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‘How can you not say yes to playing Ray Say?’, says Ian Kelsey as he heads home for York Theatre Royal debut in ‘Little Voice’

Ian Kelsey’s “king of the gutter” Ray Say has a quiet word with Christina Bianco’s reclusive songbird LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith

YORK actor Ian Kelsey returns to his home city to play viperous talent-spotting agent Ray Say in a new tour of Jim Cartwright’s bittersweet comedy The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice from Monday.

In doing so, he will be making his York Theatre Royal stage debut, although the former railway carriage works coach builder did hand out sweets in the guise of Mr Toffee in the foyer before performances of The Railway Children many moons ago in his “first professional gig”.

“I’ve seen many, many pantos and shows there but I’ve never performed there before,” says Ian. “I’m a little bit jittery about the maybe more critical eyes of people I went to school with or who I worked on the railway with. I also hope I don’t meet the Grey Lady [the Theatre Royal ghost]!”

Ian, 55, will be joined in Bronagh Lagan’s production for Glass Half Full Productions by Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati as Mari Hoff and New York actress and YouTube sensation Christina Bianco as LV (Little Voice).

Heavy-drinking, louche, loud Mari and reclusive LV are the contrasting mother and daughter in Cartwright’s fairy-tale, where LV is left to her own devices, embodying the famous divas she plays on repeat in her room, from Judy Garland to Shirley Bassey, from her late father’s record collection.

From New York to old York: Ian Kelsey introduces American actress Christina Bianco to the quirks of his home city. Picture: Ant Robling

When manipulative Ray Say hears that cloistered nightingale sing, he foresees an overnight sensation and a route to a pot of gold in a story of the highs and the lows of small-town dreams, family rivalry and finding your voice in a noisy world.

Ian is in a touring show for the first time since The Verdict in 2019. “I was isolating in Dublin for two weeks in a hotel, doing an ITV drama, when Dublin was in its Lockdown number five, only on set for an hour, and this job came through while I was there,” he recalls. “It was my first audition on Zoom, so I had to embrace this new way of working.”

Ian jumped at the chance to play “king of the gutter” Ray in Cartwright’s painfully truthful northern drama. “I’d not the seen the film or the play before, although I was aware of it and what it’s about. But I just started reading the script and found Ray so funny, as well as horrific at the same time,” he says. “How can you not say yes to playing Ray Say?!” he says.

“He’s a bit of a leech really and so self-centred. He uses people. I think he has a good heart, or he had one, but it’s clear he only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari. He’s not interested in her once he realises he can better his life through the singing talents of her daughter.”

Halfway through, Ray’s character changes. “There’s a speech where he just rips into Mari at one point and I was gobsmacked by what he says, but it’s brilliantly written by Jim Cartwright,” says Ian.

“It’s clear Ray only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari,” says Ian, pictured with Shobna Gulati’s clinging Mari Hoff. Picture: Pamela Raith

“He’s a fantastic writer and as you’re reading it you can hear it being said. The rhythms are just how people talk in the world in which it’s set. The characters don’t have much money, but they aspire to live above their station, which is also really funny.”

Can 6ft 3ins Ian relate to the intimidating Ray in any way? “I hope not! But when I’m reading a script, it really helps if I have someone in mind and all their nuances start to come into play.

“With Ray, I’ve got a couple of people in mind, although I don’t want to say who they are of course. I’ve met proper northern gangsters, who act like comedians, but all the time you’re thinking, ‘you’ve got something in your boots’. I can say, there’s also a bit of Johnny, who played my father in Coronation Street, in there too.”

After landing the role, Ian resisted any temptation to watch Michael Caine’s award-winning performance in York director Mark Hearld’s 1998 film. “I don’t want to be influenced by it, otherwise for the audience it will feel like I’m doing my take on his take,” he reasons.

“By not seeing the film, it’s all fresh coming off the page, so the vision of how to play Ray comes from my head.”

Ian Kelsey shows Christina Bianco the resplendent glory of York Minster

Before Ray Say, Ian has taken on several roles associated with film versions. “Such as when I played Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, and that was ingrained in me because it’s one of my favourite films,” he says.

“In that instance, you can’t help but give a nod to iconic performances. I’ve done Danny in Grease and I completely pinched Travolta’s walk, the Danny strut. You can’t help pinching from the best.”

This time, Ian has taken a different approach, although he has discussed the role with a fellow actor and Jim Cartwright. “One of the lads out of Coronation Street had played Ray, so we had a really good chat about it, and then, when Jim was in the audience in early June, we got talking about different actors bringing their different trombones to it,” he says.

“You can bring a wheelbarrow of trombones to a comedy, and then after two weeks, you think, ‘OK, I need to hold back those trombones here’!

