got a bigger part, found herself an agent, then ended up starring alongside Christian Slater in the play One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

“He was really lovely. I seriously can’t fault him. I played a nurse; a Filipino nurse.”

The theme continued for the role she is most recognised for – Filipino nurse Daisha Anderson in Holby City.

“On the first day I snogged a patient,” she laughs. “I got pregnant, was going to have an abortion, then I didn’t, I gave birth in a lift, was going to give the baby up for adoption, then I didn’t... then I got shot.

“It was lots of fun. Robert Powell is still a friend, Patsy Kensit was so sweet and funny and Adrian Edmondson really made me laugh.”

She was in Holby City for two years, after which, and in between stage shows, Rebecca reappeared on TV in Emmerdale and Prisoners’ Wives. Her biggest film role was in The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana.

“I was playing a dancer, and you see me quite a bit,” she says.

Rebecca is currently appearing in Around The World In 80 Days, which has just transferred from the New Vic in Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester’s Royal Exchange.

“I play an Indian princess who gets rescued by Phileas Fogg. And we’ve been getting some great reviews so hopefully it will continue around the country.”


For more about Rebecca visit her website rebeccagrant.co.uk.

Michaela Strachan

January 2013

IT started out as a book of children’s poetry, all based on her experiences with animals as a presenter of TV programmes over the past 25 years.
They included The Really Wild Show, Michaela's Wild Challenge, Orangutan Diary and Winterwatch, which returns to BBC 2 next week.
Michaela Strachan's Really Wild Adventures, which comes to Nottingham Playhouse on February 22, will mix live poetry with music, puppetry and plenty of fun and games for children, she says.
“I got in to poetry through writing postcards when I was away,” says the 46-year-old.
“This was in the days before e-mail and texting. I was travelling all the time so I was writing a lot of postcards. I got bored of just writing the usual so I turned them in to poems.”
She adds: “They are all based on experiences I’ve had with animals so they’re very true. Some of them are very emotional, some are funny and some are daft.”
The book came out in hardback at the end of last year. The paperback will be out in time for the tour.
She says: “Creating a stage show from it came about after a conversation I had with my agent.
“There’s a real culture at the moment for children’s books being turned into theatre shows, like The Gruffalo and Stickman. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for them.
“I took one of the poems to Malachi Bogdanov, who is a theatre director and he said that he could really see it working as a theatre show.”
She continues: “It’s very creative and a lot of fun. It’s also very factual, with interaction.
“I did a poem called Never Try To Out-Spit A Spitting Cobra that was based on a piece I did for Michaela’s Wild Challenge, which was a show I did for Channel 5. On stage there’s a puppet that’s a snake. We get kids up on stage with water pistols and they get prizes. “There’s another called Polar Dentistry, which was another one from the TV show when we had to take a tooth out of a bear to age it. For that we get a dad up on stage and dress him as a polar bear. We mark his bottom, which is one of the things we really did. It gets the kids laughing.
“So it can be very lively and interactive and fun, but there are also poems that I’m just reading to music, like one about an orangutan that we filmed for Orangutan Diary. That’s quite emotional.”
Although she does do a talk for adults with slides and stories from her career, Strachan says this one-woman show is entirely for children, aged three to eight.
“It lasts around an hour and it’s very simple but very effective,” she says.
The presenter now lives in Cape Town, South Africa with her partner, their son Ollie, seven, and three grown-up stepchildren.
“It’s a beautiful place. We live just on the back of Table Mountain and have a view of Hout Bay Harbour. It’s a great lifestyle but it is a little inconvenient for work.”

Michaela Strachan's Really Wild Adventures comes to Nottingham Playhouse on Friday, February 22 at 2pm. Tickets are £12.50 from the box office, call 0115 941 9419 or go to www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk.

Elena Hargreaves

April 2012

I WAS actually born in Norwich but only lived there for two years before the family moved on to Liverpool and then Nottingham when I was seven.

We moved around because of my dad’s work. He’s a scientist and also a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. My mum is a paediatric nurse and she’s Columbian. They met while they were studying in Spain.

They settled in West Bridgford and I lived there until I went off to do an acting degree at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London.

After that I came back to Nottingham for a year, which is when I started to write music with a band.

I now live in London but I spent half my life in Nottingham. And I love Nottingham. I like the peace and quiet. I’ll usually hide away in places like the Malt Cross, Lee Rosy’s and Bell & Jerome in West Bridgford, where I used to work.

