Kevin Kennedy, well known for once being Corrie’s ‘Curly’ Watts, told David Hennessy about his forthcoming role in The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical.
Kevin Kennedy played ‘Norman (Curly) Watts’ on Coronation Street for 20 years.
He left the venerable ITV drama in 2003 to focus on his stage career which has included the blockbuster musicals Chicago, We Will Rock You and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Commitments, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show among others.
This year Kevin, 65, who was born Kevin Patrick Williams and grew up in Wythenshawe in Manchester, celebrates 50 years as an entertainer.
He lives in Brighton with his wife Clare and is about to take on a darker than usual role in The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical.
He plays ‘Mr Isaacs’, a deplorable businessman who runs an old theatre, with young actress ‘Sibyl Vane’ as his protégée.
The musical has a cast of 13, an original score by Mark J Middlemiss, and will tour the UK.
Tell us about this new production…
“It’s a very exciting idea.
“I love Oscar Wilde, much maligned, well before his time and this particular story is incredibly dark – think Stephen King meets Sherlock Holmes.
“This production is set in the correct era in which it was written, which is Victorian times.
“Mark’s done a wonderful job on the music.
“It’s just going to be really good. What’s equally terrifying and equally exciting is that it’s brand new.”
Set in Victorian times but very relevant to today…
“I think so. It’s all about unchecked ego and the prospect of no consequences to your actions.
“It’s very valid today with the onset of political movements and social media.
“This is an exploration, an adventure of a young man who doesn’t have consequences and it all goes dreadfully wrong.
“It’s all about that hedonistic lifestyle where you think you can get away with everything – in reality you can’t.
“Oscar Wilde was well before his time on this.
“I know it’s been done many times in various different guises, but you’ve got to stay faithful to the original for time period. It lends to the darkness of it.”
The class system is a big part of the story…
“Yeah, Dorian Gray feels he’s above everybody.
“His ego is so large, and he gets out of control and thinks he can kill, rape, murder whoever he wants thinking he will get away with it – and of course he doesn’t.
“It’s a moralistic tale and Mark’s music lends itself to that, it’s wonderfully gothic and orchestral.
“Because it is brand new, we have no idea how the audiences will react so it’s going to be interesting.”
It is scary to envision no consequences…
“It’s topical because we have certain parts of our world now where there doesn’t seem to be any law, any morality.
“We’ve maybe lost our moral compass along the way in the search for riches and advancement. This story illustrates what can happen to you if you’re unchecked – but we’re not here to moralise, we’re just here just to tell a story of what can happen – which is the beauty of theatre.”
What attracted you to this part?
“I liked that the character is barely mentioned in the actual novel, there is one line about him.
“That is attractive because there’s no audience expectation of what that character should be.
“That gives me a certain amount, well a lot actually, of freedom to bring this ‘Mister Isaacs’ to the stage.
“No one knows who he is anyway so you can create it, you can give birth to this not very nice man.
“He’s very much in the style of the actor-manager of the middle century where he ran everything. His protégée ‘Sybil Vane’ eventually becomes the downfall of the main character because she’s beautiful and talented.
“No one knows who this guy is, so it gives me a nice range to do what I want with it, you don’t often get that.”
Does ‘Mister Isaacs’ prey upon ‘Sybil’ and set her on her path to meeting Dorian?
“Absolutely. He owned this property in London, a hovel really.
“He goes to get the rent and sees this young girl and how beautiful and perfect she is.
“He brings her to the stage which eventually brings her to the attention of ‘Dorian’. He’s very unscrupulous.”
She gets used up and spat out, is that a comment on the nature of celebrity?
“Yeah, certainly the powers behind celebrity.
“He’s promised this girl the earth and he puts her in all these productions and then uses her for his own ends, probably physically, and certainly in a business sense, to promote his own shows that he’s in as well.
“There is an element of people getting used in show business to other people’s own ends. It does spit them out if they don’t know what they’re doing, especially at a young age, as Sybil is.”
The Dorian Gray story shows how an apparent blessing like everlasting youth is really a curse…
“Yeah, it’s the quest for everlasting life or everlasting fame, how that can backfire, and how it’s not good for us.
“The thought of living forever is quite attractive at first, but when you think about it, everyone you love dies before you and you are left alone. That’s what Oscar Wilde was after there.
“This is one of his best stories. All Irish stories have a sense of humour but also an underlying darkness and tragedy. That’s what makes Irish literature so rich.
“Being brought up with Irish heritage, we were encouraged to explore the greats, the Oscar Wildes and the Brendan Behans.
“I’ve done The Commitments and Roddy Doyle is up there with the greats, he captures the Irish sense of humour and sensibility perfectly.
“My mum was born in Dublin.
“I’m the proud holder of an Irish passport and that’s the only one I ever use.
“I’m proud of the fact that my heritage is all about storytelling.
“That’s been part of my upbringing.”
Does your desire to perform and tell stories come from your Irish side?
“It comes from both sides, to be honest, but I have that whimsy the Irish have.
“Being brought up in an Irish household, we got stories told to us of the banshee.
“I was scared of the Black and Tans before I was scared of the bogeyman because my granny used to say, ‘Do that again and ‘the Tans will come for you’.
“They have a penchant for telling great stories, sometimes very funny, sometimes very dark and all of them have a sense of tragedy.
You grew up in a strong Irish community in Manchester…
“Oh, we all were (Irish), my era, if you look at them, the (The Smiths’) Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke, myself and Caroline Aherne – all that very strong Mancunian Irish community there.
