This is a global player original podcast.

Feel coming and Happy new year.

It's 2025.

I'm the newborn broadcaster, the established face of morning telly with a plan for the future.

Honest.

That's what the New Year's resolution said after a pep talk from our guest today.

I'm going to be more confident about this push.

Anyway, here he is, the.

The bigger chunk of the Christmas cracker.

The last few bounties in the selection box, the winning part of the turkey wishbone.

It's the gavish gone to my heartburn, the paracetamol to my hangover.

He's the Viagra format.

You get the message.

He is the one and only, the man to navigate an oil rig and smaug.

He can wear a waistcoat and look sexy and appear in a submarine drama for two minutes, but live on the BBC promo for 10 years off the back of it, the jammy wee bastard.

It is the starter sprinkler, the one and only Martin comes there.

I don't mind the bounty you love about it.

Yeah.

What do you like about it?

That's because you.

That's why you are this guy.

Yeah, the coconut.

Yeah, the coconut and the chocolate.

Anyway.

Hello, Martin.

You good?

Hi, mate.

Good?

Well, I just come off.

I've made it my mission in life at one point.

I'm going to go on this morning, not hungover.

I was on my ass today.

Going on again.

Yeah, well, it's just because I get doing here to do these things and haven't seen all my mates in ages and then you just fucking end up.

And then you work.

I'll be fine.

And then I can't wait to watch it back.

How bad is it?

I mean, up there?

Is it in the top three?

No, I was not too bad.

I think I got home by like 1:12, so I had a good first kit, but it's just.

Fuck.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm getting too old for it.

You try fucking presenting after a night like that twice every two years.

Right, so how else should we bring in a fresh year with a podcast that has been described as a speedboat without a driver?

It's like a crazed dog chasing a balloon on wet lino.

You need safe hands, Martin.

That's what you need.

You need composure, you need confidence.

You need the man once described by Denerly himself as the actor's actor.

Neil Forsyth rates him very highly.

Compston respects him.

All of his peers think he.

I think he's got a turn of phrase that would have made him a dynamite Writer if he had chosen to do that instead.

It's also the last remaining Compston landlord in the restless natives.

Compston benevolence.

Bingo.

Am I right, Martin?

No, I'm sure there's a few.

Probably a few more people.

He was the original, but he's the original landlord.

The original landlord.

One of the finest actors of his generation.

We've taken two and a half years to.

Cannot believe he's on.

It has happened.

The one and only Neil Master.

Hello.

It's not as much of a coup as Martin.

I went on Scrubius Pips 1.

Yeah, it was just because you did.

Because you're like, oh, mate, you're doing a podcast.

But I, I will get you on.

You went, no.

Well, I'll tell you the funny thing.

It was Craig Parkinson, who's a dear friend of ours, well, of all three of us, he, he had a podcast for a long time and he would say about it and I was like, oh, really?

It's not, it's not my thing.

It makes me a bit anxious and if I see her, I'd rather, you know, it wasn't recorded.

So we' and I've said similar things to Martin.

And then eventually what I said to Craig was, I said one day after, you know, because he got a bit humpy with me a couple of times, I said, look, mate, you're my friend.

I'm not like gonna, you know, upset you.

If you're desperate for me to come on your podcast, I'll come on.

I just don't want to.

And he went, okay, mate.

And he never mentioned it again.

So the other week, Martin was on with me, chatting to me on the FaceTime.

I think he's in America.

And I said, I went, listen, mate, and I said the same thing.

I said, I'm going to say the same thing to you.

As I said, scrapinson, I think that.

But I just don't want to come on the podcast.

And he went, great, so you're coming on.

So if I want you to come on, you're coming on.

Yeah, fuck that.

That's the difference between Parkinson and Comston, isn't it?

Respect.

Respect boundaries.

I mean, to be.

You're tap dancing around this podcast for this one.

Martin has been some of the fin.

Because he then went to me, he said, have you got Neil on the podcast, Gordon?

No, because I said to you, I said, I'm going to meet Neil.

And you said, oh, we can get him on that day.

And then you said, you'll text him then we did get a bit scared and I was like, fuck, what if he goes back?

Because I was pissed when I asked him.

Because, you know, I do my best.

Yes.

I always ask people when I'm pissed because I've got no shame, which has been a problem over the years.

But it usually works.

That's the thing.

Like how many people I got for us.

Just when I'm going, I just get drunk and go, right, I want to just blanket text.

I look forward to the next day when you've been out to book a guest.

Yeah.

Oh, fucking messy.

Is Colin Farrell.

How did it go?

Not heard her, Pete.

Not heard the fucking thing back.

Oh, Neil, it's great to have you on because here's the thing, right, you have featured in so many of the conversations that have happened in the last two and a half years, but you've never had a chance to speak for yourself.

So I'd like to see this as an opportunity for you to tell.

To answer back.