I moved to London because it’s where the work is. I have a paid residency in a bar, where I also work. I also teach acting and keep busy auditioning for acting jobs.

After graduating from drama school, I played Gladys in The Skin of Our Teeth in New York. It was an off-Broadway production at The Lee Strasberg Theatre. That’s where Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Robert De Niro studied, so that was amazing. I went with a friend to the school to train and while we were there we got parts in their latest production. It was crazy and a little surreal, to be with all these hardcore theatre people for three months.

On the back of that I got the lead in a short feature film in Los Angeles. My character is a well-paid escort and it’s a love story of sorts but there’s no nudity in it. There aren’t even any kissing scenes. It’s a film noir; it’s very stylised. The director said he found the English accent was exotic enough. It’s not finished yet but he plans to screen it at all the major film festivals.

I’ve also appeared at the Palace Theatre in Mansfield in a play called In Manifest and The Merry Wives of Windsor at The New Red Lion Theatre in London with a company called Grassroots. I’ll be acting with them again in the summer at The Scoop Theatre in London. We’re currently rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing, which will go on an open-air tour, including Hyde Park.

I’m currently in rehearsals for the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which is being directed by Danny Boyle. I met him last weekend and he’s lovely. I felt like saying “I’m an actress!” but that wouldn’t have been too professional.

I actually auditioned to sing but I was recalled to dance, which is really cool.

I’m not allowed to give anything away about what we’re doing. We’re being told where to go on a need-to-know basis. He’s really worried about people finding out on Twitter and Facebook.

The singing started at the kitchen sink. My parents were really strict and made me and my sister, Stephanie, wash and dry the pots. And we’d start harmonising while we were doing it.

We do perform together as The Hargreaves but we also do our own thing. Whenever I have a big gig I get her to support me, which she’ll be doing at Nottingham Playhouse tonight.

We’ve an older brother, Alan, who is the most sensible out of all of us. He studied international business and runs his own company.

As well as my sister, I’ll be telling a few stories, screening a short film and a friend of mine has created a really nice set, so it’s going to be good. It won’t be your usual gig.

David McAlmont

June 2011

IT was one of the best songs of the 90s, updating Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound with Bernard Butler’s indie guitar, topped off with David McAlmont’s falsetto wail. It sounded like an impassioned ballad but McAlmont & Butler’s Yes was full of bile.

“It’s quite vitriolic and quite bitter,” says McAlmont, who wrote the lyrics.

“I was imagining what I would say to somebody who dumped me if I became famous. When I wrote it I said it was an I Will Survive for the 90s. And everybody seemed to find it uplifting.”

He adds: “Some walked out on abusive husbands or ended troublesome relationships because of it. I didn’t know it was going to do that.”

Yes was a Top 10 hit in 1995 but continues to be heavily played on UK radio.

“I have to be grateful for Yes because it’s the reason I have a career,” admits McAlmont.

The single and its follow-up hit, You Do, were taken from their debut album, The Sound of McAlmont. McAlmont and Butler, the former Suede guitarist who recently rejoined the band, fell out soon after but teamed up again in 2002 for Bring It Back, which reached the Top 20 and produced two more hit singles, Falling and Bring It Back.

Since then the singer has collaborated with Craig Armstrong, David Arnold, Boo Hewerdine, Courtney Pine and Michael Nyman.

But he’s never been out on tour under his own name, until now.

“It’s because I’ve been busy touring with everybody else,” he says.

“And it’s quite wonderful. It’s 18 years’ worth of great songwriting in one show. So it’ll be songs like Yes, Diamonds Are Forever and Falling and some of the songs I’ve just written.”

It’s McAlmont and band who’ll be bringing the show to Nottingham Playhouse on Monday, as part of the Neat11 festival.

“We’ve had standing ovations on the tour and the only place we haven’t is where there haven’t been any seats.”

He grew up in Croydon but moved to Guyana with his mum when he was 11.

“My mum is Guyanese and had been in the UK for 16 years when she’d had enough and wanted to go home. She went to a place where it was... hot,” he laughs.

“It was difficult because by 11 I had become accustomed to being a British kid. All the comics, the sweets, the TV was all gone. But I got a very good education and free education there.”

