I Love the Bones of You

by Christopher Eccleston;

  This flurry of socially informed dramas meant, at that point in the ’90s, I felt I was part of a movement akin to the actors of the ’60s and the deeply politicised performers of the ’70s and ’80s – Roland Joffe, Jim Allen and Ken Loach to name but three – all deeply of the left, social campaigners as well as commentators. That feeling was further accentuated by the unarguable fact that what writers like Peter Flannery and Jimmy McGovern were doing was wholly out of kilter with the cultural movement of the day.

  The rancid posturing of magazines like Loaded, I hated. It was nothing more than a cynical, exploitative packaging of the working class, combining supposed ignorance with consumerism. It may sound pompous, but to me that movement was a sell-out, a betrayal of the working classes, and I wanted no part of it. My dad was a man, not a lad. He liked a pint and he liked his football, but he also liked his dictionary.

  I can see how it happened. A generation was saying, ‘Throughout the ’80s, you told us we were thick – so here we are.’ I get it and I can deconstruct it. But my generation was going, ‘I got a chance – I got a better chance than my mum and dad.’ As the comedian Stewart Lee points out: in the ’90s, being politically correct became uncool, while in the ’80s it was a matter of pride. My adherence to those values means that Trainspotting, which became the visual expression of Cool Britannia, was not the film I would have made about heroin, but my film would not have made money. The path of political astuteness I was treading in the ’90s was out of style, but so be it. Again, it shows how brave it was to make a drama like Our Friends in the North. And I’d sooner be in Our Friends in the North than Trainspotting.

  Look at the scene where all four of the original characters are together at the end. No mawkishness, no big speeches, we all just look at each other. Nothing said and yet everything said. The fact that I love that set-up speaks again of my European sensibilities because it’s hard to find that subtlety of emotion in American drama. Peter Flannery’s attitude to an audience is that wherever you are in life, it’s not Disney. Life is compromise, life is a grey area, life is living with disappointment, and relishing what you’ve got. That’s why Nicky was such an incredible character to inhabit. In his hopeless search for what he hasn’t, he wrecks what he has. The scene in episode eight where he knowingly destroys his long-yearned-for relationship with Mary by having sex with a young student is just devastating.

  On a personal level, I felt playing Nicky in his later years was a cautionary tale of what might have been and what possibly could be. At that point, I wasn’t a middle-aged man. I felt like my life was mapped out for me if I wasn’t careful. The regrets Nicky Hutchinson has in late middle age, I didn’t want those. Indeed, I have been careful and so have missed those preordained trig points.

  The parallels with me and my dad were also apparent – the arguments, the gulfs in attitude and opinion. The desire of the son to have his voice heard. The constant search for personal and emotional recognition. The difference between Nicky and Felix and me and Dad is that the fictional father-and-son relationship was much more damaged. Nicky wants his dad’s attention, support, respect and love. He wants to finish the work his dad started politically. His dad’s response to that is utterly dismissive. Nicky is the soul of the left’s journey, and all his father can say is, ‘You’re wasting your life, son. Don’t be like me.’ Thankfully, while Dad and me never had a deep and searching discussion about our relationship and each other’s part in it, via a somewhat circuitous and occasionally torturous route we reached a point of understanding in the end. With my dad, my idealism, my path, was completely supported. There wasn’t an iota of disapproval and jealousy. Me and my dad always loved each other. We had our ups and downs, but I knew he loved me and he knew I loved him. Felix and Nicky’s situation, however, is left unresolved. The minute Nicky tries to talk about his search for his dad’s soul, in comes Felix with, ‘You’ve always been a waste of time.’ Brilliant, dramatic, poetic.

  Then, with great tragi-poetry, just as Nicky is finally ready to confront his dad, to tell him that he should have encouraged his son to make his own mistakes rather than offer the constant and destructive message of, ‘You’re throwing away your life,’ Felix goes vacant, lost to dementia – ‘Who are you?’ The conversation, at the very heart of their damaged relationship, can never be had. There we have drama that is so incredible, so cunning, in its creation.

