Reed was more than just a hell-raiser

Bob Crouch in the title role of Oliver Reed – Wild Thing, a one-man show currently on tour around Ireland.

While ‘hell-raiser’ is the word that immediately comes to mind when discussing the late Oliver Reed, there was more to this larger-than-life actor than drunkenness and outrageous behaviour. So says Rob Crouch, co-writer and performer of a one man show, Oliver Reed – Wild Thing, touring Ireland until May 25.

Crouch, who wrote the show with Mike Davis, says it has a really obvious shape. “Oliver was making Gladiator and died before the end of filming. So at the end of his career, he was making this fantastic film. We are telling his story from the point of view of Oliver’s final session in a bar in Malta, where he looks back.”

While Reed was a colourful character, Crouch says it was also a tragedy that he left the world in his prime, at the age of 61.

“And he was a conflicted individual. There were things in his life that didn’t go so well. Oliver had a very difficult upbringing. He was expelled from different schools and had a very complicated relationship with his parents. This gives him more depth than the common perception of Oliver as always wanting a good time.”

Despite memorable roles in Women in Love, Oliver! and Gladiator, Reed is probably best remembered for his drunken carry-on on chat shows, not least The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne.

“He wasn’t selling a product and wasn’t briefed to death by PR people. His attitude was that he was going on telly and was going to make something exciting happen.”

Reed’s son Mark, who is involved in promoting the stage show, says his father advised him to keep away from acting, given the ubiquity of ‘resting’ actors. Mark works in marketing and teaches scuba diving.

Aged nine when his parents split up, Mark had an unconventional upbringing with Reed around. “I remember my father being a very imaginative man who painted the world in an interesting way. When I was five, he’d wake me up and we’d listen to the dawn chorus. He’d tell me about the conversations the birds were having.”

Reed bought a house in Churchtown, Co Cork, and is buried in the area. Mark visits the grave on his father’s anniversary. Asked if he inherited any of Reed’s traits, Mark says that he is “partial to a drop or two. But nothing outlandish”.

* Oliver Reed — Wild Thing is at the Everyman Palace in Cork on May 3-4