DOC MARTIN STAR ON HIS INSPIRATION TO TAKE TO THE STAGE He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn’t normal around here.. especially with thigh-high boots and a blond ponytail
Izzard led Joe to Shawshank play
as Doc Martin star Joe absolom solom was filming the final seriesies of the show, an encounter with Eddie Izzard changed his life.
Joe has worked on one hit TV drama after another – in shows including EastEnders, A Confession and The Bay – all his career. Then he watched Eddie Izzard give a oneperson show of a work by Charles Dickens and it inspired him to take to the stage. He is now touring the country playing one of the leads in a theatre adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption. Joe, 44, who starred as Al Large in Doc Martin for the series’ 18-year run, said: “Apart from one theatre show I did 11 years ago where I was in the background, I’ve always been happy on television.
“Then while filming the last series of Doc Martin, Selina Cadell, who played Mrs Tishell, told me she had a friend rehearsing for a one-person show nearby.
“I didn’t know Selina was a director and she said they wanted to put on an abridged version of Great Expectations in a local church hall for some locals. “We had that afternoon off from filming, so on a Tuesday me and Ian McNeice, who played my dad Bert, went along.
“We heard high heels walking down the middle of the church hall, then they stopped and this 6ft- plus blond, wearing thigh-high boots and hair in a top pony t a i l , s pu n around and said, ‘ They call me Pip.’ “It was Eddie Izzard and in this small church hall he did the most breathtaking, funny , e m o t i on a l performance. “He gave th i s abridged version of Great Expectations for two hours wh i le standing 3ft from us. “The whole thing was absolutely amazing. It got me thinking, so I emailed my agent and said, ‘Maybe I should try theatre.’ My agent said, ‘What about this?’ which was The Shawshank Redemption.
“My gut reaction was, ‘ That sounds like a lot of work.’ On Doc Martin I might work two or three days a week and some days I might only be shooting one scene,
then I’d be back on the beach. Then I read ththe scriptit off ThThe ShawshankShhkRRedemptiondti and found it so emotional.
“I couldn’t think of any reason I could give for not doing it.
“Now I’m touring the country and doing eight shows a week – and loving it.”
Joe, who was 18 when he joined EastEnders as Matthew Rose, plays the role of wrongly convicted double murderer Andy Dufresne in the play alongside London’s Burning’s Ben Onwukwe, who plays Ellis “Red” Redding.
Both roles are best known from the 1994 film starring Tim Robbins as Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as prison fixer Red.
Joe said: “I hadn’t seen the film before they sent me the script of the play.
“My wife said, ‘ You’ve got to watch this,’ as it was already one of her favourite films. It’s a great film but I’d already fallen for the emotion of the stage show script.
“On film or stage, it’s such a story about hope. One of the most special things for me is seeing that emotion being felt across the audience.
“Often at the end of the show you see p e opl e in t he audience wiping tears away.”
Joe says the role of
Dufresne strips him bare as an actor in more ways than one.
He said: “The lights come on and the first thing the audience see is three naked guys standing there with their jeans folded up in front of them.
“When I got the scr ipt, I star ted reading the l ines and sort of forgot about it.
“When I came to rehearsals, they said, ‘ This is the bit where you get your clothes off.’ I was like, ‘ What?’
“To protect our modesty, we are holding what is going to be our prison garb and our boots.”
The show, directed by David Esbjornson, features music that starts with Bobby Darin’s 1959 hit Beyond The Sea and travels on a journey that visits everything from The Beatles to The Doors, to reflect the 20-year passage of time of the play.
Joe is looking forward to the show’s run at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre from April 24 to 29.
He aims to fill his time off doing everything from visiting Arthur’s Seat to climbing Ben Nevis with the other cast and crew.
He said: “Years ago I was filming a BBC3 show called PAs, which was filmed at the studios in Dumbarton, so I was in Glasgow a lot.
“I’ve never been to Edinburgh before. Quite a few of us have a list of things we want to do while there and I honestly can’t wait.”