kenneth cranham
kenneth cranham shows off his award at last night' s ceremony. picture: getty
even when they read out kenneth at the awards ceremony, i still thought, ‘oh they must mean kenneth branagh’ .
there is only one drawback to interviewing kenneth cranham, but it is not one to dismiss lightly .
kenneth cranham (born 12 december 1944) is a scottish film, television, radio and stage actor .
secondary school in brixton, london, left 1961 to follow acting career. kenneth cranham biography (1944– )
we speak to olivier award - winner kenneth cranham about the father at everyman theatre. © pamela raith photography .
kenneth cranham was born on december 12, 1944 in dunfermline, fife, scotland. he is an actor, known for
kenneth cranham:' i got £2k a show for harvey moon. now it' s £400 a week in theatre'
flying high: kenneth cranham is best remembered in television' s shine on harvey moon. picture: chris jackson / getty
anne - marie duff and kenneth cranham are to star in the first west end show from marianne elliott’s new theatre company .
we spoke to the father star kenneth cranham moments after he won the best actor award at the olivier awards 2016 with mastercard .
the acclaimed actors will lead simon stephens’s drama heisenberg: the uncertainty principle on to the stage of wyndham’s theatre. pictured, kenneth cranham
anne - marie duff, 46, and kenneth cranham, 72, are to star as may - december lovers in a new play .
oscar winner mark rylance and sherlock star benedict cumberbatch both lost out last night as kenneth ­cranham took home the ­olivier award for best actor .
congratulations to kenneth cranham and david moorst, who were among the winners at yesterday’s critics circle theatre awards held at the prince of wales theatre .
loot, with sheila ballentyne, simon ward, kenneth cranham and michael bates. opened 27 september 1966 photograph: john haynes / lebrecht music & art
‘joe [ orton ] ’s writing would have got better and better. he was just beginning’ … kenneth cranham. photograph: graeme robertson for the guardian
kenneth cranham tells us why he was tearful picking up his olivier award for best actor and on ‘snogging’ mark rylance. . report by jennifer cordingley. test
discussing his olivier award - winning role in the father, soglos chats to actor kenneth cranham ahead of the show' s closing run at everyman theatre in cheltenham .
greg hicks, sally dexter, kenneth cranham, lia williams and alun armstrong are among the stars of the autumn season at theatre royal bath' s ustinov studio .
cranham was born in dunfermline, fife, scotland, the son of lochgelly - born margaret mckay cranham (née ferguson) and ronald cranham, a london - born civil servant. his first wife was actress diana quick. he has two daughters: nancy cranham with actress charlotte cornwell, and kathleen cranham with his second wife, actress fiona victory .
' cranham is an interesting mixture - a south london geezer, yet also a rich - voiced thespian.' cranham on stage with jim sturgeon
rada alumnus kenneth cranham won best actor for his performance in florian zeller’s the father, shortly to transfer to the duke of york’s theatre from 24 february for a limited run .
two parts fruity - voiced luvvie, one part rough - cut cockney, kenneth cranham has been part of the furniture on stage and screen since leaving rada in the 1960s. ​
having enjoyed a lifelong career in acting, kenneth cranham has arguably bagged his biggest role at the age of 72, starring in the multi award - winning play, the father .
cranham was born in dunfermline, fife, scotland, the son of lochgelly - born margaret mckay cranham (née ferguson) and ronald cranham, an english civil servant. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] his first wife was actress diana quick. he has two daughters: nancy cranham with actress charlotte cornwell, and kathleen cranham with his second wife, actress fiona victory. [ 2 ]
cranham was born in dunfermline, fife, scotland, the son of lochgelly - born margaret mckay cranham (née ferguson) and ronald cranham, a london - born civil servant. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] his first wife was actress diana quick. he has two daughters: nancy cranham with actress charlotte cornwell, and kathleen cranham with his second wife, actress fiona victory. [ 2 ]
next, kenneth cranham and lia williams will perform in florian zeller' s moliere award - winning play, the father (le père), which runs from 16 october to 15 november .
