Arts > Comedy

Graham Fellows discusses his new show, John Shuttleworth’s Back

15/12/19

It’s barely a year since Graham Fellows came to Norwich and he hinted then that John Shuttleworth, despite rumours of retirement, might be coming back. His many fans have now been waiting three long years for his return but finally John Shuttleworth’s Back and will be coming to the Playhouse in February. He’ll be pouring oil over these troubled times with what the man behind the versatile singer/songwriter describes as “gentle comedy, slightly nostalgic for a Britain that is perhaps slipping away.”Why now, after all this time?

“I did hint that John might be retiring, but really I just wanted to do other things. I hope last year’s show wasn’t too obvious or arrogant”, says the least arrogant man you could hope to meet, “but I thought it would be interesting to examine my life story. I also found myself writing folky, heartfelt songs and while I don’t resent handing over tunes to John – better a song has an audience and a life – these just weren’t right for him. In the end I put them together in an album called Weird Town under my own name.”

“But I’m under no illusion that John pays the bills. I’ve just recorded a Christmas special for the radio and I love doing him. I’ve also written Two Margarines and other Domestic Dilemmas, and I’m very proud that it’s proper book. Not, as John would say, a coffee table book. So after three years I thought I had better wheel him out, if only to make use of the title I came up with for the tour. I have a bad back, so John can have one too. Why wouldn’t he, sitting on stacks of diet Sprite cans in the garage while playing the organ. I know it’s the flimsiest of puns to hang a show off, but it’s all John needs. I’ll be rolling out some new songs but I’m going to have to squeeze them in between the older ones people seem to love. I’ve been doing this since the eighties, so I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Since that time, you and John have grown older together which must have meant changes for both of you.

 “It’s an interesting dichotomy that when I started performing as John I was twenty six and he was forty six. As I have aged, he has aged more slowly than me. I am now sixty, and I can’t imagine him being much older than that. In three decades his children have only grown eight years, and he has the oldest West Island Terrier in the world. These days, I tend to become John Shuttleworth, because he has become second nature to me. I generally know what he would say about any given subject. He’s become a cross between a poet and mystic floating around in his suburban world and sort of observing things. It’s certainly become harder to know what to take the mickey out of, not least as that’s what I do. I suppose that by now it’s inevitable that there are sides to Shuttleworth in myself.”

All of which suggests it didn’t start out that way.

“To be honest, acting work dried up in the eighties for me, and that’s really why I created Shuttleworth. I was still writing songs, and realised I could create a character that sung them. I was always a fan of seventies dramatists like Mike Leigh, Les Blair and Alan Bennett. They celebrated the naffness of Britain and the underbelly of suburbia. I thought John could tap into that, but there was no master plan at the time - I just liked the character and the world he evoked. I based him to some extent on my Dad - he had the same fastidiousness and obsessive DIY enthusiasm – but really its more about picking up on things John would say. My ex’s father once told me that he’d just taken some disadvantaged youngsters to see a horse in a field.  I immediately thought – I’ll have that.”

It must get complicated when you and John think differently.

“The challenge is when I’m on something like a game show. When I did Pointless I felt an obligation to be funny, but also play the game, and that was a struggle. Fortunately, because I’m a bit thick, I could afford to try my hardest and not break character. There are usually ways around things. If a Jilted John question came up, for example, I would obviously know the answer, but I’d have John know it through his time working in Comet – perhaps something he would have heard while demonstrating audio equipment.”

Nevertheless, there must be issues where you and John’s views just don’t match.

 “Sometimes I have to check myself and think whether John would really say something. I worry that John might be a Daily Mail reader who supports Brexit – I don’t think he is, but sometimes it’s tricky to come down one side or the other. It’s the same with the environment.  I am passionate about recycling, but I have to think what John’s views would be. Would he care about the carbon footprint of his tour, or just be pleased that motorways give you access to the countryside? I did write a song for him about the shrinking rainforests – and I’m definitely doing it on this tour - but I wonder if I am force feeding him. When I created this character, John was a war baby and would have abhorred waste, but he’s about my age now, and I come from a generation that doesn’t care so much about such things.”

You said at the start of this conversation that that there are sides to Shuttleworth in Fellows. Perhaps it’s time to allow some of Fellows’s views to inform Shuttleworth.

“Maybe so. I’ll take a dishcloth out the bin, wash it and turn it into a floor cloth, so perhaps I should give that to John – I just have to square it with his obsession with hygiene. And I must admit it bugs me when I go around the shops and all the doors are wedged open – I take them to task, but they just moan about footfall. I think the government should ban open shop doors. They should ban people leaving their car engines left running. Things like that. I just have to think of way to get John to think of such things rather than me.”

It sounds as if you still feel more comfortable playing John than being yourself on stage.

“I think most actors feel more comfortable playing a role, and that’s fundamentally what I am – an actor playing a part – but I am getting used to being myself. I’ve just done a Richard Herring podcast as Graham Fellows and I’d like to go on tour again. But I can’t repeat the Mike Yarwood “this is me” thing again. I need to think of a theme – maybe something to do with tape recorders! And I can certainly see John returning. I’ve already committed to him coming back to Norwich I n April. He’s most popular in the big cities, so I was really pleased that the February show has all but sold out. 

Is Norwich his sort of city?

I’ve made a couple of films with John – Southern Softies and It’s Nice Up North - but he doesn’t really have a view on the East. The nearest he has come is a bus stop in Sutton on Sea. I live in Louth in Lincolnshire which I would describe as a mini Norwich – a pretty town enclosed by countryside that feels cocooned and safe – so I do enjoy being in the city. I remember years ago hitchhiking in Norfolk. I ended up staying with a weird couple in Attenborough, who were happy to feed me before sending me on my way. Daphne and Cecil, as I recall … they’re probably dead by now.”

And on that happy note, we brought the conversation to a close.