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Stainforthonline Interview

Adge Covell – Clive Russell (Gordon – Faith)

Adge: I’m talking with Clive Russell who plays Gordon in Faith. Clive, would you mind telling me your date of birth please?

Clive: 7th of December, 1945

Adge: You were born in Fife?

Clive: No I wasn’t born in Fife, but I was brought up in Fife. I was actually born in Hampshire, in the south of England, because that’s where my dad was still stationed in the RAF.

Adge: So you’re an Englishman?

Clive: Well, technically I’m English, yes.

Adge: You said your father was serving in the RAF…

Clive: He was in the RAF, and he was demobbed I think about three months after I was born, so I was born near my Granny and Grandpa’s, in Winchester in Hampshire, and then we went to live in Scotland. So from the age of three months I was brought up in Scotland.

Adge: I understand you were a teacher?

Clive: I qualified as a teacher, yes.

Adge: Was that when you first became interested in acting?

Clive: I actually became interested in acting at school. I was in the Boy’s Brigade as a boy, and they did a thing called a miners’ gala. I had to do a speech, which was a take-off of Winston Churchill; and the thing I remember about it was…, the cock of the school…., the toughest guy…., John McArthur…, I remember him standing by the stage and absolutely shaking with fright, because he was about to go on and do a scene…, a little sketch. I couldn’t wait to get on, and it was then that I realised that that was maybe something that I really liked doing.

Adge: I’ve heard that it’s difficult for most people to take that first step.

Clive: Yes, yes, that’s right.

Adge: You’ve been actor for quite a while haven’t you?

Clive: I’m very, very, very old.

Adge: According to the Internet Movie Database you did something in 1960?

Clive: 1960?

Adge: Yeah

Clive: What was that?

Adge: According to their records, you, err…, (laughs), you worked with Lamb Chop and Cheri Lewis. It says you did a guest appearance on the Cheri Lewis Show.

Clive: No. That wasn’t me. I have to say there was another Clive Russell, but I think he died or left the business, and now I’m the only Clive Russell.

Adge: That’s good. I thought it was a bit odd. (Laughs). I know you worked with David Thacker before, on “The Mayor of Casterbridge”

Clive: Well I worked with David before that. I first worked with him in theatre in Lancaster, on “Hamlet” and “Streetcar Named Desire”, and “Waiting for God”. Then I worked with him when he was at the Young Vic, and I also worked with him on…, Channel 4 did “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. So I’ve known him for a long time.

Adge: That wasn’t the movie was it?

Clive: No, no. That was a series on Channel 4, not the film.

Adge: Do you prefer to do mainly classical acting?

Clive: I do anything I can get to be honest (Laughs). You offer me a part and I’ll do it! I’ve worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company and done stuff like that, but I do comedy and film.

Adge: You worked with Judy Dench in Ladies in Lavender, which has just come out and which is your latest work isn’t it?

Clive: That’s the latest one to come out, yeah. In that I had to learn to mime the violin, so that was err…

Adge: How did you do that?

Clive: Well, it’s very hard. They had a guy there who was a proper violinist and he taught me to do it. I wasn’t meant to be good violin player. I don’t know how kids manage to learn to play the violin, because although you get the fingering and bowing right, it still makes the worst fucking row you’ve ever heard in your life, and you think you’re playing it properly. What they do is, they put some oil on it, so it just makes a hissing sound. So, as I played the tune on camera, he would be beside the camera playing the tune on his violin.

Adge: Oh, really?…

Clive: So he just kept up with me.

Adge: What would you say is your best work?

Clive: I have to say that I’ve been very lucky and that most of the time I enjoy what I do. The thing I most enjoyed doing was playing Joe Gargery in Great Expectations.

Adge: I think Joe was one of my favourite Dickens Characters…

Clive: Yeah, it was great playing him.

Adge: So you enjoyed that kind of part?

Clive: Very much so. What’s interesting when you actually read the book is that, with a lot of his working class characters, he’s actually almost taking the piss out of them. He’s not really taken seriously, so we thought it was quite important to give the guy a proper life.

Adge: In the book he was sort of a steadfast loyal friend to Pip, the whole way through, no matter how Pip treated him.

Clive: Yeah that’s right. He got a lot of humour in the book out of him being.., for want of a better word – simple, which I don’t think he was at all. So it was important that we made him uneducated, rather than stupid.