The real story, actually, because Forsyth story is one of the best ever, isn't it?

Yeah, Some of the weeds.

We'd met.

We've done.

So we've done Ghosted.

We'd met on Ghosted briefly, but me.

And Craig, we met on a prison.

We met.

And I'll be.

Prison.

We met in prison.

Yeah.

And then we did our.

All our mutual pals.

Well, Kieran Hawks's first film.

Who's But Kieran?

You go way back.

He's the best pals.

You came.

What was it?

Dartford?

Yeah.

So I went to a college in Dartford to do acting when I was 16, and then finished at 17, I think, and then went back and was like with direct plays there between acting jobs.

And then Kieran was there.

I mean, almost.

It was very quick between me leaving there when I've been studying there and then going back to work there.

So, you know, he went.

And then he went and did music there for a couple of years and then he did the same as me.

He'd come back and forth and do music there.

I think he was.

Maybe he was teaching edit in there at one point.

So, yeah, we go back.

Sorry, that's about the least interesting.

Also to.

Just to add some color to the story.

Matt Morgan would have appeared in this at some point around then because he's a Dartford boy originally.

They're from closer to each other.

Yeah, they're from out that way.

But I'd met.

So we'd done.

I'd met mainly at that point.

Neil was a mate of a Mate.

Because it was Craig's mate and I didn't know him.

Keanu Pal.

So I went for the piggy edition.

Yeah.

And Neil was already cast because they were close pals and he was playing the brother and I was going for the lead, but I did the addition in Scottish and it was a London part.

And Kieran's went, yeah, great, want you.

But just.

I mean, what about the accent?

And I just kind of try to lay on going, oh, I'll just live with him, and pointed at Neil.

And Neil just kind of looked at.

And I was like, mate, just go with it.

Like, just say it.

But I didn't know you and Kieran knew each other.

Oh, right.

And then you kind of went, all.

Right for the podcast.

His acting career at that point, where he just kind of attached himself to that.

And then I was living with Tom Davis at the time, you know, Big Tom.

And.

Yeah, that was a fun time, actually.

I went off to do George's Day, which was the nuttiest job of my life and the best.

Yeah.

And, yeah, that was a great.

Was that a summer?

Feels like that was because I was.

Sleeping on the couch and, you know, the boys would be.

And then knock the door.

He'd go, we, man, you go in the room.

We're having a party.

So I'd get his bed for the night.

Yeah, they were great times, weren't they?

Yeah, they were, yeah.

Because, I mean, I still see a lot of Tom.

Yeah, Tom's a good lad.

Yeah, he's done brilliantly, isn't he?

Yeah.

Did you.

The big one, remember, Football Factory was.

So when it was like a culture fucking thing, like, you were kind of not typecast, but you did a lot of them films early on because you play a bad bastard, hard bastard, really.

Well, which is ludicrous.

And anyone who knows me, it's ridiculous, you know, there's no one who's more averse to rolling about bashing people up than I am.

It's funny, you know, but, yeah, that was.

Well, there was a run of that.

It was quite handy, actually, because we.

You after Football Factory, was it?

I think that was kind of the first one.

And then after that, there was sort of a spell when I could not get arrested anywhere else, where they were just making loads of films about them free bouncers getting pinged in the Range Rover.

I think we did about nine of them.

You know, I played the geezer in the Range Rover, the bloke who shot him outside the Range Rover geezer who grassed up the Blokes who shot him in the Range Rover.

It was great.

I was in Foot Soldier, Range Rover, Blood Soldier.

Yeah, it was all that sort of thing, but it was great.

I must have been great already, those boys.

Yeah, well, a lot of friends on those.

I mean, the thing is what people.

You know, those films, they're very snobbish about them.

The sort of move the.

The film press over here and stuff.

But I work with amazing practitioners, like actors, technicians, you know, some really good directors as well who were just making that, you know, that's what.

Like me, that's what you could get a bit of work on.

Some brilliant people.

And I think now when people reassess, you know, Roger Corman's out output or something in the 50s and 60s, stuff that was dismissed in the same way, what they'll do is go, okay, that film's a load of rubbish, but that sequence is interesting.

Or.

Yeah, it's an exploitation movie that's got loads of sort of, you know, nudity and violence in it.

But actually you can see from this that the director was trying to do something like, you know, look at Scorsese with Boxcar Bertha and stuff.

You know, people can now pick out moments, but they were just sort of entirely overlooked.

It didn't matter what, you know, this isn't me moaning about my own status, but like seeing those films entirely disregarded.

When I saw great work going on by technicians, by costume designers, by makeup with tiny budgets on these, you know, whatever the subject matter of the film is, they were sort of doing really interesting stuff.

So I got loads from all that professionally, not just by going in there and having a laugh and working with, you know, and it was a bit of a.

What?

They were wilder sets.

