Vincent Franklin: Unlikely Hollywood movie star celebrated in new play

Yorkshire-born actor Vincent Franklin plays Hollywood star Charles Laughton in a new play. Nick Ahad spoke to him.
Vincent Franklin and Kacey Ainsworth in rehearsal for LaughtonVincent Franklin and Kacey Ainsworth in rehearsal for Laughton
Vincent Franklin and Kacey Ainsworth in rehearsal for Laughton

A WORLD premiere, a once world-famous movie star and... Scarborough.

Once arguably one of the most famous movie stars in the world, Charles Laughton is the subject of a new play which premieres tonight at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.

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The man taking on the larger-than-life figure of Laughton is, like the man he is playing, a Yorkshireman abroad. Vincent Franklin, Bradford City fan, former Bradford Grammar School pupil, has cornered the market in British comedies looking for a dour Northerner.

As Stewart Pearson, the opposite number of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It he spouts meaningless spin-doctor nonsense. As Nick Jowitt in Twenty Twelve he talks nothing but sense in the face of management nonsense from the rest of the Olympics committee. In both roles he brings a certain northern cynicism.

“If someone needs a fat, bald northerner, I get the call,” laughs Franklin who, despite now living down south, has lost none of his northern straight-talking quality.

It is also the reason he is delighted to be starring in a new play about Scarborough-born once world famous movie star Charles Laughton. “I’m a fat, bald, northern character actor and most people on TV and in films are fairly good looking people – even the mingers,” he says.

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“And then you have Laughton who was even uglier than me and certainly fatter and yet he was a movie star. He looked like the back end of an elephant and he was in movies, had a 30-room Hollywood palace. When I discovered him, I realised the extraordinary thing was that he had got there purely on talent. That’s the important bit – he was really talented. When you watch him, it’s like watching an actor 30 years beyond everyone else.

“He played monsters and found the humanity in them and he played humans and found something monstrous in them. He was genuinely extraordinary.”

As such a fan of the actor and, despite having worked with some of British TV’s biggest talents and recently finished performing at the National Theatre, it is easy to see how Franklin has ended up in Scarborough playing the title role in the world premiere of a play about Laughton by locally discovered writer Roger Osborne.“If it was a biopic, starting with Mrs Laughton in a Scarborough hotel calling for more hot towels, I’d have no interest,” says Franklin.“But it is a brilliant play that takes these three key moments in Laughton’s life and examines what he was actually like as a man.

“It’s a great role and it’s really great to have the chance to be working back home in Yorkshire.”

Talented oscar-winning actor

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CHARLES Laughton was born in 1899, just a stone’s throw from the SJT at the Victoria Hotel.

In 1933 he became the first Brit to win a Best Actor Oscar. His most famous roles include Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, opposite Clark Gable.

Laughton, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, to Oct 26. 01723 370541.