He returned to Britain nine years later to pursue a career in singing, re-engaging with pop culture. While studying Performance Art at Middlesex Polytechnic he responded to an ad in the Melody Maker and joined the band Thieves but it was meeting Bernard Butler that would lead to his chart debut with Yes.

He says: “There’s nothing like a cast iron classic to keep you going over the years.”

David McAlmont appears at Nottingham Playhouse on Monday, as part of the Neat11 festival, from 7.30pm. Ticket are £15, call 0115 941 9419 or visit www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

Dom Joly

April 2011

WHAT I meant was, that Trigger Happy TV was in a similar vein as Game For A Laugh and Candid Camera, the hidden camera show. Not at all, says its star Dom Joly

“Game For A Laugh was naff,” he says.

“Really old Candid Camera were quite cool and weird and then it became so boring, repeating the same joke.

“We wanted to make something that was really cool. We weren’t interested in people’s reactions or having studios or who I was. You could watch Trigger Happy and I’m in every scene but you didn’t know who I was.

“It was just about: ‘Is it funny?’ That was it.”

The Channel 4 show which ran for three series, saw Joly bawling into a giant mobile phone and dressing as a snail to make his way very slowly over a zebra crossing.

“I don’t think people ever realised the amount of thought and detail that went it to making it. We weren’t just a bunch of drunk students. Well, we were...”

There are no plans to reprise the show but he and co-writer Sam Cadman are working on a new hidden camera film.

“We’re developing the Ben Hur of hidden camera movies,” he laughs. “I’ll have to get a new catchphrase now, too, as I still get ‘Hello!’ shouted at me about ten times a day.”

More recently he was in the jungle alongside Stacey Solomon, Shaun Ryder and Gillian McKeith in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here.

He’ll be discussing both and more at Nottingham Playhouse this summer using slides and video clips as part of his Welcome to Wherever I Am Tour.

“It’s the first time I’ve done anything live,” he says.

Why?

“Public speaking and being myself is probably my biggest phobia. In everything I’ve done before I’ve been either dressed as a squirrel or whatever.”

He adds: “Everyone assumes I’ve done stand-up or live stuff before but I haven’t and in a way that bugged me. If I have any skill it’s probably lying and making stuff up and I thought that should work in a live arena.”

He’s quick to point out that it’s a not stand-up show.

“I don’t tell jokes. But I’ve had such a weird ten years since Trigger Happy came out. I’ve done such odd things, from being a paparazzi to travelling the world to going in the jungle. And I thought it would be a really weird, sort of guide to how not to have a career in showbusiness.

“Including breaking my foot doing Total Wipeout. As I was being put in an ambulance in Argentina, the director leaned in and said ‘it’s probably no consolation to you now but we got some great angles’.”

The BBC TV show sees contestants battle it out on an assault course in Argentina.

“I watch it with my kids and it’s the first thing I’ve done that they’re proud of,” says the dad of two, aged ten and six.

“It was brilliant. It’s like being let on the big bouncy castle. I was going to Antarctica anyway when they asked me to do the show, so I thought they can pay for me to go to Argentina, I’ll be my kids’ hero, then I can go on to Antarctica. But I came back five days later with four broken metatarsals.”

His fellow contestants on the show, which Joly says won’t be broadcast until the end of the year, he didn’t know.

“There were a couple of Olympians which I thought was a bit unfair. I don’t think they expected me to do very well but I did all right.”

The holiday in Antarctica never happened but it ensured he finished writing the show, which will also include tales from Trigger Happy TV of stunts that went awry and weird photographs from his travels.

Joly has been skiing down volcanoes, holidayed in Chernobyl and North Korea, tried flying across the Grand Canyon strapped to an eight-foot rocket and been arrested in Switzerland while dressed as a yeti.

Audiences will also have the opportunity to stone him.

“Since I’m famous for being in the jungle and having Stacey Solomon throwing a stone at me, I’ve had 500 fake stones made that you can buy in the interval and throw at me. But please don’t bring your own.”

And if you see him wandering around the city, resist the temptation to shout “HELLO!”

“It’s really nice that people remember me for that and I don’t mind but everyone who does it thinks that they’re the very first person to have thought of it. And they look a bit surprised when I don’t look thrilled.”

He adds: “It confuses the kids when I’m with them and someone does it, so I sat them down to watch Trigger Happy TV. I thought it would be great, you know there are squirrels and dogs, they’re going to love it. Nothing. Not one laugh. And they both looked round at me: ‘Dad, is this really what you do?’”

