Northern highlights of actors’ epic camper van tour
Ricky and Ralf’s top sights...
BLACKPOOL Ricky: A night out to see the lights on a charabanc was a treat. Ralf: We turned on the lights. It doesn’t get any better than that.
NEWCASTLE Ricky: We met these two pigeon racers. One of them had 300 birds and knew them all by name. Ralf: I’d seen the Angel of the North, but to actually get close and stand under it was amazing.
KENDAL Ricky: Don’t knock the pencil museum. They’ve got one the
Only last week it was announced that this conviction is finally to be re-examined. Ralf says: “I had never had the chance to talk to him personally about it, one-to-one.
“You don’t just walk up to one size of a bloody telegraph pole! Ralf: Learning how to make Kendal mint cake was incredible.
YORKSHIRE Ricky: We went to see a brass band and it was wonderful. They allowed me to conduct.
Ralf: I got to stoke the engine of of your work colleagues and go ‘Hi mate, just been reading about you being in prison for two years, what was that like?’.
“To be able to spend some proper time with him and get to know the inner workings of a man I’ve known very well for a number of years was a privilege.
“This is going to sound like a paradox but he has both mellowed, and become more impassioned at the same time.
“He is also still full of ambition and righteous indignation at injustices. He has just become more Ricky, everything you saw a real steam train on the line they used in The Railway Children. Devil’s Arse (Peak District) Ricky: A cavernous hole in the ground where people used to live. Ralf: When it rains, the water gets higher inside. As it drains out it sounds like a giant farting.
Cast at red carpet bash in 2000 in The Royle Family multiplied by 20 years.
“We never had any rows or anything, just a little bit of bickering. We’ve known each other a long time so we never got on each other’s nerves.
“I did wonder if we would share the driving.
“But it became clear almost immediately that he had decided I would be doing it.”
What would Caroline make of the pair’s televised road trip?
Ralf says: “If I’d told her I was going to be driving round the North with Ricky for six weeks, Caroline would be like, ‘Oh, that will be a good show, you and Ricky with your arses out, hanging around in a caravan, who wants to watch that?’
She’d probably be a bit proud but extremely sardonic at the same time.”
How very Northern.
■ Ricky & Ralf ’s Very Northern Road Trip, 8pm, tonight, Gold.