other critics’ circle award winners included kenneth cranham, who won the best actor award for what judges called “the role of a lifetime”. the award was presented by the guardian theatre critic michael billington for cranham’s role as 80 - year - old andre in the alzheimer’s drama the father .
joe and kenneth got on very well when they were linked in making mischief together. joe created “edna welthorpe” who would write letters of complaint to people, and he and kenneth were both given prison sentences for defacing library books. but soon their paths became divergent. joe started to become very successful, while kenneth’s writing and art career stalled. they would be invited to smart dinners and parties, where kenneth, ever more insecure and paranoid, would behave badly .
cranham was born in dunfermline, fife, scotland, the son of lochgelly - born margaret mckay cranham (née ferguson) and ronald cranham, a london - born civil servant. secondary school in brixton, london, left 1961 to follow acting career. his first wife was actress diana quick. he has two daughters: nancy cranham with actress charlotte cornwell, and kathleen cranham with his second wife, actress fiona victory .
kenneth cranham was born on december 12, 1944 in dunfermline, fife, scotland. he is an actor, known for layer cake (2004), valkyrie (2008) and hellbound: hellraiser ii (1988) .
judi dench added to her awards collection with the best shakespearean performance prize for her role as paulina in kenneth branagh’s the winter’s tale .
we caught up with the father star kenneth cranham to get his reaction to winning the critics' circle theatre award for best actor. for more about the father visit http: / / www. officiallondontheatre. co. u ...
- a pocket full of rye (2008)... rex fortescue (as ken cranham )
lochgelly also had two cinemas, as the actor kenneth cranham, who was born there, vividly remembers. there was the cinema deluxe and the opera house – the
opry hoose
– where the double features changed three times a week .
i was genuinely surprised. i know three publications said that i deserved it but i didn’t really think about it. and even when they read out kenneth at the awards ceremony, i still thought, ‘oh they must mean kenneth branagh’. so no, it was a genuine shock .
central to his recovery was the elegant, oxford - educated diana, who nursed him back to health. she was formerly married to the actor kenneth cranham and had a seven - year relationship with albert finney which endured despite his well - publicised infidelities .
kenneth cranham was a teenager when joe orton cast him in a radio play and the pair became close friends. fifty years after the great playwright’s murder, he remembers a flat full of cream cakes, 400 performances of loot and the whitest t - shirt he ever saw
duff and cranham will perform in simon stephens’ play heisenberg: the uncertainty principle, which premiered on broadway last year .
he also remembers being on stage in the west end version of joe orton’s loot when he heard that the 34 - year - old playwright had been murdered by his lover kenneth halliwell. it was a blow, because orton had been a friend and mentor to the young cranham .
this 2015 revival of the father, which now returns to bath to play the main house, sees kenneth cranham, rebecca charles, colin tierney and jade williams reprise their original roles first seen at the ustinov studio in 2014, joined by new cast members claire skinner and jim sturgeon .
- a genius like us: a portrait of joe orton (1982)... himself (as ken cranham )
kenneth cranham' s film credits include layer cake, trauma, blackball, man dancin', shiner, gangster no. 1, women talking dirty, deep in the heart, rpm, the boxer, under suspicion, chocolat, stealing heaven, robin and marian, up pompeii and oliver !
brian f. o’byrne – who played rhys’ father steve jones in the drama – will take on a leading role alongside timothy spall and kenneth cranham. david hayman, alex norton, ian puleston - davies, geoff bell and nasser memarzia will take on the gang members at the heart of the heist .
kenneth cranham stars as 80 - year - old ex - tap dancer andre in florian zeller' s remarkable and ambiguous play which astonished critics at its london run at the tricycle in may. featuring a witty and devastating performance from cranham, the play puts the audience in the confused shoes of andre, who is increasingly unable to tell whether he can trust his own daughter. the father opens in its west end transfer this month .