 Dom Joly’s Welcome To Wherever I Am comes to Nottingham Playhouse June 21. Tickets are £19.50, call 0115 941 9419.

Angelos Epithemiou

February 2011

A GOOD weekend for me? I’d get up and fill the kettle up to fill the bath. Then I’d go down Londis to see what food has just gone out of date. Then I’d go home and really attack the day. I don’t know what I’d do though.

I might go and see one of my brothers, depending on who’s about. I’ve got four brothers: Agamemnon, Aggatheus, Archipelago and Arterius. I don’t know what they do for a living. I think they’re nude dancers.

My love life? Never you mind. I’ve got one or two things up my sleeve. I’m getting closer to Ulrika Jonsson. If you call standing outside her bedroom window closer. It is closer than standing outside her kitchen window because I’ve got a ladder now. I stand up there peering. She don’t mind.

And Kate Moss likes me. But she’ll have to get in line.

At Christmas someone got me a new video player, which I was over the bloody moon about because I’ve got loads and loads of episodes of Crimewatch that I recorded from when it was first on. So I sit down at the weekend, put me feet up, get me box of Magnums out and watch them. I’m up to about 1987.

I like it because you don’t know who’s done it, do you? Although you can guess. You can piece it together yourself. Much better than what the police can do.

What am I reading? The back of a Cornflakes packet. Other than that I like to read books about murder and Jack The Dipper and all that sort of carryon.

I like Bollywood music. And the theme to Hill Street Blues. I can listen to that all day... (sings) da-da-dar, da-da-dar...

I don’t have any pets. There’s a mouse but it’s not a pet. It just comes in the kitchen.

I eat a lot of fried stuff. Chips and all that. Stuff you’re not allowed to eat anymore because it’s not good for you. But I pile it away and it’s not done me any harm. I’ve got terrible heart trouble but apart from that I’m fine.

I never ate anything off my burger van, no. I knew where it had been. No chance. I don’t have it any more anyway because it was destroyed by mysterious forces. But I don’t it any more because I’m a superstar.

I don’t go to the gym or jog or anything like that. I keep fit by rolling down hills. I’ve done that since I was a boy. It seems to do the trick. Apart from my bad heart.

I’ll be busy at weekends soon with my next tour. I was in Not-num at The Glee Club last year and I tell ya, I’ve been used to playing these big places all over the world, and the Glee Club’s like playing in a youth club. Tiny little place. There are pillars and iron bars... it’s a joke in there, actually. Which is right because it is a comedy club, so it should be a joke.

I’m going to Notnum Playhouse this time and it’s about time. And as the name suggest, I will be playing about in there.

I don’t go out to see other people doing comedy, no. I don’t like comedy. I can’t stand it. It takes a lot to make me laugh. My mate Barry makes me laugh but he’s got one leg. Sometimes he takes it off and hops around and that. There’s no way I’d go and see Vic and Bob. They got me in to this mess, I’m not going to see them muck about on stage. They’re a pair of chancers. They’re members of the lucky club.

Angelos Epithemiou and Friends, Nottingham Playhouse, Friday March 4, 8pm, £17.50, 0115 941 9419, www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

Theatre: The Harder They Come

May 2010

THE 1972 movie The Harder They Come not only threw the spotlight on the songwriting talent of Jimmy Cliff but on reggae music in general.

The story of a Jamaican rebel with a cause was soundtracked by classic Cliff songs You Can Get It If You Really Want It, Many Rivers To Cross, Rivers of Babylon and The Harder They Come.

As well as writing the tunes, he starred as Ivanhoe Martin, a country boy with his heart set on stardom as a singer amongst the bright lights of Kingston. Soon though, the realities of the music industry turn the ambitious youngster into an outlaw, his climb to the top of the charts matched by his rise in the most wanted list.

“We’d watch it every Christmas,” laughs Matthew Henry, who plays Ivanhoe in the stage production that opens in Nottingham tonight, prior to a major UK tour.

“My family are Jamaican and it was a film that was always shown at Christmas. We’d sit down and they’d say ‘let’s put a Jamaican film on.’”

It’s hardly It’s A Wonderful Life, is it?

“No. I like that as well.”

Despite the dark themes of drugs and violence, it’s a feelgood musical with a lot of audience participation, says Matthew.

“It is like a concert at times,” he says.