  Of course, at the time I was playing Nicky, my dad was, unbeknownst to us, in the foothills of his own dementia. Eventually, myself, Freda Dowie, who played Nicky’s mum Florrie, and Peter Vaughan as Felix, would film the scene where he is put in care. Taking him, leaving him, going. There was part of me even then that could see that self-same scenario unfolding with my dad. I wasn’t wrong. Within five years, I was reading the seven stages of dementia. A decade later, there he was in that home. There are times when life mimics art and art mimics life so much that you begin to forget where one ends and the other begins.

  I consider my portrayal of Nicky as far too one note. I got nominated for a BAFTA and I’ve no idea why. I made a mistake apparent in a lot of my performances – solemn, pronouncement. If you look at what I did in Our Friends in the North, it’s juvenilia.

  Peter Flannery once said to me, ‘You were very, very hard on Nicky. You always majored on his unsympathetic side.’ Which is interesting, because I’m similarly unforgiving about myself. There are a lot of American actors whose on-screen persona is all, ‘Love me, love me. Mother me, mother me.’ In my desire not to be them, I went too far the other way – ‘Hate me, hate me.’ But again, that’s about my attitude to audience. Their threshold for sympathy is much higher than many directors understand. After my issues with the filmmakers’ view of Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It, I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Nicky was going to be shown in his true complexity, a man who takes part in his own self-destruction. It comes as much from within as without. It’s why I saw him as by far the most interesting character of the three male leads. Initially, they wanted me to audition for Geordie. But I felt Geordie was very much a victim of circumstance, of the system, something I’d already explored with Derek. I wanted to play someone who self-sabotages. Nicky messes himself up, much closer to me than Derek and, later, Jude was. I wouldn’t have been crushed by the system – I’d have done it myself. That’s why I wanted to play Nicky rather than the working-class guy lost in Trafalgar Square.

  It’s Nicky’s idealism that leads him down the wrong path. That’s why I see my performance as one note – there was a lot of righteous working-class anger. What was it Joni Mitchell said? ‘All romantics meet the same fate someday. Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café.’

  There is another reason I couldn’t have played Geordie. For that role, you need somebody with rock star sexual charisma. Daniel Craig has that, I don’t. No way could I have done what he did.

  The performances I really loved were those of Gina McKee and Mark Strong. Myself and Gina, I feel, were quite similar – we just turned up and did the job. Gina is a very private person, much more so than me, and oddly, considering the depth of our relationship on screen, I never really got to know her. I got to know Mary, her character, instead. We didn’t socialise. On any job, I like to turn up, get the make-up on, and do it, and Gina was the same. Myself and Gina also shared a deep love of what Peter had written. I was very happy to be part of something I felt was part of my experience. Gina, too, had her roots in the story. She was from the north-east, the crucible of the drama, and her father was a miner – bear in mind the story covers the miners’ strike, which was only twelve years previous. It felt to her, as with me, that the script resonated on a very personal level. That resonance is acutely delivered.

  Myself and Mark Strong, meanwhile, didn’t speak. We disliked and distrusted each other to the extent we didn’t acknowledge one another’s existence. We hated each other, but then our characters hated each other too. The only time we spoke was when we had lines. Whene
ver we had a scene together, we both understood the job. He and Gina gave the best performances in the series, in my opinion. I thought Mark was brilliant. I was deeply admiring of what he did with Tosker, a very unsympathetic character who, with great skill and talent, Mark allowed the audience to maintain some compassion for. But, personally, we had no time for each other. We were very young and immature. What the production had accrued was three very ambitious young men. I felt Mark was being competitive with me. I didn’t get that from Dan. I think Mark thought I returned that competitiveness. I didn’t – I was too busy competing with myself.

  Mark and Dan were very close, so inevitably that affected my relationship with Dan. I didn’t dislike Dan and I’d talk to him, but I don’t think he particularly liked me. That’s fine. It’s unrealistic for every actor to get on during a production. Does everyone get on in the office or on the building site? There will be similar situations in changing rooms at all levels of football where people don’t get on, or see rivalry where there isn’t any. The point is you deliver on the pitch or on screen.