When you're working for the BBC, you know, I mean, you have a lot of people who were like friends of the producers or who were turning up to essentially do supporting artist work, but who were actually kind of dangerous lunatics to be, you know, avoided at all costs.

And they'd be sort of planted next to you all day.

Pretty wired.

Yeah.

While you were trying to do your.

Scene, what was the CM fight scenes?

Did they ever get hard?

Because, I mean, the other people get a bit lady with like any of the.

Yeah.

Oh, loads of times.

Yeah.

I mean, I got.

Yeah, it was awful.

When we did the Football Factory, we had to do this scene.

It was a massive fight.

We had to go back and do it twice as well.

There was a massive fight over near the Mill Wall ground, actually.

Near the Mill Wall Ground near that rubbish processing plant, sort of in the shadow of that.

And we turned up in the morning and I'm not.

I mean, we already knew what we was getting into to some extent.

And Glenn, the stunt coordinator on that, he was one of them very effective stunt coordinators.

And I actually like working in this way.

So I don't say this to talk him down at all, where he basically realizes you haven't got much time and he's like, don't hit each other in the face as much as possible and gone clear, you know.

So it was like that, all the stunt coordinating on Football Factory, because we had half a million quid in six weeks.

And like, you know.

And anyway, we got down there and people were charged up.

There's a lot of people drinking.

And so everyone, you know, who wasn't like the main cast and the crew were funny enough.

Years later, I talked to some.

I bumped into a fellow on the crew and I was like.

I was a laugh.

That film wasn't.

It was like.

Well, it wasn't.

The days when it wasn't terrifying, intimidating.

You know what I mean?

When you're just at work, sort of thing.

We're looked after as actors and cosited a little bit from that.

I think it was quite scary for them.

And I just remember this one geezer when Nick Love was.

Was setting up the first shots, the W.

This guy just stomping around at the back, like, eyes pinging and just pointing at me and nodding.

Oh, no.

Really at work here.

I don't know what to do.

Am I supposed to go.

Am I going to go and say to someone or that man.

But the alternative is I fight him anyway.

We did the first take and ended up like he weren't as hard as he looked, sort of thing.

But I could deal with this.

Keys.

But he must have been really smashed.

Yeah.

So it was all right.

But it was always.

You were in them sort of situations a lot and you would get digs.

I mean, you know that yesterday I was.

I was shooting a scene in something where I had to be, you know, fighting a load of policemen because the parts don't change.

And I.

You know.

And you know.

And that was with a stunt double and everything because I don't do any of my own stunts and.

And still I got injured.

Yeah.

Easily injured.

Thing is, though, you've gone off from that.

You played Winston Churchill.

I know.

What's that comment like?

What's that.

What's that call like when somebody say, we've got a part peaky blind.

Does he go, it's Churchill?

Oh, yeah.

Well, it was a friend of mine, Anthony Byrne, he's the director of that.

It was a good mate.

And, yeah, I think he texted me, do you want to play Winston Churchill?

I remember you talking in riddles about it.

Remember that time we bumped in each.

So you got a little bit.

I've got a little bit of work coming up.

Oh, yeah, there was a lot of work for one scene.

Yeah, effectively.

I mean, I did a little bit later as well, which I didn't use, but I.

You know, like, it's weird with that because you're only doing a little bit and it was a great scene.

Yeah.

The writing, I mean.

But you have to prepare.

Like you're gonna go and do a thing called Churchill.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you can't mess it up.

But it is like turning up and taking a penalty and not getting 90 minutes or not getting any.

So you can't mess it up at all.

You know, it's like.

Studying all that.

They were, like, watching.

I mean, we all know Churchill, but did you go into depth, like voice and.

Yeah, mannerisms and.

I mean, is this one of them?

Do I talk about this kind?

Isn't this all Jolly lady stuff?

It can be silly.

Well, yeah, no, so it was.

I think it's 1932 was the first one I had to do, so I just did.

I mean, yeah, I did loads of work.

There's a book that he wrote himself about his young life, about fighting in the Boer War and all that stuff.

And I read that.

And then there's two sort of major.

Well, there's three major biographies.

One's unreadable, which is Roy Jenkins book, because it's.

So.

I don't know if you read a lot of history, but often stuff written before 20 years now is really inaccessible and dry and difficult.

It was written for a much more academic audience.

Martin Gilbert book I read, and I can't remember the third Orb Free, but I think that's the most recent one.

And the Gilbert one was.

But only two.

Yeah, right.

So.

But I only read up to 32.

I have to give myself parameters or you go mad.

So I was like, I'm not going to get into the Second World War.

Okay, it's not going to do that.

But it still ended up being.

I worked it out.

I'd read two and a half thousand pages of biography and then when I was looking at, like, voice, I had all of his recorded speeches, the speeches that we've got of Churchill, none of them Are recorded.

When he made them.

Them.

He re recorded them.

So the famous speeches, he then went into a recording studio.

So you're hearing a much more formal reading than he was giving.

