THE MAN BEHIND
Jon culshaw tells JOHN NATHAN he is putting mimicry aside to take on some serious drama...
DURING an unforgettable phone call with comedian Jon Culshaw I lose count of how many times the conversation is interrupted by famous people. First to butt in are two Doctor Whos, Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee. Their presence is explained by Jon’s status as one of this country’s best loved and most talented impressionists, although speculation has mounted that Jon himself could be the next Doctor, replacing Jodie Whittaker.
‘Having been a fan of the show since I was four, I think I’d like to not just play The Doctor but be The Doctor in real life,’ says Jon.
And his Whovian qualifications are indeed impeccable. For one, he’s a keen amateur astronomer.
‘I’d love to travel off to any point in time, visit alien planets, see what the sun looks like from Pluto and stand upon Titan to watch Saturn,’ he muses. But his best qualification is his amazing ability to speak in the voices of previous Doctors. ‘Just occasionally, only sparingly,’ he says. ‘But that would certainly be a USP.’
Soon the Doctors take a back seat and up pops national treasure Alan Bennett followed by Nigel Farage. Even Michael Gove chips in. In fact, Jon hardly gets a word in. ‘Aye, it’s a coach party today,’ he says in a voice that is also not quite his. More likely it belongs to someone he once overheard, such as Stan the scouser who ran the carwash Jon worked for when he was 16 and who he used to mimic, much to the delight of co-workers.
‘I noticed that this stuff would make people laugh and gradually I thought perhaps I should put a little act together,’ he says, which is how he came to supply countless voices for Spitting Image and Dead Ringers before starring in his own TV show.
Now Jon is about to join Jemma Redgrave, Adrian Scarborough and Matthew Kelly for some serious acting in an online show called Barnes’ People. Each actor has one of four monologues, written by the late dramatist Peter Barnes for BBC Radio 3 in the 1980s.
Jemma is a world-weary care home doctor, Matthew’s character takes stock of his life while sitting by the grave of an old friend and, in a play that was once banned by the BBC, Adrian plays a Buckingham Palace footman who is brimful of royal secrets. Meanwhile, in Billy & Me, Jon plays an old-school ventriloquist who talks to his dolls even when he is not performing. And the dolls — all four of them — talk back.
‘His name is Michael Jennings,’ says Jon, now speaking in his native Lancashire brogue. ‘He’s a seasoned entertainer,’ he adds before slipping into character again.
‘When you ‘ave been in the industry as long as I ‘ave...’
The ease with which Jon changes into someone else made him a shooin for the part. The show’s coproducer David Morley had worked with Jon on a radio play called The Final Take: Bowie In The Studio. Jon played the role of David Bowie as he records his final album, Blackstar.
‘David [Morley] phoned me up and said, “This is right up your street,”’ says Jon. ‘He sent me the script and I could see and hear it in my mind. The play was a very obvious thing to grasp and bring to life.’
Like every other stage performer, Jon’s work has been decimated by the pandemic. Plans to play Bill
Bryson in a stage version of the author’s bestseller Notes From A Small Island were aborted, and Jon’s touring show The Great British Take Off was cut short. But at least he got to film Billy & Me in a proper playhouse, Windsor’s Theatre Royal.
And he is hopeful for a resurgence for the nation’s closed theatres – the ‘sleeping giants’ as he describes them. ‘There will come that time when they shall rise again!’ he promises, conjuring visions of packed houses, even though his performance at Windsor only had an audience of six people – the production crew. ‘It was like one of my gigs,’ he quips.
When theatres do reopen Jon wants to go back on tour with his own one-man-show. ‘As vaccines get their grip and the nights get lighter, positivity will run in tandem with that. And with Donald Trump in the rear-view mirror there will be less blowhard lunacy around. Maybe everything is conspiring to make things better.’
Until then, Jon is finding new ways to navigate lockdown. ‘I’ve spent it learning to grow tomatoes,’ says Jon, though he says this in the cultured, calm tones of Monty Don.
Yet as soon as I ask what Jon will call his new show when he is finally allowed to perform in front of audiences again, Monty leaves and Jon returns.
‘I don’t know what I’ll call it,’ he says. ‘Maybe Me, Myself and Others.’
JONNY BAIRSTOW is confident the national team will reap the benefits of English cricket’s evolving relationship with the Indian Premier League.
Having already been retained by Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bairstow was an interested observer during the T20 tournament’s player auction yesterday.
He watched on from the England Test camp in Ahmedabad as rival franchises splashed well over £1million apiece on the likes of Chris Morris, Jhye Richardson and Kyle Jamieson.
England all-rounder Moeen Ali also landed a handsome deal with Chennai
Super Kings, picking up just under £700,000, while Dawid Malan and Tom Curran joined the ranks with Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals respectively.
In years gone by the IPL presented a major bone of contention for players like Kevin Pietersen and the England and Wales Cricket Board, but the annual league is now part of the landscape.
Not only have England rested players from international duty this winter while allowing them to take up IPL commitments, it has been reported that anyone involved in the tournament’s play-offs will be excused from the first Test of the summer with New Zealand.
That could mean any of Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran or Moeen find themselves 5,000 miles away while Joe Root leads his side out at Lord’s against the world’s No.1 side in June.
Bairstow sidestepped the issue directly, with the IPL’s final dates not yet announced, but was clear about the wider value of the competition to English cricket.
He said: ‘I think it’s part and parcel of the game.
‘I think for guys who are white-ball contracted... you can’t say “don’t go” because that’s kind of the contract they’ve got in England.
‘If the guys are going to IPL
Playing in the IPL improves skills for all three formats
and improving their skills, that doesn’t mean it’s just T20 skills. It’s improving their skills for ODI cricket and for Test cricket as well.
‘It covers all three formats. Playing alongside some of the best players in the world, not to mention in conditions similar to ones we are playing in currently and especially with a T20 World Cup coming up here in India [this year]. It covers all three formats.’