articles

Count Arthur Strong performed to a sell-out crowd at The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal on 17 January 2008. After the show, Colin Shelbourn caught up with the man behind the Count, actor and comedian Steve Delany.

Count Arthur is building up a strong following (no pun intended). The Count’s bizarre and hilarious mix of rambling reminiscence and drunken irritability appeals to a wide age range, from children to silver surfers. It’s a clever act and attracts the sort of loyal fan base which follows him from venue to venue. I managed to grab a ten minute interview with STEVE DELANY after the Brewery show. My plan to sit in the Theatre Bar for a quiet chat was, however, scuppered by a steady stream of fans wanting signed merchandise. One fan even wanted Steve to ring his mum in character. So the ten minute interview took almost an hour to get.

CS: Count Arthur is an indeterminately elderly gentlemen, so first off, what age are you?

STEVE DELANY: I find people start making assumptions if they know my age. If they think I’m too young they think, what does he know about this old bloke? If they think I’m nearly his age anyway, what’s funny about that? So I blur it. Seven years ago I was described as thirty-something.

STEVE DELANY: I did the character for the first time at Central in London, we had to work on circuses for a term, so I did him as a circus strong man. He also ended up having a tussle with Dracula.The sketch was called the Curse of Count Arthur Strong. It would also be a typical music hall name, as far as Arthur was concerned. There were all sorts of variety acts with those sorts of names in the 40s and 50s. People look at Arthur and think he must be riddled with all sorts of right wing opinions, but he’s not. I couldn’t do that.

STEVE DELANY: I recognise that Arthur does look a bit like Harry Worth. I used to do an impression of Harry Worth when I was about ten. Harry was a much more amiable character but was never as extreme in his reactions as Arthur. Arthur does look a bit like him but he’s not based on him. Arthur’s not nasty, he’s just deluded. There are elements of a lot of people in Arthur. I often mention my godfather, Billy Kay, who was an electrician at the Grand Theatre in Leeds. He was an eccentric and I lived next door to him as a kid. I ended up worked with him at the theatre, behind the scenes, crewing shows. Everybody who came into contact with him has a Billy Kay story. There’s a little bit of my father in there too. And me. All my shortcomings, essentially, are in Arthur.

STEVE DELANY: That’s the nice thing about being in Edinburgh. If you prepare a show for the Fringe, you do four or five shows before you go to Edinburgh. Then you do maybe twenty four shows once you’re there, so the show that comes out is in much better shape than the one that goes in. One liners that just happen, on the spur of the moment, get incorporated. They can get the biggest laughs of the show. That can happen a dozen times in Edinburgh. People used to take years to hone a show on the variety circuit.

STEVE DELANY: No, I got together with three other character comedians in a venue in Crouch End and resurrected the character for that. We did six or seven evenings and I had a very loose twenty minutes material. After I did the first one I thought, this is probably what I was meant to do rather than being an actor. I know I had some kind of performance in me but I was never happy going up for auditions for things.I had been a jobbing actor, mainly bits of telly - Casualty, The Bill, All Creatures Great and Small. I sued to be an ASM and theatre carpenter. What I like about all that business is that is how people used to do things and get their grounding in theatre. I loved my time. I think there’s a lot to be said for getting a good grounding in what you’re supposed to be doing. I spent many years doing carpentry after I left college. Kept me going in the quiet patches between acting jobs.
And then I started doing comedy and I stopped pretending to act immediately. Literally the day after. At the first gig, I was offered another gig on the first night. And I thought: what I like about this is that I’ve decided to hire this place, I’ve written this stuff, I’m doing it, I’m getting instant feedback from it and I’ve got another booking out of it. And I’m in charge of it. It’s the feeling that I didn’t have to go and audition for people, have them make judgement on what I did. I phoned my agent the next day - I was fitting a kitchen at the time - and said I really think we better stop. I don’t think of myself as an actor, now, I consider myself a comedian. All I do is Arthur. It’s all I’m interested in.

CS: There is a definite sense that the act is an affectionate tribute to the world Arthur comes from.

STEVE DELANY: I’ve great affection for where he’s come from. There’s not really the equivalent of the best of variety now. You can’t go to the theatre now and see act after act.

STEVE DELANY: I didn’t last year. It’s going to be tough this year, due to writing commitments, working in my shed.
CS: Do you write for anyone else?

STEVE DELANY: Not at the moment. I’m interested but have too little time at present. The radio series takes up four or five months. Writing a new stage show will take three months of the year. I’m spending more time on my laptop in the shed. My osteopath bills are going up and up.

STEVE DELANY: I did a series called The Remains of Foley and MacCall on Radio. I’ve been friends with them, worked at Edinburgh for a while. When they got the radio series they gave me a call and said there was a part similar to Arthur. I said I would do it if they credited me as Count Arthur playing the part. Then I was in Edinburgh and my wife suggested we did a pilot for Arthur. We had done one pilot which didn’t quite work. So she said, why don’t you showcase a radio recording evening and do two or three different formats. So we did three half-hour formats and Caroline Raphael, from Radio 4, saw it and commissioned her favourite one of the three. Which was my favourite, too. A day in the life of Arthur.

STEVE DELANY: That’s right. Fourth series has just been short-listed in the latest Radio 4 commissioning round. We’re talking about a television version. We’re quite close to a final script.

HOME

CONTACT COLIN

SCRIBBLINGS