So when people talk about him being a great orator, we're not necessarily hearing the oratory because recordings were made slower so that people could.

You know what I mean?

So, yeah, actually you'd often hear Churchill go, sounds a bit boring, actually.

But you're not getting him out.

They got him and.

And then he had a higher voice than mine.

And I was like.

When I started to.

When I started to go up, I was like, this sounds ridicul.

End of that.

So I thought, don't worry about that.

Concentrate on the slight impediments on the R and the S.

And then.

You'Re in.

And you're in, really.

And then just.

The dialogue was great.

Is it hard?

Not.

Ach.

It's brilliant.

Watch people like Michael Sheen's really good.

See, when you get into that, is it hard not to be like a caricature of it?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty much the same thing Gary Orman did it, wasn't it?

Oh, not long after, I watched all of the.

I watched all of them.

Yeah.

I watched everyone have a go here, mainly to.

Because I was like, what's the mistakes?

What do I want to avoid?

What was the mistakes?

If you.

If you try and stick your jaw out.

Yeah, you're in trouble.

Right.

No one cares.

Don't worry about it.

You know, a couple of people.

That's a mistake.

Yeah.

It's just.

You're stuck with it.

We all know you do something on day one and you're like, oh, why did I do that?

I mean, obviously, Oldman's is great.

He's very.

You know, it's big and fun and mine could.

I could.

I had a bit of room.

Peaky Blind's quite theatrical.

I mean, that's the thing you say about caricature.

But actually, if you're gonna do it in any show.

Yeah, Peaky, you can do it a bit.

You can turn it up a bit.

I made it quite flirtatious as well and, like, had fun with that element of it because the show has got room for bigger performances.

You know, what's it like to see another one playing Ernie Wise?

See, when Neil comes.

That would fucking terrify me.

I mean, Morcom and Wise are so.

He did mature.

Yeah.

You did Mission, but that was.

That one's a bit.

Yours was a bit more serious when it was a bit more.

I used to Say me and Mark Bonner hadn't worked together before we did that and are now really, really good mates.

And I love Mark.

He's classic deeply.

And.

But all the way through that, we had, like, you know, it was BBC4 or whatever.

It was one of those they make for BBC4 and then put on BBC2.

And.

And I'd say to him, like, really early on, I was like, every time I get nervous about playing Ernie Wise, I just think how lucky I am I'm not playing Go, it's on you, son.

And it was like.

It was funny because that film had just come out with Cogan and John C.

Riley playing Laurenardi.

And they went, we've got Gezer, who was the movement guy who's just worked for three months with Steve Kogan and John C.

Riley on.

On the Lauren Arty film.

We've got him in to work with you two on this.

We were like, great.

We've got an hour and a half on Wednesday.

That's it.

Okay.

It's not the same guys.

You know that, Right?

Yeah.

And then he was actually, though, I'll tell you what, those sort of people, they show their worth, don't they?

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely brilliant.

He'd give us an hour and a half.

He'll know this.

Like, normally, if you're working with someone who's a specialist, whether it's accents, but, you know, I work with great people on Death of England when I did that film with.

On accent coaching and stuff.

And it's the same thing.

They work with you based on the time they've got.

Yeah.

And it's like, if we've got time to get into this slow and give you a more solid grounding and foundation stone.

We will.

If we've got 20 minutes, I'll get you there in 20 minutes, I'll get you something workable.

Yeah.

You know.

And that was exactly what this.

This.

I wish I remember his name.

That's shameful.

I can't.

But he was absolutely fantastic.

And he just give us a couple of little things that he's marked from memoirs that we could do.

Like, we had one little bit where it was Steve Tompkinson's character interrupted us and we were like, let's do it.

Like we're doing an old routine.

If we've got a little dance thing we can do.

And he just put that in there.

And it's those details that sell it for an audit as like.

Yeah, it's the thing that's going on in the background before the scene goes on that, you buy the chemistry, you know, you buy the history.

Getting the history in there in those moments.

Neil wrote it, didn't he?

Yeah, that's the one you did.

So behind the scenes at Band Aid.

No, this one was a stat.

This was a standard.

No, it was a standard.

It was about the writer, Eddie Braban.

It was called.

Yeah, Eric, Ernie and Me.

And it was about when they sort of agreed that he'd be their only writer and that they'd sort of work in the way that we remember.

Malcolm, was that the.

The piece you worked on where the famous line, we're all working here was born?

No, no, that was.

That was on the gold.

Was that.

That was on the go.

I can't tell that.

So imagine if that geezer is five times.

It was precise.

That told us.

Yeah, no, yeah, right, I'm sure.

No, because you do tell a story.

And I really wanted to hear Masco's version.

My version.

Well, yeah, well, what I heard was.

Let's see if people have heard it right.

Yes.

No, no, I think.

I think it's good enough.

Okay.

Well, what I heard was that I was.

It was the.