  What united everyone on Our Friends in the North was the absolute knowledge that we were making something very important and of extreme quality. How could it be any other way? There were so many very bright people involved with it. Nicola Shindler, who now runs Red Productions, was script editor and co-producer, enormous in her close relationship with Peter Flannery and what it brought to the screen. Charlie Pattinson, the producer, would go on to produce other landmark TV shows such as Shameless and Jimmy McGovern’s The Lakes. Gina McKee won the Best Actress BAFTA for Mary; Daniel Craig is James Bond; Mark Strong, too, is a major film star, and they are just the most visible faces of an incredible cast and behind the camera team.

  I’ve always trusted my instinct about British television – I’ve not made many mistakes, recognise good writing, and know what I can do with it – so I wasn’t in any way surprised with the reception Our Friends in the North received. The affection for the series is incredible. Only yesterday I was in a café and someone came up to me – ‘I’ll never forget Our Friends in the North.’ I get that all the time, and I totally understand how and why people love it. I was part of it, and I love it too. It was nine months of my life when I could have been cashing in on my profile from Shallow Grave. Nowadays, that would be the option taken by 99 per cent of people. They want to be famous because celebrity and fame has been positioned right at the centre of our culture. When I came through, however, celebrity culture was in its infancy. Yes, I wanted to be famous, but I wanted to be famous for being a great actor. There is an option where you just go for fame, but I always wanted to be a tradesman, and slowly I’m getting there. Whether I’ll actually get there, I’m unsure. Peter Vaughan was seventy-four on Our Friends in the North and he was still working away at it, and competitive with it. We both got nominated for the Best Actor BAFTA. I walked into the venue and there he was. ‘Hello, Peter.’ He gave me a little smile, one that just said enough. I would have loved a BAFTA, obviously, but I knew the flaws in my performance and in all honestly would have been embarrassed to win ahead of Peter. As it turned out, the debate was irrelevant. The late Nigel Hawthorne won for his role in the medical drama The Fragile Heart, which made us both smile. Peter never got any of those major acting awards, and he too has gone now. I know, though, that there’s a lot of Peter, not just the nose, that lives on in me. He’s the actor I’ve worked with who I’ve learned the most from, not just in terms of acting but in standards. I was sat on the set once – we’d done our rehearsal, the camera was up, and the director of photography was in place – and Peter wanted to talk to me about a scene. It required him to walk in front of the camera to get to me. ‘Crossing camera,’ he said as he came across. ‘Thank you, Peter,’ said a voice. I watched as he did this. Manners, I thought. Manners on set. Not only did I love Peter’s manners, but I knew also that, if he messed up a take, those same people he’d shown such respect to weren’t going to be muttering about him under their breath. When I’m on set now, I do exactly the same as Peter. Some young actors take the attitude of being a little nonchalant on set. But it’s always worth remembering that people are working when you’re not. Peter applied to acting what I had already acquired from Mum and Dad, an enormous work ethic, manners, punctuality and bettering myself. I would always turn up on time on set and I would always have my lines learned. My rebellion came in questioning authority – but you always had to be there on time to do it otherwise you didn’t have a leg to stand on.

  Hang on, I’ve turned into Norman Tebbit. Nicky, I’m sorry.

  I’ve never come close to anything as epic in its timeline as Our Friends in the North. The drama covered so much ground, four decades, from 1964 to 1995, and required so many shifts in character, appearance and costume that I felt like I was being paid to go back to drama school. When I talk about the wigs and the make-up, that’s me getting in the criticism before anybody else does, although they did seem to convince. I once left the set when Nicky was at his oldest, fully padded up in character and in a grey wig and glasses, and went to an Italian restaurant next to the Crown Posada, a famous pub in Newcastle. The waitress was entirely different with me than if I’d gone as myself. Everyone else went on their own journey of transformation. There was the boldness of Dan, taken from sharp Soho suits to alcoholic destitution, and, finally, trailing hair and big glasses. Mark, meanwhile, travelled from one of the finest heads of hair ever seen on TV to an overfamiliar flirtation with male pattern baldness. For me, as ever, I looked to the writer for the physical inspiration for my character. Right from the start, I said to the make-up people, ‘Let’s get as close to Peter Flannery as we can.’ Considering where we ended up, I’m not sure how flattered Peter will be with that revelation. I’m fifty-five now and realise the 50-year-old Nicky I portrayed aged thirty-one was bordering on decrepitude.