“What you have to do is to get back to the script and not bring a trombone to the party – although Jim loves trombones!”

Persuasive tongue: Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say tries to talk Christina Bianco’s LV into performing in public in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith

Mark Hearld set Little Voice in Scarborough; Cartwright’s play, premiered in 1992, refers only to being set in a northern town. “I think Scarborough’s too big for it. There are too many Ray Says in that town,” says Ian. “It needs to be a one-club town. It needs to be smaller than Scarborough.

“Ray’s the king of that one-club town, which is why, when he hears LV sing, he can see the potential of exploiting her talent. I can only imagine going to perform in somewhere like Wakefield would be big news!”

Ian reflects on the significance of 1992 in his own life. “It’s weird because, I’m 55 now, and that was the year I came out of drama school at Guildford,” he says.

“I didn’t realise people from York could go to drama school: I’d come out of school at 16, did six years at the railway carriage works, doing a coach-building apprenticeship, and then a year at Carris & Son, at Poppleton, making oak-leaf conservatories.

“It was there that I got my allergy to cedar wood and they told me I’d have to wear a face mask – that sounds familiar! – when working for the rest of my career. That’s when I ‘flipped’ and decided to go to drama school, when I was already in my early 20s.

Shobna Gulati, Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey in the tour poster for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice

“Three years at drama school, and two years after that I got my first soap role in Emmerdale. They advised me to take five years off my age to get roles!”

Ian – definitely 55! – is enjoying his travels on tour. “Live theatre is different every night and you’re constantly trying to win the audience over. I learned so much doing [John Godber’s] September In The Rain about the set-up for comedy and it’s such a brilliant craft because you’re always learning new things. I don’t think I’ve ever done a job where I’ve not learned something,” he says.

“The thing I’ve been most looking forward to is taking my motorbike with me. One of the most difficult things about being on tour is filling the time between getting up and curtain-up. I’m not one for historical buildings and all that, and if you’ve been on the telly a bit you can’t just go and sit in a coffee bar for the afternoon without being recognised. So, it’s fantastic to just put a crash helmet on and go and explore.”

Already he has taken American co-star Christina Bianco on his own version of a guided tour of York. Come Monday, Ian and his bike will be all revved up with one place to go as he heads home to the city where he cut his performing teeth in Mike Thompson’s Rowntree Youth Theatre productions of Half A Sixpence, Kiss Me Kate and Some Like It Hot at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Now, he will have his Say at York Theatre Royal at last.

The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice runs at York Theatre Royal from July 4 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Home at last: Ian Kelsey looks forward to his belated York Theatre Royal debut. Picture: Ant Robling
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Reece Dinsdale no longer shies away from talking about himself. Take a seat at the actor-director’s York Theatre Royal show

Reece Dinsdale: Actor, director, Twitter phenomenon and now raconteur

THURSDAY’S evening of conversation with Yorkshire actor/director Reece Dinsdale in the York Theatre Royal Studio is billed more simply as “Reece’s Pieces”.

Or, as he puts it, “just a bloke beginning to find his voice” in his anecdotes, revelations and stories, after his uncanny knack of finding voices on stage and screen since the age of 12, whether playing Shakespeare’s Richard III or fellow son of the West Riding Alan Bennett.

“It started in lockdown as a challenge to myself,” says Normanton-born Reece, 62. “As an actor I had never felt comfortable speaking publicly unless I was playing a role, so I thought I’d face a few demons by attempting to talk live online to my Twitter followers. 

“What I discovered was that when I got started…I couldn’t stop! Reaching the age of 60, I realised I might have a tale or two to tell.”

Indeed he does, having performed extensively in theatres across the country, as well as for the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. He has starred in myriad TV dramas too, ranging from leading roles in the BAFTA Award-winning Threads and Jim Henson’s Storyteller, through Spooks, Minder, Silent Witness and Life On Mars, to Joe McIntyre in Coronation Street and the comedy series Home To Roost, playing opposite the late John Thaw when drawing 14 million viewers each week.

In 2020, he joined the cast of ITV’s Emmerdale, on the understanding his bad-lad character, Paul Ashdale, would be killed off in 2021, and he now directs episodes of the Yorkshire village soap.

Reece’s Pieces has brought about his return to the theatre spotlight but in a different format: as himself. “I’ve not been on stage in a play since (The Fall of) The Master Builder [at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in October 2017, playing predatory architect Alvard Solness in Zinnie Harris’s contemporary Yorkshire re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s play during his tenure as the Playhouse’s associate artist],” he says.

“I’ve been so busy doing other things, but I really miss theatre. What I can say is I’ll be doing something somewhere on stage in 2023. Whatever I do, acting on stage, acting on screen, directing, acting on stage is the last thing I’d want to stop doing.”