cranham in the father. the actor' s next role will be in the bbc' s 2016 adaptation of war and peace .
kenneth cranham' s numerous stage credits include an inspector calls and the cherry orchard (national theatre), the homecoming (almeida) and west end productions of entertaining mr sloane, loot, the birthday party and gaslight. lia williams was recently seen in the west end in a revival of harold pinter' s old times .
cranham' s mother had got the dux medal in school, and on ve day the newsreels caught her in the crowd in london .
for those of a certain age it is impossible to think of cranham, now filming maleficent with angelina jolie, without recalling shine on harvey moon, the itv comedy drama which ran for four series from 1982. (a fifth aired in 1995, but without cranham. )
cranham had particular reason to be delighted by the programme' s scottish welcome as he was born in dunfermline in 1944 to a scots mother, margaret mackay ferguson. the family moved to lochgelly when he was two then mum, dad (now back from the war for good), and kenneth left for essex, then london .
at some point, kenneth became suspicious that something was going on between joe and i (there wasn’t) and became unpleasant to me. loot had won best play at the evening standard theatre awards in 1966, and a scene was shown on television. afterwards, kenneth said “you all looked so pretty” and turned to me and added “which was strange for you because you’re very ugly really” .
cranham, meanwhile, is filming four - part itv drama hatton garden, about the infamous safe deposit box robbery, for director paul whittington .
, his boyfriend, who was everything rolled into one: a mentor, literary pathfinder and a terrible maiden aunt. they had met at rada in 1951. kenneth was seven years older and in the early years, supported him financially. at joe’s centre was his concern for the quality and future of his writing, and kenneth shared that. they were both line - by - line obsessed with joe’s work .
winning best actor in the 2016 olivier awards, kenneth chats to soglos about how the play has changed his life, the importance of tackling strong topics in the theatre, and the responses he has received from audiences .
now that flying blind has had its premiere, cranham can turn his attention to maleficent, a new take on the age - old tale of sleeping beauty. with angelina jolie in the title role, and cranham as king henry, the fantasy drama, out in 2014, also stars miranda richardson and peter capaldi .
“he’s a wonderful director, very kind, he’s very perceptive, he lets you find your ­performance and he directs further on down the line”, cranham, from dunfermline, said .
he and duff haven’t worked together before, but they share a mutual passion... for elvis presley. ‘the king does get a mention in the play, ’ cranham revealed .
orton was murdered in 1967 by his partner, kenneth halliwell, shortly before loot transferred with cranham to broadway. “joe’s writing would have got better and better. he was just beginning. ” pinter, the next big presence in cranham’s career, was one of the readers at orton’s funeral. “when i was in the homecoming, i asked him, ‘what can you tell me about max? ’ he said, ‘the thing about max is he’s a liar and he’s a butcher. ’” and of aston in the caretaker, pinter said: “he’s a gent. when he comes home with the tramp at the start, he hasn’t talked to another person for 10 years. at the end, he’s not going to talk to anyone for another 20. ” cranham looks gobsmacked even now. “they’re notes and a half, they are. ”
cranham, a sprightly 71 and dressed today in his customary spotted blue cravat, has another reason for feeling time' s winged chariot: he is about to reprise his eponymous role in florian zeller' s west end smash hit the father. cranham' s character, andre, has alzheimer' s; and the play' s short, disconnected scenes place the audience right inside his fracturing, disorientated mind. the role has just won cranham a critics' circle award (“my first ever award! ” he acknowledges gleefully, if surprisingly) and the play is returning to the west end before embarking on a uk tour. yet although it is sparking memories of nursing his own father, who had parkinson' s, cranham isn' t finding playing an elderly, befuddled soul depressing: far from it .