Tom Cullen was the actor who apparently is very funny, in good company.

I don't know him at all myself, but he said to Neil that they were working on a scene where him and Hugh Bonneville were in jail.

And it was the dramatic climax.

It was like the sixth episode, and they had a nose to nose, three pager, which is a long scene in television terms, shouting at each other.

And at the top of this, the.

The scene, they had a SA who was dressed as a prison officer who had to walk past the scene.

And what normally that would mean is in an edit, if someone walks past at the beginnings, because it wipes into the scene you cut.

It's called a cut point.

So you cut into the scene.

This is probably what it was for.

Right.

And they're shooting the master.

It's a long scene, so they're going to do it a few times.

And he said they shot it a couple of times.

And on the third take as the supporting eyes.

Now, I should say at this point, normally, quite wrongly, in a lot of cases, sporting artists are sort of segregated from actors and, you know, everyone's kept very apart, I suppose.

So.

I mean, mainly so actors can concentrate because often conversations can be a bit distracting and inappropriate and at wrong moments and stuff.

Any talking of which.

So the guy's walking past.

Back to.

To his starting position and he just lent in and said to Tom Cullen And Hugh Vaudeville.

Well, I thought that was a bit.

Bit better.

Tom Callum said, shoe was like.

So then he says, they do it a fourth time.

As he walks back, he leans in, he goes, well, I'm glad they didn't use one of the earlier ones.

So they're both.

So he says, like, maybe Hugh Bonneville's about to say someone, look, you know.

Yeah, give us a break here.

So on the fifth go, as they shout cut, Tom Cullen immediately says to the bloke, sorry, was my timing all right there for you, for you.

And the fellow said, oh, yeah, that was fine, mate, absolutely great.

You know, he's in tube Bonneville, sort of laugh.

He goes, but now the fellas in.

Oh, no.

So between every take he's having a chat and it's now, you know, his life story.

And he said, and very quickly, you and Tom, neither of whom I know I'm telling this story for, are sort of pinned up against the wall while this, who's got quite serious verbal diarrhea, goes on and on and on about, you know, I don't know what it was like for you during COVID It was very quiet for me during a long period, one of those, oh, you know, these ups and downs down to money.

And then.

And he said, oh, you know, this was difficult.

And then, of course, this year it has picked up a little bit and they're like.

He said in the end, the directors, I think, to go at this fellow.

Sorry, can I just.

Sorry, one.

Yeah, if you could just pick it up.

They said he's, like worried to interrupt this case and just give them notes because this goes on for about two hours.

There's.

Anyway, after, you know, a long period of time, they're in between takes again and the bloke's chatting away and they're sort of exhausted by him.

And he said, yeah, it's nice, isn't it, that we can chat like this between takes?

Don't always get that.

He said, oh, do you not, mate?

No.

He said, no, no, some actors, yeah, if you're playing one of the smaller parts, they won't.

Won't talk to you.

He said, oh, that's a shame.

He went, yeah, I mean, I.

I was just working with Joaquin Phoenix and he is very difficult to work with.

And Tom Cullen says, really?

He went, oh, yeah, he saw me.

We're talking like we are now between takes and stuff, you know, after an hour and he looked me dead in the eye and he said, will you shut the up top to you?

He said to me, I'm working.

We're all working, mate.

Neil said after that, every time he text anyone, how's it going on the shoot?

I really wanted to know.

He got the text back and said, we're all working, mate.

Will you shut the up?

That's what made me feel a bit.

Sorry when it came, because Gordon is making a better career for himself in voiceovers.

But you got paid for the greatest voiceover of all time.

Oh, well, I just said, Gary, he loves that.

He's had a pan.

So this was when the original voicemail would come out, that's how long ago.

So when you'd leave a voicemail, it'd go like, after the beat, please leave a message for Gary Junior.

And that was it.

I walked in.

Whatever was, I didn't know.

It was just that I walked in expecting to do a full voiceover and they went, oh, it's just that, like, one word on the page, Gary, is this a misprint?

He went, I went in and I went.

I sat in the studio.

Okay, Neil.

And I went, Gary.

And he said, can you say it a bit happier?

I was like, gary.

He said, not so much, Gary.

And again, Gary.

They went, all right, see you later.

Give me two grand.

500 quid a Gary, you know.

But I've had a lot of lean years.

I've got to ask you about this, Neil, because I try to put the timeline together of Martin Conston's life.

Yeah.

Were you involved?

Were you there when he walked in with a trilby on in London?

No, I weren't.

I don't think.

No, I remember.

I regret that.

I regret that period, to be honest.

I like your experimental use.

Yeah.

America said that.

Libertines, Purple Velvet Jacket.

Is that when you were living with Carl?

Yeah, it was one.

I was living with Kyle and thinking I was in a band because we.

Always asked that question, when was the first time you set eyes on him?

But the Peggy one as well was quick.