He might have returned to treading the boards sooner. “I was going to play Benedict [the ‘eternal bachelor’] in Much Ado About Nothing for Northern Broadsides. Conrad [director Conrad Nelson] had asked me if I’d do it, and my reaction was, ‘I’m far too old’, but he said, ‘No, you’re not’.

“But then we got to the first day’s rehearsal and I learned my father had three months to live, so I had to pull out. I can’t wait to get back to performing on stage again.”

Reece, who spent 24 years in London, but has since returned to Yorkshire and now lives in Harrogate, has made the stage his second home for 50 years. “I was press-ganged into being an actor at school when I was 12 and found it was the way to express myself without using my own emotions, and I’ve always been happy to be someone else on stage, rather than me,” says miner’s son Reece, who graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1980.

“But, as it happens, now I’m happy to talk as me, now I’m getting there, I’m happy to do Reece’s Pieces. It started with me taking to Twitter, and I’m now doing this for my dad, after he said ‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Go and show people what you’re about and what you can do’.

“I thought, ‘I’m 59, nearly 60, I’ve been around the block maybe 15 times; how do I go about doing this, being myself in a way that would be comfortable for me and for others?’. There’s this feature on Twitter called Periscope, where you go on there for ten minutes, asking people to ask you questions. Well, I did it and it ran to 45 minutes! After ten weeks it was up to an hour and three quarters with 30,000 people logging on.

Last stage role…until next year: Reece Dinsdale in (The Fall of) The Master Builder at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in 2017

“This was in lockdown, so I didn’t confine it talking about myself but also to talking about mental health, hopefully helping people through lockdown, and so many people connected with it…and as you can tell now, from this conversation, once I get started, I don’t shut up. In answering one question, it would be 25 minutes later before we’d finally go on to the next one.”

Cue Leeds Playhouse artistic director and great friend James Brining contacting Reece to say: “We need to re-open; will you do a show? I’ll host it for you.” And so, leaving behind the front room, the stage format was born for Reece’s Pieces, one where Reece invites an actor friend, presenter or journalist to anchor the evening, with radio presenter and writer Bob Fisher doing so in York tomorrow (3/2/20220, just as he did at Harrogate Theatre last Thursday.

No longer the reluctant raconteur, it is now a case of “Let’s just go with what happens,” says Reece, with his list of 1,000 potential questions from meeting a thousand wonderful people known and unknown in his work, from Peter Ustinov to David Bowie, Jack Lemmon to Alan Bennett. “Then we open it up to the audience; we have a laugh and a joke, so it’s both funny and touching.

“Some people have been to the show three or four times, and I say, ‘Look, I’ve only had one life’, but they say, ‘No, we love it; we’ve got something different out of it each time’. It’s extraordinary!”

As someone who admits to having been shy off stage, going on stage as himself, rather than in character, has been a chance to “face a few demons”. “It’s been very good for me, and because I’m a director, I remember when I started ten years ago, I was frightened because you need to be a master communicator, and my ability to do that needed to be addressed,” he says.

“That’s been really useful for Reece’s Pieces, and with the roundabout way these shows have been come about, it’s been fascinating bringing all these things together.”

Should you be wondering how Reece came to direct Emmerdale, he had directed dramas already for Jimmy McGovern and Ian Bevan, winning a Royal Television Society Award for Eighteen from McGovern’s Moving On series, and it was Bevan who facilitated the opportunity for him to direct a couple of episodes initially.

“I’m a good pupil, I listen, and on the last day I was shooting, I got word that the executive producers wanted to see me, and they showed me to the comfortable sofa, rather the hard chair, which was a good sign!” Reece recalls.

“They said, ‘We’d like you to direct…but in a year, because we want you to be in the show first’. It was meant to be for seven months, playing this bad guy, who would die at the end of it, but it turned to be for a year as Covid caused such havoc.

“They offered me a block to direct, and I said, ‘How about two blocks?’, and as soon I finished filming in March 2021, I started directing, from April. I’ve done three blocks of shows now, and I’ll be hotfooting it from the studio for the York show.”

From this spring, he will be swapping Yorkshire for Lancashire, or more precisely Emmerdale for Weatherfield, as he takes one the new challenge of directing Coronation Street. “I’m not sure there’s anyone who’s previously been in and directed both soaps,” he says.

“The advice for life I was given was ‘always keep coming out of different corners, always keep them guessing’, and I think I’ve kept them guessing for 40 years. I’ve lost that young man’s burning ambition; now all I want to be is creative every day, and long may that continue.

“I’m happy – and I’m just as passionate as I was when I was 20, leaving drama school.” And now, he is only too happy to talk about it in Reece’s Pieces.

Reece’s Pieces: An Evening of Conversation with Actor/Director Reece Dinsdale, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow (3/2/2022), 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623 568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.