Ann Fotheringham
SINCE joining River City, Paisley actor Darren Brownlie has discovered fans of the longrunning BBC Scotland drama can be a little “intense.”
“Oh, I’ve had it all,” laughs Darren, who plays Mikey. “I get people saying ‘you’re not as fat in real life as you are on the telly,’ for example.
“One woman practically followed me into Marks and Spencer’s, holding my hand, telling me how worried she was about Mikey, and ‘that Jonathon’, and how he was bad news. I remember thinking, wow, she is really into it.”
That particular fan could have a point, of course, as viewers are about to see Mikey get married to the aforementioned is-he-a-baddie-or-is-he-a-goodie Jonathon (played by Edward Corrie) in a dramatic double wedding episode being broadcast tonight.
As he and his beau tie the knot, Mikey’s emotions are all over the place. On his mind is his recent fall-out with best friend Gillian (Gail Watson), who is suspicious of Jonathon and his controlling behaviour.
“It’s a wee shame for Mikey,” agrees Darren. “He is just desperate to be loved, really. He’s got to that age where he thinks it’s something he’s just not going to have.
“And then the big dishy guy comes in and takes away those feelings.
“I know I’ve done it before – that feeling you shouldn’t really be in a relationship with this person but it’s better than being alone.”
The romance between doctor’s assistant Mikey and Jonathon has been a hot topic in Shieldinch for the last few months.
“Mikey just sees him as this person who loves him and will look after him but he still doesn’t really know Jonathon,” says Darren.
“Mikey sees the best in people and he’s someone who has been judged all his life, so he has decided not to do to Jonathon what has been done to him.”
Exciting things are on the horizon, teases Darren, but he won’t reveal if there’s a happy-ever-after for Mikey.
“It’s true that Jonathon does what he does because he really loves Mikey,” says Darren. “But how often can you forgive someone for doing things that hurt you, just because they say they love you?
“I know people who have been so blinded by love that, when horrible things have happened in their relationship, they were the last people to expect it.
“Everyone else around them gets what’s happening but they just can’t see it. That is what is happening to Mikey.”
Darren first fell in love with acting at the Paisley-based PACE youth theatre group.
He later studied musical theatre at Knightswood Secondary’s Dance School of Scotland.
Playing a gay character on River City, filming a same-sex wedding scene, is something Darren could not have imagined when he was starting out as an actor.
“I was brought up in a Catholic household and I spent the first 16 years of my life denying the person I was,” he says.
“I was lucky in that I found dance and musical theatre, which was utterly accepting and meant I could be me a bit quicker than lots of other young people could.
“Now there is so much more representation for young gay people, in the theatre, on TV.
“I mean, people my age had Dale Winton and that was about it.”