Well, I know the first time I set eyes on Martin Compston was in Sweet Sixteen and I went to see it at the Greenwich, the O2 thing there at the cinema.

And I.

I saw it, I think, with my sister.

And I'll never forget the opening that it comes up with, like a thing about the subtitles.

What's your characters called in there?

Liam.

Liam.

It said something like, due to the strength of the green accent, the first 12 minutes of this film will be subtitled.

After that, you and Liam are on your own.

That's class, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I'LL come out of that film.

And went to my car, we sat down, I shut the door, I put my seatbelt on and burst into tears.

And I thought it was a fucking special performance, man, and a special film.

And then I was really happy when Ghost had come up.

That must have been longer after that than I.

I thought it.

How much longer was that?

Three, four years.

Oh, was it?

Yeah.

How old was you when we did Ghosted?

I think I was 21.

Oh, okay.

So you were a bit.

Bit younger man, I thought.

But yeah, so I was chuffed to be working with him because of that.

That film and stuff.

And I'd read an interview, I think you'd done out of can in.

In the Guardian.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, and then that was actually.

Ghosted was a tough film when it.

Prison films are horrible.

I've done a few of them.

It's all men.

Yeah.

So it's kind of, you know.

But you.

You were great.

Like, you really didn't under your wing.

But I mean, you shown me about Bermondsey pubs was.

Was always great.

Crack man.

Yeah.

That's where we lived at the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My dad's from around there.

Because your dad.

Your dad's a spark, isn't he?

Yeah.

Have you worked with your dad?

Yeah, a few times.

My dad was a.

The gaffer on Kill List and then he did the second series of Utopia and then he gaffered the film.

I wrote and directed the Clock and Leather.

That must have been quite an intimidating time for people to see the geezer from the football factory wandering at a pub in Bernards.

He's with Big Tom Davis.

Yeah.

Bastard from Street 60.

Yeah.

And if I get stopped in the street, it's always for Football Factory.

To this day, I will say it on my gravestone.

The bloke out of Football Factory.

They don't even say the character name, let alone my name.

Excuse me.

Yeah, you.

The Bl.

You go, you're.

Because you are such a affable geezer that.

But you play.

You can play mental like Kill List.

Utopia, man.

That poster was iconic.

Was that.

Was it yellow jacket?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that.

I mean that was all the styling was.

A lot of that was Mark Mundon and yeah.

The costume designer, Maryam.

Very, very good.

Yeah.

I mean, all that, Matt, that's a.

It's a funny one, isn't it?

That murderous man child casting that I've got.

So, you know, he's gonna.

He.

He's dangerous, but he's vulnerable.

Yeah.

Is that a part you really want to play.

I always think an actor.

I'd like to do a.

I'd like to play a part that's romantic.

Yeah.

You know, I'd like to do something.

You know, Eddie Mars and who's one of my favorite actors, said.

He said.

Oh, of course.

He said, I've never had consensual sex on screen.

You know, I've had a similar sort of situation where normally if I've got a scene with a woman, I'm intimidating them or bashing them up.

Yeah.

And I feel a little bit sad that that's.

Because that feels like that's rooted in the accent.

Yeah.

I was doing a job actually, where I.

I was.

There was domestic violence.

And I thought, oh, this is the last time I'm gonna do this because this is misrepresentation of my.

Yeah.

My folk.

Yeah.

What was that?

Because you told me a great thing when you did.

Was it a King Arthur thing when you tapped in?

Was it your.

Your gran, what was it she saw during the Blitz?

What was that?

My name said when.

When she was a kid?

It was.

We were watching the telly at her house when the Queen Mother died.

Say, something's gonna alienate those people now.

And.

And it come on the telly.

Martin's a Celtic fan.

Sorry.

And it come on on the telly that she'd already died.

It was a few days before.

Yeah.

But something come on the telly about it.

And my name went.

Who was from Burmese when.

Good riddance.

And I said, you what?

And she went, when I was a kid, she said, my mum used to not like to go down the air raid shelter when.

When the bombs were coming down during the Blitz.

So we used to get under the kitchen table door.

She said, it was me, Ruth, who I loved.

My great aunt, who's also gone there, said, me, Ruth, my brother and my mum would get under the kitchen table, she said.

And one day there was a direct hit on the house next door.

And it just flattened both our houses and we were under this kitchen table.

And she said, me and Ruth got dragged out, she said, and we were black from head to foot, so we could see was our eyes.

And they dragged us over the road and put us on the curb, she said.

And we were watching these fellas digging my mum and my brother out, trying to dig them out.

We didn't know if they was alive or dead.

Those both alive.

Nice ending, the story.

And she said, we didn't know if they was alive or did she?

I remember just sitting there, I was Seven.

And she was free, I think, she said.

And we were just sat there watching them dig and dig and dig.

She said.

And someone shouted, stop digging, The King and Queen are here.

She said, good on them.

They didn't stop digging.

