‘Every slap we got from the screws was real': Ray Winstone on brutal borstal drama Scum

The Guardian

21-04-2025

On the day I got expelled from drama school, all the boys I'd been there with were going to audition for this prison drama film at the BBC. I went along too, just so I could go for a drink with them afterwards to say goodbye. While I was waiting I got talking to the receptionist. I told her what had happened and she said: 'Why don't you go in and meet the director? It can't hurt.'
So I had a chat and a laugh with Alan Clarke and he told me about the part of Carlin – he said it was written for a Scottish guy, which I'm obviously a million miles from. But I'd been boxing since I was 11 and had this walk which made an impression on him as he saw me out. I found out later the walk was the only reason I got the part.
Alan, and Roy Minton, who wrote Scum, were tough old boys but talked about films and literature and wanted to pass on what they'd learned to kids like us. The performances came mostly from Clarkey's direction – he could whisper in your ear before a scene and upset you in a second if that's the emotion he was after. We'd have gone to the ends of the earth for him.
What I brought to that role was what I'd experienced by the age of 19. For example, the scene where Carlin takes out the B-wing Daddy was supposed to last longer, but having seen someone being hit with an iron bar I knew the shocking thing about real life violence is it's over quick and it hurts. Every slap we got from one of the screws was real. It was the same with the swearing and the racist language – if that hadn't been in there, you'd have lost the reality of it.
After the BBC version of Scum was banned, I kind of retired from acting, but when I got a call saying it was going to be made again for cinemas, the deal was for two films – the producers also wanted me for That Summer!, which was going to be filmed in Torquay. I was only offered £1,800 for that, but I thought: 'Eight weeks by the sea; wine, women and song.' So I did it for a holiday, really.
A few characters had to be re-cast when we made the second Scum, which brought a freshness to it. For example, David Threlfall and Micky Ford played Archer in a totally different way, but both were blinding. As for the rest of us, Clarkey said: 'Don't do anything different, don't try and do it better, because it's already there.' He wanted to keep the performances off the cuff, because that felt more raw and real.
There were a few other changes though. In the BBC version Carlin takes on another boy as his 'missus', but I said to Alan: 'He's not a lifer, that wouldn't happen.' He thought I was uncomfortable with it – maybe I was, to be fair – and that part was cut. In hindsight, I think that was wrong.
Over the years people have shouted: 'Who's the daddy now?' or 'Where's your tool?' at me. I just give them a wave and a smile. Once a big fella started staring at me on the tube like he was going to start something. I thought: 'Here we go …' Eventually he said: 'Were you in Scum? Fucking good film.'
I heard that part of the reason the first Scum was banned is that the then head of the BBC was an ex-magistrate who had visited borstals. There are lots of shocking incidents in the film – beatings, rape and suicide – which he said wouldn't all have happened in so short a time.
Obviously misbehaviour was part and parcel of making the film. We had a special bus laid on to take us to the location, an old mental hospital. One day, the driver got off the bus but left the keys in the ignition and Raymondo stole it. We drove round picking up patients and taking them for a ride.
When Carlin hits my character, Stripey Richards, with a sock full of snooker balls, the fact the scene's done in one continuous take helps sell it. You see Ray pick up the balls from the snooker table and put them in the sock and the camera follows him right up to the point where he clocks me. There's a moment where his hands are out of shot, and someone surreptitiously swapped that sock for another full of ping pong balls covered in papier-mache. I still ended up with a mark on my face, though. When Ray put the boot in a couple of times afterwards I learned to lift my bum in the air so I got kicked in the arse rather than the balls.
A load of extra boys were brought in from a youth club to make up the numbers for the 'murderball' scene in the gym, which ends in a Black v white fight. People were jumping on each other's backs and even if it wasn't quite as violent as it looks on screen, things became boisterous in the extreme.
It was the same during the riot at the end. Alan and the cameramen stayed up on a rostrum out of the way and just let us get on with it. The tables got spontaneously piled up and because we'd been eating baked beans and mashed potato, that's what ended up all over the floor, which became like an ice rink. It looks fantastic, but it was pretty hairy – we were all slipping around and just trying to stay on our feet.
Scum is on UK and Irish digital platforms now