Adge: When the book opens, it starts off where he and Pip are sharing a crust of bread by the fireplace, and one gets the impression of two kids misbehaving…

Clive: Yeah, it’s a lovely part. Astonishing! (Laughs).

Adge: Who would you say has influenced you as an actor?

Clive: All kinds of influences I think. I suppose like everybody else, you’re brought up with American movies, so it’s American guys that you are influenced by. Henry Fonda, Harry Dean Stanton, people like that. I mean, I don’t think it directly affects how I do what I do, it’s just they are people I admire. Armand, a German actor who I worked with in Africa, and he’s just astonishing, he’s a fantastic actor.

*(We broke here, as Clive was required on set, though we chatted a little bit after he was finished. The rest of the interview was concluded the next day)

Adge: I’d like to ask you about Gordon, the character you play in Faith

Clive: Gordon is the Strike Committee Delegate for the pit. He’s the oldest character in the piece, and he’s a very experienced trade unionist. He’s a strong leader. His job is to liaise with the women, with area, with what’s been going on, organise pickets, organise benefits; whatever. Anything that’s going on will go through him and the people around him; Charlie and co and his gang.

Adge: You’ve had connections with the trade union movement before. Could you tell me about that please?

Clive: I was an active member of Equity, for quite a long time. I think my connections to this material go back to.., what in my view is that the miners’ strike was the biggest political event in lifetime. Although I wasn’t up in this area, or any of the pit areas, we were very involved down in London with raising money and there were a lot of miners who came down and stayed at peoples’ houses, and stuff like that. I do remember the big march in London, which we were talking about yesterday*.
One of my most vivid memories is of the Grunwick dispute, and I think it was 1978, with the owners trying to stop the women is the factory being unionised, and there was a huge picket. Thing I remember seeing is…, there was the usual cacophony of flags and groups and whatever, and there was a big gap in the march, and the coming along was Arthur Scargill and what must have been the Yorkshire area. They were stood together, very tightly. There must have been four hundred men…., and it was very, very, clear then, that you were looking at the elite of the trade union movement, or what must have been the vanguard of it, and it was the miners, were talking about 77/78, so it’s three or four years after two successful strikes. So when that strike took place, you knew what it was about, you knew why it was happening, from the government’s point of view and what was in it for them…, and why what happened, happened. It had a profound effect on nearly everybody I knew, politically. It was that sharp.

Adge: Would you say that the strike was caused through a direct attack on the miners and…

Clive: No, it was a direct attack on trade unionism, through the miners. It was consciously and cleverly organised at every level.

Adge: Have you any mining connections through your own family?

Clive: No, not all. My dad was a shopkeeper, and my folks were Tories, but I lived in a mining area in Fife, where there used to be twenty to twenty five pits. A lot of the kids at my school were sons and daughters of mineworkers. The golf club I was a member of, in Scotland, which is a different game up there…, all the best golfers were miners that came off the back shift and they were there playing golf and all that. So I knew miners, the people in our street, the guys with the…, the coal under their skins, the pale faces, and all that. So I was very, aware of that. Looking out from here you can see the pit head, and that’s very much part of my upbringing. It was a real…, it was a mining area. There’s not one left now…., not one.

Adge: Have you any plans about what you’re doing after Faith?

Clive: The only thing I know I’m doing is I’m going with a production of a play called The Permanent Way, which was written by David Hare, and directed by a guy called Max Stafford-Clarke, who has his own company called Out of Joint. Basically it means “Out of Joint Stock”, which was a very famous theatre company. It’s a joint production, between Out of Joint and the National Theatre, which as about…, this sounds like a very dry subject, but it’s about the privatisation of the railways and the effect that had on the railways, particularly on safety. The actors are all playing about six different parts. There’ll be people playing Tory Prime Ministers, financiers, engineers, railwaymen, and bereaved relatives, as well as the people who got injured through crashes. The whole thing is a dissection of the folly of privatisation. (See Links)

Adge: Any other plans?

Clive: No. When you’re an actor you never have plans! (Laughs) You’re always waiting for the next job. I mean, this is unusual. Normally, at this time of year, I’d be finishing this job, and then I might expect to work in February, but I wouldn’t know about it ‘til January. So it’s unusual because it’s a theatre project and we’re going to Australia with it. It was organised a long time in advance.

Adge: Well, that’s all the questions I have, so thank you Clive. Thank you for talking to me.

Clive: OK, cheers.

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