Tucker goes nuts

"I’VE always carried a spare pair of coconuts around with me,” jokes Todd Carty about being cast in the role of Patsy for the massive UK tour of award-winning Monty Python musical Spamalot.

The 46-year-old actor admits that it actually took a certain song, which has become the unofficial national anthem, to persuade him to join the musical quest rather than the thought of playing King Arthur’s horse’s hootbeats.

“Singing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life on stage was one of the main reasons I took on the role. Everyone likes this song,” says Carty, who isn’t particularly known for his singing voice.

“Look, you always leave yourself open to suggestions like this. I’ve been performing since I was four years of age, so singing in this show doesn’t worry me,”

he explains after the producers of the show contacted him about joining Oliver!

star Jodie Prenger, who will play The Lady Of The Lake, and Marcus Brigstocke as King Arthur, in Spamalot.

It’s unlikely that Prenger will be in the cast which opens at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal in July, Sunderland Empire in October and York Theatre Royal in November, but Carty has signed up all the way to Milton Keynes in December… and may even do Christmas in Birmingham and tour next year.

The contracts are still being negotiated by the actor who has proved he can cope with just about anything in entertainment having gone from child star to EastEnders favourite to the man who put the smile back into the world of competitive celebrity skating.

“I was the kind of dad who ended up clinging on the edge of the rink while my kids were learning how to skate and gazing enviously at the other dads who raced around in the middle. I wanted to be like them and saw Dancing On Ice as a way of learning… and I couldn’t have been more wrong,” he says about becoming the first skater to finish up off the ice.

The moment when Carty shot away into the off-stage area, leaving partner Susie Lipanova to complete the routine, attracted a million and a half hits on Youtube and has gone down as most people’s favourite Dancing On Ice moment.

It just had to be a week three routine to the Beatles’ song Help and the public responded by turning Carty into the John Sergeant of skating by voting him through for several more weeks.

“I never, never expected the response, but then I never expected to get through in the first place,” laughs the actor who bravely agreed to re-create his “accident”

on the Dancing On Ice tour last year.

“They started showing film of me, on the big screen, off the ice doing things like smoking a fag or reading a newspaper. What happened hasn’t put me off taking up a challenge,” he adds.

In fact he and son James have also taken part in the factual TV series Dangerous Adventures For Boys which brought the pair to North Yorkshire. The two took up the challenge of becoming train drivers on the North York Moors Railway. “James, who was 11, became the youngest person to have ever driven a steam train across the North York Moors,”

says the proud dad about the epic 18-mile ride from Grosmont to Pickering in charge of a steam locomotive built in the 1830s.

While millions fondly remember Carty as tragic Mark Fowler from 13 years in BBC1’s EastEnders, with the leatherjacketed hero roaring off into the sunset in 2003, it’s actually his first starring role of Tucker Jenkins in BBC1’s children’s series Grange Hill which still haunts him.

“It’s the role I can’t seem to get away from. I’m hoping that I can finally lay him to rest if this flipping Grange Hill film ever gets made. I might even be able to direct it and have my son James appearing as the son of Tucker,” says the actor.

He admits that it was Tucker’s Luck, which ran 1983-85, which allowed his character to return as a teenager and moved him on from being a child star to adult roles. Carty also appeared in the one-off special which marked 30 years of Grange Hill in 2008.

“I can’t really complain. It’s the best part I’ve ever had and everyone seems to like Tucker, even though he always seemed to be in trouble,” says Carty.

In spite of claiming that he prefers to stay out of the limelight with regard to his private life, he and partner Dina Clarkin, the actress and film producer, used the very public medium of Hello Magazine last year to announce that they were to marry. And the couple, who have two children, also featured in OK! a few weeks later.

“Whether it was Tucker, EastEnders or playing PC Gabriel Kent in The Bill, I have nothing but happy memories. I knew about the interest in me when I was in EastEnders, but all I used to do was go in, say my lines and then go home. I wasn’t like some of the others who didn’t make it home in one piece. I have always known that public interest in you comes with the territory and I was supportive when my son told me he wants to follow me into acting,” he says.

Tucker’s Luck is obviously infectious.

■ Spamalot tours dates: July 19-24, Newcastle Theatre Royal. Box Office: 08448-112-121 theatreroyal.co.uk; October 11-16, Sunderland Empire, 0844- 847-2499 sunderlandempire.org.uk; November 22-27, York Theatre Royal.