Gavin and Stacey star Larry Lamb admits 'we knew it was a hit from Day One'

Daily Mirror

6 hours ago

The 'nation's favourite dad' as Mick Shipman, Larry Lamb says his role in the series has made him a 'better person' but there is no chance of a date with Pam in real life
Larry Lamb laughs out loud when asked if he could have a real life romance with his 'TV wife' Alison Steadman. In ' Gavin and Stacey ', his character Mick Shipman, the 'nation's favourite dad', is married to Pam, played by Steadman.
Their relationship was loved by millions of fans; the Gavin and Stacey finale was seen by almost 20m last Christmas, making it one of the most watched scripted TV shows of the century. But Larry assures fans on his nationwide book tour that their love affair comes from the 'wonderful' script.
‌
Asked if they could get together if they were both single, he says: "Hang on a minute, I have to be careful, we have the Daily Mirror in the room." The veteran actor, star of TV and Hollywood films, tells a sell-out crowd that he would never name his favourite leading lady. And he jokes that there is not a 'cat in hell's chance' of a dalliance with Steadman.
‌
"The reason it works is because it's written that way," he explained."It's a brilliant creative relationship on screen. "We live ten minutes away from each other, but we never see each other. If it's her birthday, I may send a flower. You know what I mean? It is a really wonderful relationship playing those two characters. But Alison is nothing like Pam in real life. She's a very, very private person, not at all like that character. And I'm not nice."
Larry, 77, has just written his first novel, 'All Wrapped Up', based on his own experiences on a movie set, and he talks about that and his colourful life off screen at Newcastle's Tyneside cinema.
He loves the region and had a role in the 1996 BBC series 'Our Friends in the North'. His 50-year career includes three Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, the first filmed in 1977, villain Archie Mitchell in EastEnders (2008/9) and ' I'm a Celebrity ' nine years ago. There were also TV series like Triangle, Minder, and Lovejoy.
He revealed that the entire cast of 'Gavin and Stacey' knew they were onto a winner from their first day together, at a first read through of the script back in 2006. He recalled: "Everybody knew when we read it for the first time; it is the day when you will gather in some room somewhere, usually in Soho, that's when you kind of get a feeling of how it's going to work.
‌
"You meet the people in person and you get a feel for the first production of it. Clearly was something that really, really worked and we all got that. Everyone knew it." The show missed out on the BAFTA 'Memorable Moment' award this year
Larry 'wrote a little speech' on behalf of the cast and crew. "The last line was that in writing Gavin and Stacey, Ruth Jones and James Corden had created a family that everyone could be a part of forever," he said. "For that I thanked them from the bottom of my heart. That's really the way I felt, and I know the way we all felt. It was this super special thing, and they finished it in a way that satisfied everybody."
For his novel, Larry drew on his experiences filming in the Dominican Republic, in the 1985 mini-series 'The Life of Christopher Columbus' with Faye Dunaway and hellraiser Oliver Reed. "The one thing I learned about filming in the Caribbean is forget it, don't go anywhere near it," he said. "It is absolutely diabolical. I was playing a Spanish conquistador. I've got a great big bronze helmet on. I've got a big breastplate, I've got a kilt on, great big tights, it's insane. On a hot horse all day long; I would say, no don't do it."
‌
But he loved the camaraderie of the set, a feeling of belonging which he did not have in his troubled childhood in Edmonton, London. The British actor Jeremy Brett helped Larry land his big break on Broadway. Brett was offered a role with a Northern Irish accent.
Larry, a complete novice, had just given up a highly paid job in Canada to get into acting. But he had lived in Ireland and is a gifted mimic. "So I went to New York, I did an audition and finished up in a big Broadway show, 20 months after I had become an actor," he said. "Fluke, fluke, fluke, Broadway. It went quite well, but it was so nerve wracking." He returned to the UK in 1977 to film the first of the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. He recalls the set at Shepperton Studios with hidden script devices for Brando. "They had big idiot boards up on the walls for his lines," he said. "I walked onto the set and they were left up on the wall, you know, and I still can't believe it. I was a new boy on the block. I didn't have anything to say. You just move at the right time, distanced from the main roles. I would leave to get the bus and there was a long line of chauffeur driven cars ready to take all the stars home. "One night, there was Gene Hackman walking towards me. I introduced myself to him, he was nice. It was a huge production. There was one guy whose only task seemed to be trimming the director's cigars. I thought: 'that's the job I'd like."
‌
He loved playing the bad guy in EastEnders. "Villains are much easier," he told the Mirror as he signed copies of his book for fans. "With comedy, everything has to be spot on." Off screen, he has had a complicated love life. At 21, he was already married and living in London; after the split, there came a marriage to an American nurse; when that marriage broke up, he was involved with a former nun.
He then fell in love and married the mother of his son, George Lamb; there were dalliances with Lady Colin Campbell, and an Iberia airline stewardess. At the end of 'I'm a Celebrity' in 2016, he was seen with former partner Marie Hugo, the artist and great granddaughter of the Les Miserables author Victor Hugo.
They also parted and he spoke of living alone this year. Now, he wants to tell how playing Mick Shipman changed his outlook on life, a follow up to his 2011 memoir 'Mummy's Boy'.
‌
"The point where Gavin and Stacey came into my life, that's what I think I'm going to be writing about next," he said. "Touching on this extraordinary career, but just about me and Mick. I feel there's something else in me that touches on the relationship between me and Mick. I'm a much better person for having played him. A lot of Mick has come though in me. "I am writing poems about the end of life; you get into your 70s, there is a door, it says 'Way Out'. And it fascinates me. It is easier to deal with if I am writing about it and thinking about it and not making light of it, just confronting it. Because we don't confront it here. "I've had a house in Normandy for years and am very involved with local people there. Every year, there is Saint's Day. And so the tradition is everybody goes to the graveyard. There was an old lady there, she was 97, 98 and she said: 'I really didn't want to be buried next to him. I hated him.' She was moving her grave. They are much more realistic about death over there.
"And my way of looking about it is to write about it." At the end of the night, he tells me that has no regrets. "That is what I have loved about looking back and reflecting on life," he said. "Your realise there is no point in having regrets."
* All Wrapped Up, by Softwood Books, is available now, RRP £9.99. To purchase the book, or tickets to Larry's other tour dates, go to www.linktr.ee/ larrylambofficial.