WHEN the great news came, the man who had spent three hard years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, who’d twice appeared in the West End and who’d scrimped and sacrificed in order to become an actor, was dressed as a banana giving out supermarket flyers outside a London Underground station in a downpour.

It wasn’t even a West End underground station.

Peter McGovern recalls the moment. “It’s fair to say that, standing in the rain dressed as a banana, there were times when I was wondering what the heck (he doesn’t say heck) had become of me

“Then my agent rang, said that the Royal Shakespeare Company wanted to talk to me. It’s like a footballer signing for Liverpool or Arsenal, like being promoted to the Premier League. I still had my bar shift at the workmen’s club to do, though.”

The outcome is a nine-month RSC contract at Stratford-upon-Avon, beginning next month, and perhaps rather a lot of banana skin metaphors. If he’s ecstatic, however, then the column’s pretty pleased, too.

Back in July 2005, the St Augustine’s Repertory Society – based in a Darlington church hall, abbreviated unequivocally to STARS – played Hamlet.

It was, as we observed at the time, the theatrical equivalent of Hartlepool United Reserves playing Real Madrid.

They won, nonetheless. Though the entire cast seemed very good – we claim no critical ken –19-year-old Peter McGovern, the Prince of Denmark, was clearly brilliant.

The Northern Echo, July 14 2005: “About Dustin Hoffman’s height, Peter rose to perform quite masterfully. If he doesn’t make a name centre stage, then I’m a Danish pastry.”

Though long with Darlington Operatic Society, Hamlet had been his first non-musical role. Though he flunked the playgroup nativity play – “flat refused to go on,” recalls Rachel, his mum – he’d been youngest and smallest of Fagin’s band of thieves in Oliver and was once talked into promotional shots – Fiddler, presumably – on the Echo roof.

With the RSC he’ll be in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Love’s Labours Won and, a new play, A Christmas Truce. Centre stage awaits.

“Obviously I was very happy when the RSC rang, it beats being a banana, but the main feeling was one of relief. At last you can plan ahead.”

Despite his background, he’d had periods of up to a year between roles – what the acting profession calls resting – including a short spell teaching back at Carmel, his old school in Darlington.

Once he was even employed to mix smoothies – as in rough with the smoothies, no doubt.

“Resting is a horrible term, it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve sometimes had three or four jobs at once, constantly begging people for work, a real pain. I don’t really enjoy being an actor very much, it’s acting that I love.

“I don’t like having to market myself. I don’t like looking for work all the time. It’s the stage that draws me. It’s become a rich person’s game; they’re the only ones who can afford to hang around waiting for the phone to ring.

“At one point I was out of work for a year. I’d finished in the West End – great reviews, full houses, standing ovations and then nothing.

“People still think it’s glamorous. They don’t see the long periods out of work, the months you mightn’t even get an audition. I’ve no ambition to be famous or rich, though it would be nice to earn a bit ore money. It’s just a real privilege to be paid for something I love doing. I’d love to work with RSC for a very long time, like actors did back in the day.”

In Love’s Labour’s Lost he’ll play Moth – “a ludicrously quick witted man of the world servant” – in a pre-World War setting resembling, says Peter, a Downton Abbey country estate.

“I’ve worked with some brilliant people but these are the best designers, the best directors and the best actors all brought together.

“If you’d told me back in St Augustine’s church hall that I’d be with the Royal Shakespeare Company I simply wouldn’t have believed you.”

Some, of course, might suggest that that’s exactly what we told him. Hartlepool United Reserves 1 Real Madrid 0.

A 2009 column which included Peter McGovern also took a scholarly interest in the Latin tattoo – “Quod me nutrit, me destruit” – beneath Ms Ann French’s navel. It means “What nourishes me also destroys me.”

Ann’s a Darlington-born glamour model, latterly working for Playboy France and named someone’s Babe of the Week.

Attempts further to explore the lady’s website are inexplicably thwarted, however, by the constant appearance of an advert for The Oldie magazine. It is doubtless considered more appropriate.

WITH a party on FA Cup final night, Mike and Margaret Fox will bid farewell after 28 years at the Buck Inn in Thornton Watless, near Bedale. There are licensees these days who barely last 28 days.

They’ve several times featured down the years, most memorably when the village staged a millennium cricket match under floodlights. The pitch is the village green, the boundary the pub wall.

Cricket flourishes still.

They also have Sunday lunchtime trad jazz sessions, the Budapest Ragtime Band among forthcoming attractions.

Damn fool journalistic question: “Where are the Budapest Ragtime Band from, then?”

Patient answer: “Hungary.”

Mike had also been a journalist, left the Daily Record in Scotland over concerns about the management style (shall we say) of Cap’n Bob Maxwell, headed south to North Yorkshire.

They’ve run a great house, the belief that landlord and landlady should ever be visible meaning precious few holidays. Clearly Thornton Watlass has had its attractions, though: they’ll remain in the bungalow next door.

HOMEWARD from Thornton Watlass, we call in at the Old Black Swan in Bedale for a quick one with Peter Bell, a landlord who really does believe in getting on his bike.

Peter, formerly at the Masons Arms in Shildon, still lives in Bishop Auckland and frequently cycles between there and Bedale. Since cyclists on motorways are generally frowned upon, the route may be considered discursive. It’s 34 miles, his personal best 1 hour 58 minutes.

Last Sunday he was planning to take part in the 112-mile Fred Whitton Challenge, a particularly sadistic exercise embracing all eight Lake District passes – Kirkstone, Wrynose, Whinlatter, Hardknott – the fearful, twisting, vertiginous lot.

Still, entrants were offered both 10 per cent off pastries at the Dove Cottage Tearoom in Grasmere and the advice to go carefully (which in the circumstances might be supposed superfluous.).

Peter was hoping to crack the course in under 10 hours. He’ll be 62 this year.

…and finally, we hear that the Marquess of Normaby, known in the literary world as Constantine Phipps, has turned 60 and been reflecting on passing years. “It’s a good age,” he says. “At 60, a man has the best of both worlds. If a woman says yes, he’s flattered; if she says no, he’s relieved.” The marquess’s family seat is at Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby, – where usually he just answers to Constantine.