My Town: Barrie Rutter

What do you like about your town?

The stone, the surrounding hills. Halifax is such a great area to live in.

Do you have a favourite location in Halifax that you particularly like to visit?

Well, it would have to be the Big 6 pub in Horsfall Street – a pub with great ales, not a games or juke box parlour.

What would you say is the town’s hidden gem?

The Piece Hall and yes, the Viaduct – a performing space ‘phoenixed’ from the numbing banality of becoming a car park.

What are your pet hates about Halifax?

The recent caprice of the financial world, especially in an organisation that carries the town’s name, and its wilful disregard of the aftermath.

What are your earliest memories of the town?

It would have to be when I was a youngster watching Rugby League at Fartown to watch Hull FC (my home town) and the legendary battles between the props Jack Wilkinson of Halifax and Nick Scott of Hull.

In addition to ongoing developments in the town centre, are there any other projects that you would like to see come to fruition?

Yes, the regeneration of the Piece Hall, Halifax deserves it. I gather there are some plans to terrace it, so why not sell off the cobbles – they were a later addition anyway. I love cobbles and I’d buy one and put it on my shelf. Like the “Buy a Brick” campaign, maybe there could be a “Cash In for a Cobble” or “Cough Up for a Cobble” campaign, with a competition to come up with the best alliterative phrase.

Do you think Halifax needs any more artistic venues?

No – we already have the Victoria Theatre, which was built as a concert hall; the Viaduct Theatre at Dean Clough, which we use for our professional performances and is also used for comedy and jazz nights; there’s Square Chapel; and then we have The Playhouse, which serves many amateur productions. It just needs inspiration from all the people who run these places - that includes me - and a bigger audience.

Who or what makes you laugh?

Roger Harvey (of Harveys of Halifax) the worst jokes in the world and his irrepressible conviction that they are the funniest!

Which actor have you most enjoyed working with?

Don’t put me on the spot.....

What are your passions and hobbies?

Wine, travel, Rugby League, Soccer, reading and being lucky to have a hobby within my profession.

What are your favourite charities?

Prostate Cancer Charity, Calderdales TLC for children and of course Northern Broadsides, we’ve been a charity since 1998.

What books, films or CDs have you enjoyed lately?

The Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child, Simon Armitage’s poems and documentaries. Bronte research – especially by author Juliet Barker, who currently lives in Calderdale and has a new edition of her book about the Brontës out now, which includes some newly discovered facts. I first met her about four years ago when I went to listen to her talk about her book on Agincourt – she signed her book and then corrected it because she’d spelled my name wrong. Going back years, all the matriarchs in my family started calling me Rutter because they didn’t know how to spell Barrie.

How would you sum yourself up in a single sentence?

A wannabe honky tonk, rock and roll piano man!

Given the choice of an afternoon watching your beloved Hull City play FC Halifax or an evening watching a great play, which would you choose?

I’d go to one in the afternoon and the other in the evening – the day is long enough to encompass both!

How would you best like to be remembered?

That’s up to the living...