These fellas should.

They kept going.

She went.

But I looked down the road and there was the King and Queen of England, who was like the Queen, you know, becoming the Queen Mother, she said, visiting the slums, you know, during the Blitz.

She went, and he was on horseback, she said, and they brought them down the street, you know, she said, and they stopped right by us and they looked down at me and Ruth and she said, when was the last time these children had a bath?

Oh, she said, And I have hated her that day.

What an amazing story.

You said you used that, didn't you?

Well, I did, yeah.

No, man, I wouldn't have remembered that, Martin.

That's amazing.

You've held on to that.

I've.

Yeah, I was doing that.

I had a little bit, I think in the King Arthur film, I had to talk about I'm about to die or something and, you know, I'm a common man and.

And you're a king and I'd rather be me than you.

God almighty.

That's thinking.

I mean, then, now, that is.

Yeah.

And I sort of just thought about that really, a little bit and try to feed it into it a little bit, you know.

What an incredible.

Incredible, isn't it?

Yeah, amazing.

She was full of them.

I mean, my.

And my.

My auntie.

I remember me auntie routine is captivating me.

One day talking about in the factory she works, someone brought in chocolate.

She said, with things in.

She said we'd only ever had chocolate as a bar.

She goes, and these had fillings.

Yes.

And they were different color wrappers.

Shouldn't they opened them and we all gathered round and we looked at the wrappers and I said, can I have the pink one?

She said, yeah, but you can only have one.

Said, I didn't want to take a pink one in case it weren't a good one.

Just amazing you had a chance to have those stories.

Talked about that too much in the book podcast, but do you know, I wish you had more time now.

Yeah, I do.

I was lucky, though.

I've always been one for stories.

And it's funny, Neil Forsythe always says he holds on to stories for me because.

And I was.

I was lucky in that when I was young, I saw the value of it young.

And I did harvest those stories from.

Yeah.

Me dad and see There's a stage.

And my granddad was based in Woolwich and Chingford when he was in the army.

And I would love to know more about that.

So he was a great.

He was a really good footballer.

David Weir.

Smart was his name.

Right, so David Weir who played for Everton.

Yeah, I was gonna say my granddad's brother's grandson, if that makes sense.

Right, yeah.

So we're related.

He's David Weir.

He's David Weir smart.

And he played for Scotland against England at White Hart Lane.

For the armed forces in front of 80,000 people.

Yeah, because I used to get him.

He's just like.

Yeah, yeah.

You saw it.

But was you.

Was he young?

You were young when he passed?

Oh, no, I would have been.

How old would I been?

I'd been in my 20s when my granddad passed.

But I got all of his notes and all of his letters, everything from the Second World War and just that, like, I'd love to know about his life in London.

I was, like, kicking about then, you know?

I mean, again, those stories I kept.

After my Auntie Ruth died, I.

I went around her house and she'd written.

She was taken to hospital and she'd written a load of notes.

Oh, wow.

And she wrote.

And it was obviously just memories.

And she said.

So this.

When the school got bombed, I was sitting under the kitchen table.

There you go.

Know, when three bombs dropped, this school got hit.

They came back again.

They always did.

They always did that.

So no one move until they all gone.

I remember my mum saying, although the bastards are bombing us, they are still.

Some mother's sons thing to see as well.

Listen to this.

This is gonna.

I can never get through this.

My mum used to say her prayers every night.

And when the weather was bad, she used to say, pity the poor sailors on the sea.

Yeah.

That'S moving.

Yeah, man.

Yes.

Yeah.

When the weather was bad from Bermondsey, landlocked in the middle of London.

Yeah.

You just got them.

After she died, I just went round and there was this pile of paper.

It's about not.

I mean, I won't read them all, but it was like nine pages of just all mad little memories, you know?

That's the thing we're losing, isn't it?

Like, we had this conversation on the radio the night about handwriting disappearing.

People don't do it anymore.

Anymore.

It's a connection, though, isn't it?

Seeing that.

That.

That's like the last living memory.

Yeah.

The time that's taken, the thought that's gone into it.

But there's an amazing thing, and it's kind of dark, but it is also incredible about the thing that you die twice, you know, when you go.

And then the last time anyone says your name.

Oh, yeah, that's good.

Wow, that's good.

They're funny, those wee moments, aren't they, those connections.

You weren't expecting that when you got me on.

You're also responsible.

One of my.

One of my favorite, like, shite addition story.

Because we'll not say what it was, but it was just.

There was a film and I think.

I can't remember the.

The exact synopsis, but it was like having a fever dream.

And you sat in the chair.

The cast director went, yeah.

So if you just have this dream in front of us, you're like having a nightmare.

And then I just come out the nightmare and wake up.

You just went, no, no, no.

I was pretty much.

From very young, I was like.

I'd go into it and going, that I've handed so many over in the waiting room, particularly car commercial cars.

I bought in.