  To have found one writer who would act as both ally and influence is amazing. I am fortunate enough to have found several. I first encountered Peter Bowker on The King and Us, a very low-budget drama for BBC Choice based loosely around the Manchester derby of 1974 that saw ex-red Denis Law score for City to send United down. It’s not a football drama; it’s about the era and growing up. I liked the sound of it, the fact it had a bit of comedy, and was my brothers’ era rather than mine, and agreed to do it. Immediately I found so much in common with Peter. We have a similar attitude politically, are both runners (he wants to write a cameo in The A Word where he overtakes my fell-running character Maurice), and when it comes to football, we love Manchester United but hate the club. We also soon got to know each other well enough not to idealise our dads. We had a shorthand and that allowed us to talk. More than just his background, though, the connection I made was in his ability to sit outside a situation and observe, his incredible ability to capture language. Again, as with Jimmy, I understood the rhythm of his writing, not just the vernacular but the emotional. Peter is a man of immense humour, but it is the humour of nuance, the humour of communication (or lack of), allied to an incredible eye for the interlinked, and more than occasionally broken, chains of human relationship. I could see exactly where he was coming from with The King and Us and asked him to bear me in mind for anything else he might be writing. That ‘anything else’ would turn out to be Flesh and Blood, the story of a working-class Mancunian, Joe, adopted as a baby. When, after becoming a father himself, he feels a need to know more about his birth parents, he discovers both his mum and dad have learning disabilities. They’d had sex in a care home and, to cover up the scandal, a nurse had put her name down as Joe’s birth mother.

  Being part of the BBC’s season of disability-themed programming, it was decided, entirely properly, that Joe’s birth mum and dad, Janet and Harry, should be played by people with learning disabilities, the incredible Dorothy Cockin and Peter Kirby recruited from an amateur dramatics group in the north-west. My reaction on hearing about Flesh and Blood was immediate – ‘I’m in.’ That was a dec
ision made as an actor doing a job, but clearly what I was doing was informed by my own lifelong desire to connect with my dad. Equally, clearly what Peter was doing was writing about was any man trying to communicate with his father. There is a universal truth that so many men feel the gulf between them and their dad is way too big to be breached. Flesh and Blood was the ultimate example of a man pleading, ‘Please, please realise, you’re my father.’

  So invested was I in this idea of father/son connectivity that, the first time I saw Peter Kirby, who plays my character Joe’s dad Harry, I turned to Julian Farino, the director, and said, ‘He looks just like my dad.’ Peter Kirby looks absolutely nothing like my dad. I was seeing something that wasn’t there. Julian was delighted to hear of the resemblance, as, I’m sure, was the producer, for what it might bring to the party performance-wise, but it was simply a trick of an emotionally scrambled mind.

  Peter Kirby did, though, become woven into my own life, as I did into his. I felt we had to if we were to make our interaction believable, to make it work. It was a complex set-up. When myself and Peter were on camera, there were three things going on in every scene – my performance, Peter’s performance, and my reaction to Peter’s performance. At no point could I ever be sure what Peter was going to do or say. I also had to be proactive in keeping the scene going, delivering its narrative so it had a dramatic purpose and form. A lot of that was done by talking to Peter about his own life and weaving what I knew into the dialogue, not that he always played the game. Do a second take of a scene that involved asking him a question and there was a good chance he’d look at you like you were daft and say, ‘I just told you!’ A significant section of the drama was filmed at a social club evening for people with special needs. I was trying to film with Peter and in the background all I could hear was, ‘It’s him out of Cracker. He’s in Harry Potter now.’