“It was almost transported from the streets of Dublin to the streets of Manchester, as it was in many cities.
“It’s a bit odd because you do feel a bit misplaced because this Irish heritage has been drummed into you and for all intents and purposes, it’s an Irish household.
“I used to spend a lot of time at my gran’s, and it was all Irish music and stories and jokes and traditions.”
You were in a band with Johnny Marr and the late Andy Rourke before they went on to form The Smiths…
“That’s right. Johnny and I were altar boys. We were 14 when punk was starting to erupt.
“The whole idea of punk as a revolution was that you were encouraged to get up and do it.
“Most of the musicians, poets, actors, writers of that time were very accomplished and very smooth and the idea that you could get up and do something which wasn’t perfect but was still valid was very exciting and attractive. That’s where the whole system came from.
“If you were around in 1976 and you wanted to be a writer, a poet, a director or a sculptor, the encouragement was there for you to go and do it.”
This year marks 50 years of your own performing career; can you believe that?
“I’ve been very lucky. I started when I was 14.
“I joined the Manchester Youth Theatre which threw up an awful lot of names, and that was it.
“I was sold, that’s all I wanted to do, the fame thing was not a goal.
“All I wanted to do was become a working actor which I eventually got to be.
“The twenty years of Coronation Street was really just a side thing. That was great, don’t get me wrong. It was brilliant and opened a lot of doors into the theatre world.
“But I was trained as a theatre actor and I ended up doing twenty years on telly and twenty-five, thirty years on the stage in one guise or another – fronting a band, being in a band, the theatre, doing musicals, doing panto, doing farce, doing Shakespeare.
“I’ve been very lucky. I’ve done a whole range of stuff and that’s the secret – variety.
“I love live theatre. I love that feel, that delicious mixture of excitement and abject terror.”
Do people still associate you with ‘Curly Watts’?
“Yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m very proud of that body of work. Coronation Street was arguably at its greatest then with the characters they had and the writing.
“It’s still very, very good but at that point we only had four channels, so the viewing figures were just ridiculous, a third of the population used to watch one episode, that’s just mind-boggling.
“I’m very, very proud and humbled by the fact that people still remember my work.
“At the end of the day, whatever you do, you want people to remember what you’ve done on the artistic stage, and they do and I find it very, very lovely and very humbling.”
Was it all a whirlwind?
“Yeah, it was a whirlwind, but you didn’t tend to think of it like that because your world is your world. The people you’d meet every day were usually cast members anyway.
“You had a very small circle of friends because most of the time you were working and it wasn’t until you ventured out of that that you realised just how huge this show was – it was an amazing time and I’m very proud of it.”
You featured in a Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special…
“Yeah, well I’ve known Brendan (O’Carroll) and his family for a very long time, and I love Brendan to bits. He’s one of Ireland’s unsung heroes, he’s a genius.
“Before Mrs. Brown hit the BBC, I used to go see his shows. He did one called The Course which was very funny. I took my gran, a 75-year-old ‘dyed in the wool’ Dubliner to see it and she absolutely adored it.
“I took my mum and dad to see it, they adored it.
“When I was touring and in Dublin, again before Mrs. Brown reached the heights, Brendan was doing it at The Gaiety and I’d get the crew together, ‘Come on, we’ve got to go and watch this show’.
“This was a hard bitten theatre crew, very hard to please and I said, ‘Just come and see this’ – and they absolutely adored it.
“Brendan is a personal hero of mine as well. He stood by me in some tough moments and I’ve got nothing but wonderful things to say about Brendan O’Carroll and his family.”
Q: Do you get over to Ireland a lot?
“As often as I can because I love it.
“I feel very much at home there and I have a lot of Irish family who, I have to say, are incredibly supportive.
“They get a bus together and come and see everything I do.
“They’ve been brilliant. I love them very much. I’m very proud of them and hopefully, if this gets to Dublin, which I hope it will, I will see them again.
“But yeah, I enjoy going to Ireland very much.”
Your Kennedy Street charity has been helping people recover from addiction since 2014…
“It’s my wife Clare Kennedy who’s the real champion here.
“We provide a service that is non-judgmental.
“It starts with a cup of tea, sit down, tell us what the problem is and we’ll try and find a way out for you or we’ll build a plan for you, not just coping with the addiction but then a life after, looking for work and dealing with what we have to deal with as recovering addicts, so she must take all the plaudits.
“Of course I’m very proud of it. It bears our name.
“I’m 28 years clean and sober so it’s been a long road and if we’ve managed to help just one person, that is success, that is a victory. That’s all we can do.
“We just have to keep recovery visible.
“I don’t say I’m 28 years sober because of personal pride, although there is a bit of personal pride, but to make the point we can recover and function in normal life, we can manage our addictions day-to-day and become successful and happy.
“That’s the main thing we try to promote.”
What does it feel like to say you are 28 years sober?
“I don’t really think about the past, about the last drink, I tend to think more about the next one.
“It’s not that I’m suddenly craving a drink or anything, it’s just that I’m very aware this is a temporary reprieve and could go wrong at any minute.
“I’m very happy I’ve managed to get this far and if that helps someone all the better – but the point is we do recover, we do become normal in society.
“We function as human beings and we’re not as destructive to ourselves, to our loved ones and to society, that’s the point.”
The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical opens at Darlington Hippodrome on 19 October before touring the UK. For more information and to book, click here.