Features
Benny’s back
Viv Hardwick chats to Paul Henry about taking on a
gay role in farce at Darlington and how he copes with
the long legacy of TV soap character, Benny Hawkins
THE worst part of
meeting Paul Henry is
that you can't interview
him without mentioning
the woolly hat, the one
he wore as Benny
Hawkins in TV soap Crossroads.
That's Crossroads first time round,
not the pale replica which failed to
book a regular spot on ITV after
2001-2003, but the 1964-1988 original
run with Henry featured as the
bumbling handyman from 1975.
The wags' of society will always
add Benny's famous utterance of
"Miss Diane" - played by Sue
Hanson - but that was one
excruciating impersonation too far,
so I stuck to hats and speculation as
to whether he's burned all headgear
so faithfully knitted for him by
female fans.
The 60-year-old is pleasantness
itself about the question, despite
having arrived late for Darlington
Civic Theatre's summer season
launch, thanks to train delays at
Manchester.
"No, I used to send off the hats to
be auctioned for charity and my
favourite story is that they got more
for one of my woolly hats than they
did for one of Ted Heath's ties about
20 years ago. But I've still got the
original hat. I should have sold it on
ebay, but it's a bit late now.
"There were 20m people who used
to watch me and I can remember
Sunderland and Newcastle fighting
over me for pantomime. I went to
Sunderland and we played to 98 per
cent audiences and it was the first
time that the Sunderland Empire
had beaten Newcastle Theatre
Royal. I did Cinderella and it was
about 1984."
Henry arrived as a late inclusion
to Ian Dickens Productions fourweek
summer season curtain-raiser
Run For Your Wife, the Ray Cooney
farce, which runs June 10-14. He was
such a draw in the 1980s that he took
the lead role of London cabbie, John
Smith, in the first touring version of
Cooney's most famous piece of
comedy. He admits he's taking on
the play again because he's cast in
the role of gay neighbour Bobby.
"I'm playing someone completely
different to anyone I've played
before at a time when I was thinking
of either becoming a chef or a
decorator to get some work. I've
been watching the soaps and seeing
all these gay characters so I'm
following suit. I think people will
have a bit of a surprise and I haven't
played a part like that since I did
The Hostage for Birmingham rep in
about 1969.
"Run For You Wife was the first
real farce I'd ever done and I
remember we were chocker for the
week here in 1982 and we did 30
weeks on tour and the show was still
on in the West End as well. You
don't often do a tour when a shows
is on in the West End. I loved it
because it was so funny and I played
the taxi driver with two wives, but at
my age people might say you
wouldn't get one'. It's a bit like
playing Buttons. I played Buttons
four years ago and I was so unaware
that playing Buttons with a young
Cinderella could be viewed wrongly
until somebody said to me aren't
you a bit old now?' and it put
political correctness and fear of
paedophilia into my mind where I'm
60 and appearing with an 18-year-old
Cinderella," explains Henry.
He had always played villains
until he took on the role of Benny in
Crossroads "and now everyone
thinks of me as a nice fellow. I
remember playing the villain again
alongside Ronnie Corbett one year
and everyone was surprised what a
big voice I had I've never had to
use mikes," he jokes.
He now lives in Whitchurch near
the Welsh border and admits that it
was a friendship with a golf courseowning
friend which attracted him
there for visits.
"We moved there ten years ago
and, luckily, I was accepted quite
quickly and nobody mentions
Crossroads or Benny. It's amazing.
Occasionally, you get the young kids
saying something, but that's only
because the mums have been talking
and, if it goes on much longer, it will
be the grandmothers talking.
"Then I walked into the local fish
and chip shop and they said it's all
right Paul you can have them for
nothing, we've been voted top fish
and chip shop and we told the judges
you use us'," he says.
On the horizon, Henry has a play
based on the life of Tony Hancock.
"It's actually set in his dressing
room at the BBC where he does his
interview with Gilbert Harding and
he's sitting there and discussing his
life. Things are similar. The fact that
he hated wearing the Homberg hat
and he hated being told he was in a
soap in England. "He said he was
only ever asked to do stupid parts,
but he was a comic and it's a bit
like me being asked where's the
hat'. I'm not doing an impression,
although he was a Brummie and I'll
do it as someone who was living the
life he lived. Once you start doing
impressions it's a whole new
ballgame."
His favourite comedian of all time
is Ronnie Barker, particularly as the
late, great performer tried to cast
him in the role of Godber for
legendary sitcom Porridge.
"I was unknown and Richard
Beckinsdale had just done The
Lovers and Ronnie said to me later
Paul, you were very good in that
part you nearly got'."
■ Run For You Wife, Darlington
Civic Theatre, June 10-14. Box
Office: 01325-486-555
11:05am Thursday 8th May 2008
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