cranham has continued to visit scotland regularly, both as a professional – on stage at the traverse, or in the fringe – and privately to tour the islands, visiting north and south uist and the orkneys .
cranham can remember men gathering in the streets in their dark blue suits and flat caps, in a town that was part of the west fife constituency known as
little moscow
. it was in the town library that cranham read george orwell for the first time. for
grand
outings, the family would take the ferry to edinburgh, or go to dunfermline glen, the grounds andrew carnegie bought for the town .
a month before joe was killed by kenneth, we all went to see the desert song, a 1920s operetta. we had gone to mock it, although joe behaved rather well because he didn’t want to upset all the old ladies in the audience who thought it was marvellous. afterwards, we went to the seven stars restaurant in the west end, which was popular with actors, and holiday snaps from joe and kenneth’s recent trip to morocco were passed round, some of which were of joe’s cock. it was remarkable for the time – the chemist boots would have printed them for him .
cranham stopped holidaying in lochgelly in his later teens, when he started having girlfriends. the town' s cinemas have long since gone; the deluxe went first, when it was turned into a drycleaner' s .
it’s a relevant admission given that cranham’s latest role, andre in florian zeller’s hit play the father, has dementia. the short, pinteresque scenes, often out of sequence, are confusing and thus allow the audience to sympathise with andre’s condition. “he knows he’s forgetting things but he doesn’t see why this is such a big deal, ” says cranham. “he can’t understand why everyone wants to be with him all the time. ”
yet at tulse hill school (where he was a contemporary of ken livingstone), cranham was fortunate enough to have teachers, including the future playwright ray jenkins, who put on plays from the newly opened royal court and spotted cranham’s potential. he was accepted at rada, where i assume his blokeishness might have been appealing to the well - heeled female students. “what? ” he snorts incredulously. “i don’t think so! ”
veteran british character actor kenneth cranham’s film credits include: gangster no1 by paul mcguigan, the boxer by jim sheridan, chocolate by claire denis and prosperos book by peter greenaway. television credits include some of britain’s favourite drama series: - inspector morse, bergerac, lovejoy and kavanagh qc. theatre credits include such plays as the novice by richard eyre; an inspector calls by stephen daldry and geography of a horse dreamer by sam shepherd. two men went to war is his first headlining starring role in a feature film .
for bbc radio 4' s afternoon play, cranham played ds max matthews in the three - play series the interrogation by roy williams and starred as thomas gradgrind in bbc radio' s 2007 adaptation of dickens' hard times .
it was sheila ballantine who had a sense that something terrible would happen. one night, joe was away in leicester overseeing a production of entertaining mr sloane and kenneth came to the theatre on his own, which he’d never done before. he was on a collection of prescription drugs and seemed in a bad way .
the father is an extraordinarily powerful play, and the actor tells me he wept when he first read the script. the resulting performance is one of the best you’ll see on stage this year – with cranham playing andre as part patriarch, part silly old sod, part frightened little boy. in just a bewildered expression or a short burst of baffled rage, cranham somehow conveys the entire life of the man – at birth, at 20, at 70 .
it was very popular in scotland ,
says cranham about the tale of mum, dad, mum - in - law, son and daughter .
i always thought it was because it was very like the broons .
after the war ron cranham went to night school, took four a levels, got a degree from the london school of economics and became a civil servant. the family moved to london, but it took time to find a home .
which leads us back to harvey moon. it was a drama ahead of its time, says cranham, showing parents who had separated and tensions within a family. besides a strong cast, which included elizabeth spriggs as harvey' s mum and linda robson as his daughter, harvey moon had a lot of heart and a dash of politics besides. cranham fondly recalls one of harvey' s speeches, on the glory of the nhs. no wonder scotland took to it .
for bbc radio 4' s afternoon play, cranham played ds max matthews in the three - play series the interrogation by roy williams and starred as
thomas gradgrind
in bbc radio' s 2007 adaptation of dickens' hard times .
