The cat who got the cream roles
PAUL NICHOLAS TELLS MARION McMULLEN HOW HIS WORK WITH DAVID BOWIE WAS BANNED BY THE BBC AS HE LOOKS BACK ON A STARRY CAREER SPANNING MORE THAN 50 YEARS
search for a hit record led a young Paul Nicholas to work with an up-and-coming songwriter who went on to become world famous as David Bowie.
“I’d brought out a couple of songs and was looking for another and someone told me about this guy called David Jones,” remembers Paul. “I met him and we talked about songs. At the time he was with a publisher and he was trying to get his songs recorded. We spent an afternoon together and he told me he was into mime and he showed me a bit of what he did.
“We ended up recording a song called Over The Wall We Go. A lot of people were breaking out of prison at that time and David sang on the track as well. In the middle of the record he also read out a roll call of names and I was going ‘Here... here... here.’
“It was the only time we met, but I did the song on The Ken Dodd Show. It ended up being banned by the BBC though because the lyrics included the line ‘All coppers are nanas’ which was probably a little bit strong.”
Paul has included the rare Bowie recording on his new 3 CD collection, Gold, released this month to tie in with the publication of his memoir Musicals, Marigolds & Me.
It spans a career that has seen Paul enjoy chart hits and stage success in some of the biggest musicals around from the taboo-breaking Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease and the Pirates Of Penzance to Barnum and Fiddler On The Roof.
He found TV fame playing Vince Pinner in BBC sitcom Just Good Friends with Jan Francis, played vicious cousin Kevin in The Who movie Tommy and recently took part in the BBC series The Real Marigold Hotel.
“Hair was my first big role,” says 76-year-old Paul. “Princess Anne knew one of the girls in the cast and came to see it three times and ended up dancing on the stage. A lot of famous people came to see the show – John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
“The show helped me a lot. I was a little bit lost then. I was 23 and not really going anywhere. Getting into that show gave me a lifeline and a sense of what I wanted to do – singing, dancing and a bit of drama as well.”
Paul was rock ‘n’ roll kitty Rum Tug Tugger in Cats but remembers how they never enjoyed a first night curtain call because of a bomb scare. “Brian Blessed went on stage and said ‘I’ve an important announcement. We’ve had a bit of a bomb scare and would everyone leave the theatre’.
think the bomb disposal unit got a bigger round of applause when they arrived than the cast.
“Cats has gone on to become one of Andrew’s (Lloyd Webber’s) biggest hits worldwide. I’m not a trained dancer and I used to go down into the audience. I remember playing with Prince Charles’ hair when he came to see the show and I sat on Princess Grace of Monaco’s lap another time.”
BBC sitcom Just Good Friends came from Citizen Smith and Only Fools and Horses writer John Sullivan and was one of the most popuTHE lar TV comedies of the 1980s. John had seen Paul in a TV play called A Little Rococo and sent him a script.
The on-off relationship between central characters Penny and Vince struck a chord with viewers and one of the Christmas shows was watched by 22 million – one of the top 10 most watched British shows of all time.
Paul has gone on to make his mark as a producer with pal David Ian and has even tried his hand at directing.
Indeed, he’s always been ready for any chal“I
lenge. He learned Gene Kelly’s tap dance routines for the stage show Singin’ In The Rain and how to walk the tightrope for circus musical Barnum, but says his hardest challenge was learning to ride a horse for the BBC’s Sports Relief show Only Fools On Horses in 2006.
Paul fell heavily during one of the training sessions, but did not realise he had seriously injured himself.
“I thought it would be OK. I was not going to land on my head, but my bum and that’s what I did, but I didn’t find out until much later that I had broken three vertebrae. I did the whole show with a broken back.”
Paul has kept busy during the lockdown working on his memoir and the CD collection, but had to turn down a planned role in Midsomer Murders because of the pandemic.
He memorably appeared on EastEnders as villain Gavin Sullivan – the biological father of Sharon Watts. “I heard I got cremated and Sharon and Kathy turned up for the service and then my ashes were thrown into a waste bin,” laughs Paul, “that probably means I will definitely return. I obviously faked my own death and will turn up one day to whisper ‘Hello, Princess,’ in Sharon’s ear.”
■ Music, Marigolds & Me is available from Fantom Publishing, £19.99. The Gold CD is priced £5.99