“People are up and dancing and singing along. And every night is different because you interact with the audience. In fact, as soon as they walk in to the auditorium they are involved. The actors greet them before they’ve taken their seats. Not as themselves but as their characters because it’s a wake for Ivanhoe Martin. That’s how it starts, then we go back and look at what happened to him.”

They have been rehearsing for the past month. For Matthew, it’s one of his biggest roles.

“It’s hard work for me because I am on stage virtually all of the time. Even when I’m not singing or speaking I’m in the background.”

And the story has some resonance with his own experiences.

“He was a country boy who came to town looking for fame and fortune as a musician. But it wasn’t that simple. It was like when I first moved to London from Birmingham. It’s an exciting big city but it’s a hard life.”

Birmingham? He doesn’t sound very Brummie.

“It was beaten out of me at drama school,” he laughs.

“I enrolled on a course in musical theatre and it’s where I learned to speak properly. Subconsciously they remove the accent so you are more of a blank canvas.”

Matthew was the understudy at the run in the West End, where he got to meet Cliff.

“He came on stage and sang with us for the finale. He came backstage to meet the cast and told us what a good job we were doing and how happy he was that his work was carrying on. He’s a chilled out Jamaican dude.”

He adds: “I’ve been using the film a lot. It’s got to be a true representation. I’ve got to add my own touch to the role, of course, but I listened to the way Jimmy sang the songs, his intonations, just trying to get that sound.

“Jamaican men have such a way of moving and speaking. I’ve been trying to capture those characteristics. It would be so easy for me to do a rude boy London character but that’s not the period, it’s way before the rapper personality emerged.”

The Harder They Come runs from tonight until May 22 at Nottingham Playhouse. For tickets, which range from £7.50 to £26.50, call 0115 941 9419 or book online atwww.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

Stewart Francis

April 2010 

My Weekend

My TV viewing habits are a bit like my comedy - quick little blasts of titillation. So I’m a flicker. It’s obviously how my brain works. I lose interest after three minutes.

I’ve never seen an episode of 24 or The Wire. I can’t sit down for that long. It must be a delight for my wife to watch TV with me.

I do love my sports and I do watch a lot of ice hockey. As a Canadian I’m required by law. I have a wonderful thing on my laptop called a Slingbox that allows me to watch my hockey back in Canada, albeit at three o’clock in the morning.

You are good at ice hockey over here -- because you’ve got a lot of Canadian internationals in your teams. I’ve been coming over to the UK all my life, I have a British passport, and I’ve watched a lot of hockey over the years. And yes, the calibre is quite good.

Back in the day I played a club in Nottingham and one of the Nottingham Panthers players and their coach were in the audience. The coach used to play on my team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, (CORR) and I remembered him, so it was a thrill to meet him.

I also watch Family Guy and A Place In The Sun, which is people who are househunting on the Costa Blanca. I lived in Spain for nine months before coming to the UK and I have a lot of affection for the country.

And whenever I’m on I watch, I’m a big fan of myself.

It’s different with a movie. That’s a wonderful way of spending two hours - when I see a good movie, that is. More times than not I will leave the theatre feeling ripped off.

One that immediately comes to mind was fellow Canadian Michael Myers’ The Love Guru, which was diabolical. It was panned and the clips I’d seen weren’t that funny but they had the Toronto Maple Leafs winning The Stanley Cup. So for that reason alone I had to go and see it.

I play hockey when I can. That keeps me fit. That and playing squash once a week with my wife.

She is the better cook out of the two of us but I am getting better. My wife works from home so I try to make tea for us but it’s just the basics. At the weekend she pushes me out of the way and makes us a proper meal.

When I’m on my own on tour I go to Subway because I try to eat fresh and healthy. I will get a chippie or a McDonald’s now and again. Or I’ll eat a lot of sushi. When I’m touring with Ricky (Gervais), of course, it’s hotel food and room service.

I’m not a book reader. I’ve only read four books in my life. I think it’s because I have an attention problem. I get distracted so easily.

I’m not the victim here but as a kid growing up I never had the bedtime stories read to me. I think a lot of kids do have that and I love it, I celebrate it. I read to my nieces and nephew.

The four books? Albert Camus’ The Outsider, Steve Martin’s The Pleasure Of My Company, Rich Hall’s Magnificent Bastards and Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up.

Steve Martin is a huge influence. I love him. He’s one of the most innovative comedians of our time. Not so much the movies.