in retrospect, the little fife town and its cinemas were grist to the mill for any artist, writer or actor in the making, cranham says .
it was pure escapism, it was captivating, in the form of flights of fantasy .
kenneth cranham is in melancholic mood. at 7. 15am on the day we met, he' d lost his friend william gaskill, the royal court' s legendary artistic director who' d directed cranham in several productions during the 1960s and 1970s, including edward bond' s saved. the day, before he' d attended a memorial service for alan rickman. a couple of years ago he also said goodbye to roger lloyd pack, whom he first met at rada. “i read a quote the other day that said,' i' m of an age now that the people i love, most of them are dead, but that hasn' t lessened their existence,' ” he says, nursing a bloody mary at his local in islington, north london. “i thought, yes, that' s what it' s like. ”
join kenneth cranham, winner of the 2016 olivier award for best actor, as he looks back on more than 50 years in theatre, shares memories of his unique relationship with leicester - born playwright joe orton, and discusses his favourite leading roles from hal in orton’s loot (1966) to andré in florian zeller’s the father (2015 - 16), winner of three moliere awards, including best play. this event, chaired by emma parker and featuring orton’s sister, leonie orton barnett, is organised in conjunction with the university of leicester to mark the 50 th anniversary of the london premiere of loot .
we heard about joe’s murder and kenneth’s suicide the day after it happened. more information kept emerging – that the bodies were together, that kenneth had bludgeoned joe’s head with a hammer. we were doing a performance of loot that night. simon and i drove in to do the show and as we were coming past sadler’s wells, the car in front of us ran over a dog and the wheel of the car crushed the dog’s head. everything felt as if it was happening in slow motion. it was like being underwater. then we had to go on stage that night and do this farce. i didn’t feel quite there, and i could almost taste blood. of course, the theatre was packed .
cranham was born in the small scottish town of lochgelly to parents he describes as upper lower class going on lower middle. his father served with the royal engineers; his mother was a librarian with a passion for judy garland. lochgelly didn' t have much, but it did have two cinemas and the young cranham would go every night. “i' d pick up a fish supper on the way back. they were magical times. ” later his parents moved to camberwell in south london, where cranham failed his 11 - plus (“but so did roger lloyd pack”). he didn' t do too well at his o - levels either, but by that point he had played macbeth at school, “which is about six o - levels by itself”, and was intent on becoming an actor .
the play opens with georgie (duff) approaching a stranger in a train station and planting a kiss on his neck. the neck happens to belong to a butcher called alex (cranham); and the kiss sets off a chain reaction of emotions between the disparate pair .
he describes the royal court of the mid - sixties as a wild place where audiences would be confrontational if they didn’t like something. in one performance, cranham had to utter the line “am i dying? ”, to which one peeved theatregoer replied, “i bloody hope so! ”
best of all was when cranham played stanley opposite pinter as the terrifying goldberg in a tv production of the birthday party. “i said: ‘harold, i don’t know who stanley is. ’ he said: ‘funny. all the stanleys say that. ’” cranham remembers picturing endless stanleys disappearing towards the horizon like easter island statues. “pinter was an only child, you know. i was on my own until i was 10, so many of my games were of the imagination. if you’re going to write or act, a spell as an only child is very useful. ”
in 2016, cranham won the olivier award for best actor in a play for his role as andre in florian zeller' s the father. the play originated at the theatre royal bath' s ustinov studio in the autumn of 2014, before touring the country and transferring to the west end in the summer of 2015, and returning to the duke of york' s theatre in spring 2016. the play received an unprecedented five star review from every leading national press publication, and cranham' s performance was described as
the performance of his life
( whatsonstage. com) .
in 2016, cranham won the olivier award for best actor in a play for his role as andre in florian zeller' s the father. the play originated at the theatre royal bath' s ustinov studio in the autumn of 2014, before touring the country and transferring to the west end in the summer of 2015, and returning to the duke of york' s theatre in spring 2016. the play received an unprecedented five star review from every leading national press publication, and cranham' s performance was described as
the performance of his life
( whatsonstage. com) .
