Ricky Tomlinson: 'Liverpool, as you know, is the second capital of Ireland'
Ricky Tomlinson plays himself in Irish Annies
Ricky Tomlinson had no idea the Royle Family would become a crowning achievement of his life and career. When the actor and musician was cast in Caroline Aherne’s late 1990s sitcom about a lovably slobbish Manchester family, he regarded it as just another gig. He was both delighted and astonished to see it embraced as Britain’s most beloved sitcom.
“To me, it was just a job. We used to have so much fun doing it,” says the 84-year-old, recalling his time on screen alongside co-stars such as Aherne, the show’s creator, and Ralf Little, who has gone on to lead cosy crime blockbuster Death in Paradise. “I used to look forward to going to work.”
The appeal of the Royle Family was rooted in the wonderfully wry writing of Caroline Aherne, who would pass away at the tragically young age of 52. But it wouldn’t have worked without the dead-pan Tomlinson as head of the house Jim Royle.
Much like the Royle Family itself, Tomlinson’s performance walked the line between sincere and hilarious. He is now bringing that unique charm on the road with musical revue Irish Annie’s, which visits the Everyman Theatre, Cork on April 8 and 9.
The show, written by and co-starring Liverpool-born singer Asa Murphy, is billed as “a celebration of Irish culture, from music to comedy”.
There is music, dancing and stand-up. There is also be audience participation: attendees will be handed lyric sheets upon entry and invented to sing along. Master of ceremonies through the night will be Tomlinson, who became immersed in Irish culture growing up in Liverpool, where he worked as a plasterer and as a construction worker building roads.
“It’s got great songs and audience participation. Asa Murphy is from a Liverpool-Irish family. He’s wrote some real good stuff,” says Tomlinson. “There’s a live Irish band. If you can’t go there and enjoy yourself you should feel your pulse to see if it’s still alive cos it’s great.”
He speaks passionately of his years as a plasterer – and of the many Irish people with whom he came into contact. “Liverpool, as you know, is the second capital as Ireland,” he says. “I served my time on the building sites. There were loads of Irish building. I worked on roadways and it was mainly Irish lads. Worked with loads and loads of Irish lads.”
His days as a labourer coincided with a period of unprecedented industrial upheaval in Britain. In the 1970s, Tomlinson and a colleague were convicted of picketing a labour dispute in what became known as the case of the “Shrewsbury Two”. Tomlinson was sentenced to two years in prison – his and Warren’s convictions were not overturned until 2021 (too late for Warren, who had died in 2004, his name still uncleared).
“I was a plasterer. I served my time. I went on strike in 1972. I was working on the buildings. We went to jail,” he says. He adds that he went into show business full-time because he could not make a living as a plasterer. “I only went on the clubs because I was blacklisted and couldn’t get work.”
He never forgot the hardship of life as a working man. Going on stage and singing or acting is a privilege by comparison. “It was fantastic. You didn’t have to work in the rain,” he says.
“You could have a cup of tea any time you wanted to. There was someone there to sort your dinner out. When we were working on the Wrexham Bypass there were no toilets. If it rained, you got soaked. You had to work the whole day. Or you went home and lost your wages. To me, getting into the acting game was the best thing I ever did. It was fabulous.”
Politically, there is a widespread feeling that modern Britain has regressed to darkest days of the 1970s. Tomlinson despairs of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative administration. He brings up a strike by nurses and junior doctors, saying the British health system risks being hollowed out by endless cuts.
“That’s because of the Tory government. To see doctors and nurses having to stand on the picket line to get a living wage is outrageous.
“When you consider that people who sit in the House of Lords, whether they’re there 10 minutes or 10 hours, they get 300 quid a day. Why don’t they pay the junior doctors three hundred pound a day? I’ve had a four-way bypass. I have had cataracts on both my eyes. I’m on medication the rest of my life. Thanks to the National Health Service we’ve got here – it’s the best in the world. We’ve got to protect it.”
He still held a day job on the building sites when he started playing music around Liverpool in the 1960s. One of the faces he would come across now and again was a young drummer named Ringo Starr. In fact, Tomlinson and bandmates would go so far as to lure piano player John “Duff” Lowe away from his previous ensemble, the Quarrymen. Or, as they were later known, The Beatles.
“There were so many groups. There more have been 30 or more. To be fair to the Beatles, they were a bit middle-class. John Lennon was an intellectual, he really was. Sue Johnston [Ricky’s on-screen wife in the Royle Family) went out with Paul McCartney a few times. The whole scene then was absolutely fabulous.” Tomlinson is looking forward to bringing Irish Annie’s to Cork. He’s always thrilled to cross the Irish Sea and speaks warmly of an appearance on Patrick Kielty’s Late Late Show.
“I was over there recently. I had a great time. We went over to do that Late Late Show. Patrick Kielty is the new lad. Daniel O’Donnell was on - he’s lovely In the green room I was telling stories about Foster and Allen. They were in the green room, too. They came over and said ‘hello’. I didn’t even know they were there.!”
- Irish Annie’s comes to the Everyman Cork, April 8, 9
Tomlinson was on board from the start when Liverpool soap Brookside debuted on Channel 4 in 1982. Drawing on Tomlinson’s own background, his character Bobby Grant was a hardline socialist. He fell out with the scriptwriters and left abruptly in 1988.
Tomlinson was a song-and-dance man, but writer and fellow Liverpool native Jimmy McGovern saw more in him. So he cast Tomlinson in his gritty thriller Cracker as DCI Charlie Wise, a sidekick to Robbie Coltrane’s headstrong and eccentric Robert “Fitz” Fitzgerald.
As Jim Royle, Tomlinson popularised the catchphrase “my arse!”. Slovenly and fond of long trips to the loo, the character could have been unlikeable. Tomlinson made him charming.
Jimmy McGovern’s damning dramatisation of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster saw Tomlinson play John Glover, whose son Ian died in the tragedy.
Decades before the cuddly Premier League shenanigans of Ted Lasso, this mockumentary cast Tomlinson as a befuddled manager of the England soccer team.