My wife’s aunt and uncle live in Nottingham actually. Dave and Beryl. I’m not sure if they’ll come to my show, I think my stuff might be a bit cheeky. They saw one of my shows before and didn’t comment on any of the material but said something like ‘he was very professional’.

Stewart Francis appears at Nottingham Playhouse on Sunday May 2. For tickets call 0115 941 9419.

Tim Vine

January 2010

He loves a pun does Tim Vine, but he's not so keen on cats. Partway through our chat he breaks off and begins hammering on his lounge window. "Get out," he yawps. "There's a cat in my garden," says Vine by way of explanation.
"I'm not mad keen on them when they poo in my garden. I've got one those movement detector things so if a cat comes in the garden it sends off a high-pitched noise they don't like. But I think they've grown accustomed to it."
He adds: "I always thought it might be good for a horror film because when it's set off it makes this 'click' noise. And there have been occasions when I've come home late at night, my whole garden is in complete darkness and you just hear that 'click' noise. Meaning something is out there."
It's typical of Vine's creative mind. When not writing one-liners for his stand-up show or rehearsing lines for Not Going Out, in which he appears as Tim alongside Lee Mack as, erm, Lee, the 42-year-old younger brother of BBC presenter Jeremy Vine is thinking of new ideas.
For example, he's just finished panto in Richmond, Surrey with Jane Asher playing Muddles in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. The pair of them would go swimming in between performances but while Asher did lengths, he'd be trying to invent new swimming strokes.
And while we're discussing Twitter (he's not on it), he comes up with Clutter as a good name for a social networking website.
Maybe he's trying to achieve something that'll make his parents view him with the same pride as his older brother.
"I think the default position is to back up the eldest, isn't it?," he laughs. "You could never criticise him because they'd say 'oh Tim, I wish you and Jeremy would get on'."
He admits that early on ma and pa Vine wondered what their youngest was doing pursuing a career in comedy.
"Now they see it is actually a job. And doing panto, they loved coming to that. And my brother's two daughters are five and three so their first experience of the panto was to see uncle Tim."
They also watched him over Christmas on Celebrity Wipeout, his latest TV appearance after Countdown, Neighbours and Celebrity Mastermind, which he won, with Elvis as his specialised subject.
"I'm a big Elvis fan," he says.
"Last year I passed my Elvis Death Day."
To anyone who isn't a fan this may sound odd but it's the day you reach the exact age of Elvis when he died: 42 years, seven months and eight days. He's excited that I know mine – it was last Sunday.
"Mine was October 12."
How did you commemorate it?
"I was in a restaurant eating at the time. I was on my own and in a slightly worrying way wanted to make conversation about it with three people on the next table. I shared it with them and (laughs) there was no interest there at all."
He adds: "It makes you realise that you're in a better position than he was at that age. There was a man who had absolutely everything. In the end things worked out better for me than him."
For all his TV exploits, Vine is probably most often recognised these days for Not Going Out, the BBC sitcom which will be returning at the end of the year. Ahead of that he has an extensive stand-up tour that comes to Nottingham next week, called Joke-a-motive.
"It's the same but different," he says of the show, which will be rich with his trademark puns.
"Where it was 'Black Beauty, he's a dark horse' or 'Velcro, what a rip off,' it may now be 'three cheers for rap music, hip-hop hooray'.
"I've not changed the satire, that's the important thing."
Although he could have been more prepared.
"I feel like I've missed a trick with merchandise. I wanted to get some Tim Vine dolls where you pull the chord and it says 'I never sleep with fish, I'm halibut'."

Natasha Wood: Rolling With Laughter

The name Natasha Wood may not be a familiar one but her story is both inspiring and bizarre. SIMON WILSON spoke to the 38-year-old about her journey from selling knickers on Bulwell market to Clint Eastwood in Hollywood...