cranham can trace his love of cinema to lochgelly, where he went to the town' s two cinemas most nights. otherwise, it was school that fed his hunger for acting. he went to a school that had teachers with an interest in the bold drama and radical literature of the time .
enneth cranham has been thinking a lot about old age recently. “i don’t feel old, ” says the actor, a robust - looking 70, “but i have got to a stage where i don’t remember someone’s name. i have to give myself clues so that i can get the name back. ”
things could get pretty aggressive behind the scenes, too – it didn’t help that the royal court cast and crew shared the same drinking den as chelsea barracks. on one occasion, cranham recalls how the actor victor henry laid in wait with a broken bottle for ian mckellen when the rising star had usurped his role .
that night sparked a determination to revive loot. in 1966, it opened at the jeannetta cochrane theatre in holborn before moving to the criterion theatre in the west end. it got rave reviews and went on to win several awards. i played hal. when joe and kenneth came to the first night, i remember the pride with which they walked down the street. my mother and father were walking in front of them and my mother was mouthing: “are they homosexuals? ”
recently cranham was on location in southern morocco: “they say when you drown, your life flashes before you. in southern morocco, it trundles by very slowly. you can see it all quite clearly. everything is overlapping now. ” he rummages in his case to give me a copy of a postcard orton sent him from morocco in 1966 (“the villa is v. posh. not me at all … but i’m v. happy”) and pulls out some miniature collages of old photos from his archives. one shows images from a mid - 1970s revival of entertaining mr sloane, in which beryl reid and harry h corbett competed for the sexual favours of cranham (as the amoral young stud sloane) .
cranham is one of britain' s best - known actors, renowned for bringing alive film and tv character roles varying in style from the sinister mobster jimmy price in matthew vaughn' s crime - thriller layer cake to the enigmatic preacher pastor finch in the multi - award - winning screen adaptation of jeanette winterson' s novel oranges are not the only fruit .
after a run in london, cranham went with the play to broadway, turning in 796 performances in total. i wonder how gruelling it is to be on stage night after night in such a part. every stage actor who plays a big role never stops working on it, says cranham. it' s a way of keeping things fresh .
you create a blueprint of your best performance and you' re happiest the night you surpass that blueprint. that won' t happen that often but it will happen. it' s like sculpting, you keep refining. when you have a piece that is yours, that is just you, that becomes obsessive, you think about it all the time .
cranham has no need to rely on reflected glory, though: he has enough of his own. he was a friend to joe orton, then to harold pinter. both playwrights regarded him as a skilful interpreter of their writing. during the 1966 revival of the macabre farce loot, orton returned from his mother’s funeral in leicester with an unusual addition to the prop cupboard. “there’s a scene where my character has to catch his mum’s false teeth and use them as castanets, ” cranham recalls. “on that occasion, i cupped my hands and saw them turning in the air above me, almost in slow motion. i could tell these weren’t the usual glossy ones. these were mildewed. they were joe’s mum’s. ”
cranham trained at the national youth theatre of great britain and rada. he starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama shine on harvey moon. he also appeared in layer cake, gangster no. 1, rome, oliver! and many other films. cranham was cast as the deranged dr. philip channard and his cenobitic alter - ego in the horror film hellbound: hellraiser ii. among many stage credits are west end productions of entertaining mr sloane, loot, an inspector calls (both transferring to broadway), the ruffian on the stair, the birthday party and gaslight (at the old vic). for his role as inspector goole in an inspector calls, he was nominated for a laurence olivier award .