They give me the scripts and I just give it back to them.

Sorry.

Well, just.

I couldn't.

You must have won y dads.

No, Yeah.

I just thought, though, you have short audition stories.

You had Danny Ryan on here.

Daniel Ryan?

No, no, Daniel Ryan is a great actor.

I've worked with him a couple of times.

He's brilliant.

Nice man.

Anyway, he said years ago, he's a straight actor, but he did a musical when he was quite young.

They needed an actor rather than a singer sort of thing.

So he went in and did it.

And off the back of that he got another musical.

And off the back of that he got another musical.

He was like.

So I found the agent went, look, this sort of isn't what I trained for.

And they said, we agree.

After this musical, you know, you finish.

And he said, I was never a singer.

He goes up.

He said, I can barrel a song out.

Like, he's a big.

And he said, if I start, like.

He goes, I'll give you it at, like, full blast.

And I can get away with it.

He goes, there are good days and bad days, you know, but on a good day, I can get.

Because anyway, they called him up.

He's still a young actor.

They said, oh, we've got a casting for you for Evita.

He said, no, no, I'm not.

They went, no, it's Alan Parker.

He's directing a movie with Madonna.

And, like, Antonio Banderas is in it.

And, you know, all these people.

Jimmy Neal.

Oh, okay.

Jimmy.

Now, of course, that was the name that got him in.

And.

And he says, all right, okay, I'll go down.

He says, and I woke up on the day.

He goes, And I can feel in me throat, it's a bad singing day, he said, he goes, and I walk down there, he goes, and I'll go in, it goes, there's about eight people in the room.

And it's a really small room, goes, Nan.

And Parker, he's about 8 foot away from me.

If that goes in there, like, okay, when you're ready.

Goes to like.

He goes, he said.

And the pianist give me a note.

He goes.

And I went, wallet, that's enough far singing, he said, Nan Parker went.

Literally flinched, turned away and picked up a bit of paper.

Not being horrible, he said, just because he just started deafening him, an old man, he said, anyway, that's amazing.

It's about six years later, seven years later, he said, I'm at the Royal Court, I've done a play.

Yeah.

He goes off because he was in a lovely play that I saw, Fallout, him and Lenny James did together.

Brilliant.

Roy Williams, great writer, play.

And he said, I'm on stage, I think in there.

He goes, I come off stage one night, I'm at the bar, he said, I feel a tug on me.

I'm gonna turn around as Alan Parker.

He said, I thought you're terrific in the show.

He said.

I was like, oh.

He said, I thought, should I say anything?

Because I went, oh, we have actually met before.

He said, I auditioned very badly and very unsuccessfully and sang terribly.

He said, for your film of E, you know.

And Alan Parker went, my loss.

Yeah, yeah, I like that story.

I thought that was great.

Yeah.

What's your worst one?

Oh, I've got hundreds.

I mean, I've had one.

Yeah.

Or levels of humiliation, you know, I had a really bad one once for Polaroid, selling Polaroid cameras.

And I noticed, I went in the casting, I noticed it was all blokes who.

Who look like me.

Let's be generous and say average looking men.

And.

And a load of girls who were like absolutely, you know, knockout stunners.

And.

And we were.

They were sending them in together, you know, And I was like, okay, I know what the gag's gonna be here somewhere along.

Yeah.

Anyway, they sent me in with this lovely, beautiful girl and.

And the girls that they've got were all models and the blokes were sort of actors.

Yeah.

And I went in and like, they would do very regularly then the geese was like, okay.

If you just take your shirt off.

I was like.

And I was carrying a lot of weight at the time.

It's been a kind of issue through my life.

And I said a little bit.

And, you know, and anyone who.

Who does knows that can be difficult on one's spirit.

And I was quite.

I was like, okay.

So I took my shirt.

I took my shirt off like that.

Yeah.

And he went, okay, just relax.

And I was like, okay.

He went, no, no, fully.

Okay.

You know, melted like a candle over my jeans.

And.

And he went.

He said.

He went to the girl, right?

You've got paddle camera.

You're, like, flexing in front of the mirror like you're Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Okay.

All right.

He goes to.

You come in, you take a ch.

You catch him.

Him.

You take a cheeky Polaroid.

Starving.

And he says, you're.

You're like his girlfriend.

And when he says you're like his girlfriend, she does this javelin.

It was going through me podcast.

That was a painful look.

So that couldn't possibly happen.

Look.

And then I had to do.

I had to start flexing.

Oh, no.

It.

Did you get the part?

No, I didn't.

I don't know who got a part, but I mean, did you get our number?

That's one of many.

Neil Ma's been an absolute.

Thank you so much.

Thanks a lot.

Ch.

Hello@restlessnet podcast.com.

get in touch, please, with all your carry on for the bonus ball, Martin, all that remains for us to say is.

Kenny.

What one are we on?

Yeah, Kenny.

Ho.

Kenny.

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