Actor Nigel Havers set to unleash 'monstrous ego' on Harrogate public

It has clearly affected Havers quite deeply, even though filming finished some time ago. “I had to learn, and reproduce his actual words spoken at the trial”, he explains, “and it was very emotional, because I remember him well as a very kindly man, devoted to his family. And he kept on trying to persuade Ellis that there were many mitigating circumstances in the case – she had been abused both mentally and physically, and there were a lot of reasons why she should have been shown leniency. But she was having none of it, she was adamant, and my grandfather was deeply affected by the whole thing.” It is true that Sir Cecil, after Ellis’s death, quietly sent money for the education of her son.

This story could well find it’s way into Haver’s latest venture, taking a one man show – provocatively titled Nigel Havers - Talking B*ll*cks, on the road to selected dates around the UK including the Royal Hall in Harrogate. “It’s very much ‘work in the progress’ at the moment,” he chuckles, “I’m constructing it as I go along. I was in a play called Art at one point, a few years back, and my very dear friend Dawn French rang me up, out of the blue just before I was about to go on stage, and I said ‘Hello, darling, this is a lovely surprise, what’s happening?’, and she said ‘I’m just about to start my own one-woman show, and I don’t know why the heck I’ve agreed to do it. What persuaded me?’ And I remember I replied, ‘It’s your monstrous ego, Dawn, just your monstrous ego!” There’s a pause, and then he laughs: “And now, it’s my own turn to unleash the monstrous ego. There’s a form to it all, of course, but I’ll see how it goes along, what to include, and possibly what to omit. No, I won’t be taking questions from the audiences, not as it is structured today. But that may well happen, we’d see how it goes.”

He's no stranger to Harrogate, of course, “since I stayed there when I was billeted by the good people making the new All Creatures. Such a nice town, so pretty. And I had no clue at all that The Royal Hall was the brainchild of Samson Fox, the engineering inventor, and an ancestor of my good friend Edward…..I’m looking forward this date immensely.”

After deciding that the world of theatre and performance was where he wanted to be, the young Nigel first landed a job on the BBC’s daytime radio soap opera, Mrs. Dale’s Diary. The eponymous Mrs. Dale was played by Jessie Matthews, one of the great British movie stars of the thirties and forties. Her career had faded a little, and Mrs Dale was her “comeback”. He went on to join the ranks of the then pioneering Prospect Theatre Company, and he remembers clearly working in classics like Richard II and Marlowe’s Edward II, with established actors such as the late Timothy West, Lucy Fleming, Robert Eddison and Ian McKellen, “playing an assortment of soldiers and messengers and the rest. Carrying a lot of spears, and mumbling in the background when required. I also seem to recall that I made an awful lot of cups of rea for the rest of the company. That tour took us all over the place, and it went on for over a year. The experience was invaluable, because I learned so much by just watching, standing and observing. That’s the other thing I say to youngsters, watch every detail, absorb everything that you see.”

After a fairly fallow patch (work was so scarce at one point that he worked for a wine merchant) came Havers’ resurgence, with roles in Upstairs Downstairs, The Glittering Prizes and the title role in a BBC dramatization of Nichola Nickleby. But his truly big break was in playing Lord Andrew Lindsay in the multi-Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire. And then came more movies, like Empire of the Sun, and the much-loved TV sitcom Don’t Wait Up. He hasn’t been off our screens, one way or the other, ever since. The fact is as he moves through life (he’ll be 74 this autumn) he seems to pick up more fans as he goes along, always bringing his charm to new roles and productions. Downton Abbey’s creator Julian Fellowes once observed of him that “No-one in Equity is better at playing a cad”. Nigel laughs again and says: “Did he? Well, Julian, thank you very much indeed, that’s brilliantly kind of you. And you wrote in a part for me in Downton, as well. As a thorough cad. But, you see, it’s so much easier to play the villain, the baddie, the nasty piece of work – far more meaty. It’s playing the hero that’s bloody hard, you really must work at it!”

He loved being in Halifax to film the surprise BBC afternoon hit The Bidding Room, in which he hosts several antiques dealers in their journey to acquire items brought in by the public and he recently appeared on James Martin’s Saturday Morning.

There’s no going back to Coronation Street, because his character, Lewis, was killed off, “but that was perfectly amicable, I’d had a great run with him, it was lots of fun, and it was time for something new. Overall, I’ve had a lot of fun, and one can only pray that will continue. The only time that I was glad to be shot of a show was when I left I’m a Celebrity. I couldn’t stand that, and there were things I refused to do. In fact, thinking about it, there’s very little that I haven’t attempted to pull off – I’ve never done any circus, and I suspect that may be a little to late for me now”. There’s always, of course, the annual pantomime at the Palladium in London every Christmas and New Year. This year, the subject in The Sleeping Beauty. What will be Nigel’s role? “I haven’t got the faintest idea”, he admits, “there’s no script yet, and it’ll all come as a surprise. We sort of make it up as we go along. But I can promise you one thing, with Julian Clary once again in the company, you can expect a tsunami of innuendo! That, you may rely on.” But does he ever watch himself on screen? “Never!” he protests with a laugh. “Never. Why? Well, know what’s going to happen!”

Nigel Havers – Talking B*ll*cks, Royal Hall, Harrogate, Friday April 25, 7.30pm. Box Office on: 01423 502116. [email protected]