Actor / Muso musings.

Sometimes, being an actor / musician can be a bit of a poisoned chalice.

  

I have a love / hate relationship with being an actor / musician, but utmost respect for the forward-slash. Much of my work has been in the actor / muso field (yes, we have a field - and I often work in it). It’s got to the point where I’ve started to resent this. It isn’t all I do – there are some people I work with, particularly in comedy, who have no idea that I do it – but while it can open a lot of doors (not literally), you eventually find yourself pining for a job where you don’t have to hold an instrument.

Not just holding the instrument; bloody playing the thing too.

That said, I've been very lucky. Being an actor / musician got me into the West End, as well as touring to most theatres in the UK (and many abroad). I've performed to countless audiences - and been fortunate enough to play three of my heroes: John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Buddy Holly - often in venues where they played themselves. Madness.

Nothing like him.

I was a little bit spoilt really. I started my first No. 1 Tour a few weeks after leaving drama school - and from that point on I never really looked back (except for when I had to turn left or right). It was good for me as a musician, but bad for me as an actor or a songwriter

Generally, the level of acting required in an actor / muso show is minimal (the dialogue often only serving as an excuse to link one song to another). Also, for the first time, I was constantly playing covers, with seldom any time to work on my own material.

That said, it has led to some genuinely exciting moments. I got to play Paul McCartney at the Liverpool Empire, where The Beatles played ten times; picture four mock-moptops (a Prefab Four) standing in the wings with our wigs on our heads – terrified before the show, but elated when the Scouse crowd accepted us. I’ve fronted hundreds of shows as Buddy Holly – a particular highlight being Leicester De Montfort Hall (one of Buddy’s stop-offs during only UK tour in 1958). I did a stint in Dreamboats & Petticoats at The Playhouse Theatre, London; called in a day earlier than expected, on Tony Christie’s last night; playing bass on an unrehearsed '(Is This The Way To) Amarillo' to an audience that included the song’s composer, Neil Sedaka – and later doing a show in front of Take That.

I'm not boasting. I'm just reminding myself that it hasn't all been shit.

 It’s paid my mortgage and furthered my career, but in the same breath it’s also stagnated it; sadly, people often assume that being a competent musician means you can’t be more than a passable actor.

All of those exciting moments in packed out theatres are not a patch on playing a small room with my comedy partner Glyn.

That is ours and no-one else’s. It’s then that I’m at my proudest.