We meet the pantomime villain who has a secret talent for art

“I can’t remember a time when drawing wasn’t part of my life,” says the 58-year-old actor.

“I don’t think of it as a hobby, as a hobby is something you pick up; drawing and painting is just something I have always done.”

Hawkyard, who attended the then Parkside High School, admits he was rather disruptive at school.

“If I started to be disruptive the teachers would just give me a pad and pencil and I’d start drawing and it would calm me down.”

He was always a performer as well.

“I remember being taken from class to class by the teachers and singing I’ll Be Your Long Haired Lover From Liverpool – I’m surprised I wasn’t beaten up in the playground.”

Hawkyard went to sixth form at Intake High School and was chosen to perform with the National Youth Theatre and never looked back.

“It transformed my life,” he says.

“I never went to drama school. I was in the National Youth Theatre, and the Leeds
Youth Players, and then I got a job at Leeds
City Varieties, just sweeping up and helping out, and I watched everyone and every-
thing.

“I just started working and was lucky enough to get my Equity card,” he recalls.

“I don’t think I ever really thought about it or worried about it. I was young and full of confidence. I think as you get older you start to worry more, but I have been lucky that I’ve hardly ever been out of work.”

Hawkyard has worked extensively in television, including All Creatures Great and Small as farmer Henry, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders and Casualty.

He became great friends with Bernard Cribbins while they were filming Old Jack’s Boat around Whitby.

“That dear man Bernard Cribbins and I used to have so much fun up there when we were making Old Jack’s Boat. It all has a very special place in my heart,” he says.

This year saw him in the feature film Upgraded, much of which was filmed in Yorkshire.

Hawkyard is no stranger to the stage, having appeared in many West End musicals including Mama Mia! and Les Miserables. And he has starred in numerous pantomimes over the years.

This year’s York Theatre Royal’s festive offering, Aladdin, opened a couple of weeks ago and Hawkyard just loves it.

“I did my first pantomime when I was 21 and now I’m 58.

“This is the third pantomime I have done with this particular company and I am working with my good friend Robin Simpson, we’ve done a number of plays together.”

Hawkyard and Simpson received a UK Pantomime Awards nomination for their Ugly Sister double act Manky & Mardy in 2021-2022’s Cinderella, then bonded as baddies over the next winter as Captain Hook and Mrs Smee respectively in the All New Adventures Of Peter Pan.

The pair first worked together in the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre company at the Eye of York, sharing a dressing room from the day they started.

In 2022, they reunited for Harrogate
Theatre’s HT Rep season of three plays in
three weeks, Simpson appearing in all three – Abigail’s Party, Gaslight and Men Of The World; Hawkyard in the first and last.

They will be joined in Aladdin by CBeebies and CBBC presenter Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring.

Sario Solomon (Let It Shine, Grease)
stars as the titular hero in his York debut, alongside Emily Tang and Tommy
Carmichael.

Hawkyard was in a play in York when the lockdowns happened and he did some adverts in Prague where restrictions weren’t quite as tight as in the UK, and when they lifted here was back on stage.

“It’s home for me,” he says.

Lockdown also gave him chance to spend more time painting, something he normally has to fit in between acting.

“I like painting portraits but I also do a lot of commissions of people’s animals, cats and dogs, but my passion is wildlife – and birds, in particular.”

His acrylic paintings of kingfishers and other wildlife are incredibly life-like.

He visits local nature reserves in search of animal subjects for his art and has now taken up photography, as a means to provide reference photos for his art work.

“I take my camera out and and hopefully get some good shots and take them back to my studio.

“I prefer to work in acrylics and occasionally oils – I’m not keen on using watercolours although there are some great watercolour artists out there.

“I’ve never exhibited in a gallery as once
I have done a painting and put on my
Facebook page they tend to sell quickly so I don’t really have a big enough body of work for a gallery.”

Hawkyard has converted the
conservatory of his Selby home into a studio and uses Facebook to promote his paintings – where you can also find videos of him at
work.

“I do wish that I did have some formal training in either acting or art, but I am getting a bit too old for that now,” he says.

​Paul Hawkyard can be seen in Aladdin at the York Theatre Royal until January 5 www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
To see more of Paul’s work visit Paul Hawkyard Wildlife artist on Facebook and at www.instagram.com/paulhawkyardartist/