WHAT do you say when you meet a Hollywood legend?
There were no nerves when self-confessed "gobby girl" Natasha Wood found herself in Los Angeles in the company of Clint Eastwood.
"I had a huge laugh with him," she says.
"Towards the end of the conversation I said to him 'so what is it like to be a legend?' And he said 'well, you know, I don't really think about it.' And I said 'Naaahhh, me either. People say I'm an inspiration -- whatever!"
So how did she get there? How did a woman who grew up in Kinoulton and sold underwear on market stalls in Bulwell and Beeston, end up sharing air space with Dirty Harry?
And not only him but Kate Winslet, John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts and Will Smith.
She tells all in her one-woman show Rolling With Laughter at Nottingham Playhouse tomorrow.
Not that meeting celebrities was her goal. That came last year when she performed the show in the West End.
And it's a journey that found her befriending prostitutes in Radford, living in an old people's home, working for the BBC as a TV producer in London and New York, then studying film in Los Angeles.
And here's the punchline: she did it all from a wheelchair.
Natasha was born with a rare genetic condition, spinal muscular atrophy. She doesn't even have the strength in her arms to raise a glass in order to toast her own success.
But Rolling With Laughter isn't about her disability.
"I'm very poor with all the right-on disability s***," says Natasha, 38, who now lives in The Park.
"My idea is that you shouldn't really notice I'm in a wheelchair. You see it but we don't have to talk about it.
"The show is about a little girl's dream to be an actor and who crazily achieves that dream on the West End stage.
"That's how the show opens. Then I go back to the start, to being a kid and selling knickers and bras on my mum's market stall in Bulwell and Beeston."
Not only was getting to the West End a long and difficult journey, it was costly as well. The show – her dream, remember – was self-financed. She remortaged to the tune of £20,000 in order to hire out Her Majesty's Theatre.
Natasha couldn't even enjoy the profits – it was a fund-raiser for spinal muscular atrophy charity, The Jennifer Trust. As is tomorrow's performance.
"This is all in the show," she says.
"There's a bank manager, a prostitute, a Bulwell market customer, my mum and dad, boyfriends, husband, a social worker, an old biddy, my dog... and every single one of them is real.
"People afterwards always say 'your mum didn't really go to Antigua and bring back a baby did she?'
"Yes she did."
What!?
"She's now 22 and lives in Basford."
Tammy was 11 months old when she was given to Natasha's mum on a beach in Antigua by a mother who couldn't cope.
She was legally adopted at the age of ten.
"It demonstrates my mother's incredible drive. That's where I get it from."
Mum is a former beauty queen whose bra size also gets a mention in Rolling With Laughter.
"She's got this double D cup and double D personality. A real Nottingham woman."
The humour comes from her dad, who she describes as "the Elvis lookalike".
"He told me at the age of four that he'd bought me in a store very cheap on account I was broken. 'Why didn't you fix me?' 'We tried that.' 'Why didn't you take me back and get your money back?' 'Your mother lost the receipt'.
"It was with that kind of humour that they raised me and my two brothers, one of whom had the same disability as me."
That was Julian, whose death in 2004 is one of the more poignant moments in the show.
"It is a rollercoaster. You do go up and down during the show.
"And I do relive my brother dying every time I do the play. I can picture every moment in the hospital. Of course it's very emotional for the whole family.
"But the idea of a good play is that you do become attached and love the characters as much as me and that when we lose them you feel it too."
The family will be there tomorrow to see the show.
"And they all bought tickets," she insists.
As have another 700-plus people – it's a few tickets off a sell-out.
Mum and dad will need to avert their eyes – or plug their ears – for one vocally graphic moment.
"There's a sex scene. In a car. In a field behind a church. And there's a Meg Ryan orgasm kind of moment."
The boyfriend would become her husband but the pair split around the time Natasha's brother died, two significant losses that prompted her to move to New York where. with the BBC, she produced the US version of What Not To Wear.
It's through her work with the BBC that she became a member of Bafta. So not only does she vote for in the awards Natasha also gets invited to VIP film screenings with the stars.
A planned year off to train as an actor in Los Angeles took over her life as she began to write Rolling With Laughter, leading to a six-week run at a theatre in Los Angeles. A spot on Fox News helped shift a few tickets.
She then took the show to the Edinburgh Festival and finally the West End– the dream realised.
Now she has a new one – Rolling With Laughter: The Movie.
In the audience at the London show was a woman from the UK Film Council who encouraged Natasha to apply for a grant to turn the play into a film.
"I've finished the first draft of the screenplay and I'm working through the second. The plan is to approach production companies in the summer."
She adds: "I don't even know if it will even be made in my time."
If it does, who would she like to see playing her on the big screen?
"(Laughs) A recent Oscar-winning actress," she says, cryptically. No prizes she's referring to Kate Winslet.
"My brother wants Brad Pitt to play him."
She adds with a laugh: "I'd like to hear his Nottingham accent."