cranham trained at the national youth theatre of great britain [ 1 ] and rada. he starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama shine on harvey moon. he also appeared in layer cake, gangster no. 1, rome, oliver! and many other films. cranham was cast as the deranged dr. philip channard and his cenobitic alter - ego in the horror film hellbound: hellraiser ii. among many stage credits are west end productions of entertaining mr sloane, loot, an inspector calls (both transferring to broadway), the ruffian on the stair, the birthday party and gaslight (at the old vic). for his role as inspector goole in an inspector calls, he was nominated for a laurence olivier award .
his wife, the actress fiona victory, whom he met on the set of harvey moon, where she played his son' s headmistress, is coming up to glasgow to see him this week. roger lloyd pack (
trigger
in only fools and horses), cranham' s oldest acting friend who was with him at rada, will also be in the audience .
the tale of a soldier returning from the second world war to london' s east end, and as cockney as a wee cock sparra born inside a bow bell, shine on harvey moon (with cranham as harvey) regularly had viewing figures of more than 13 million, with the highest numbers in scotland. go figure, as they don' t say in stepney or saltcoats .
during rehearsals, cranham started thinking of his relationship with his own parents. “my father nursed my mother for seven years until she died and after that, when he was in his eighties, we were lucky to go travelling several times together. the problem was that i never asked questions about their lives. i took a notebook when we went off but it never seemed appropriate somehow. ”
recently, cranham says that he has experienced the odd lull in his schedule. “the problem is that there is usually only one old part in any story. when i had my young career and my career when i was playing dads, i was going up against actors who were exactly my age. now, in my old career, i am up against actors in their sixties, seventies and even eighties. ”
we became friends outside the theatre. we would meet up at simon ward’s house, or at joe and kenneth’s bedsit in islington. i remember going there one day and listening to the soundtrack of the musical pal joey. they’d bought tons of old - fashioned cream cakes. the walls were covered in a collage of images – there were renaissance pictures, and one image of a baby being born out of the heart of africa. the montages look striking in photos of joe at home, but when you were actually there they were very vivid and you felt a bit attacked by it .
born december 12, 1944, in dunfermline, fife, scotland; son of ronald and margaret m' kay (maiden name, ferguson) cranham; married diana quick (an actress; divorced); married fiona victory (an actress); children (with charlotte cornwell; an actress): nancy. addresses: agent: markham & froggatt, julian house, 4 windmill st. , london w1p 1hf, england .
cranham is an interesting mixture. for all his emotional intelligence, he’s a toughie – a south london geezer (he’s played several thugs in his long career), yet also a rich - voiced thespian with a fondness for ripe theatrical anecdotes. thick - set, with a large, lived - in face and dark, watchful eyes, he has a heavyweight presence: you can see why he’s so appealing to casting directors .
a couple of years later, when i had joined the royal court theatre, the ruffian on the stair was put on one sunday night and again, i played wilson. the play was a great success. all the powerful people were there – theatre producers oscar lewenstein and michael white, and agent peggy ramsay. joe’s fortunes though had taken a bit of a dip. he’d had a great success with his first performed stage play entertaining mr sloane, but the touring version of his next, loot, did not do well. however, now joe and kenneth sensed that success would be theirs again .
cranham trained at the prestigious royal academy of dramatic art, and his west end credits range from entertaining mr sloane to gaslight; he got his film breakthrough in the musical oliver! . but, while he found his greatest fame as a demobbed corporal trying to reconstruct his life and bombed - out home in post - war england in the acclaimed 1980s tv series shine on harvey moon, his own childhood was shaped by post - war scotland .
cranham was born on 12 december, 1944, in dunfermline infirmary. his father, ron, a public schoolboy from london, was 19 when the second world war broke out, and joined the royal engineers. he was sent to cowdenbeath to train, where lochgelly - born margaret worked as a librarian. soon she was also in uniform. they were posted together near manchester, where margaret was arrested for smoking on a railway platform. she was something of a rebel, who had proudly flashed her army knickers to her girlfriends .
it was the drama teachers at cranham' s london school who persuaded him to act in shakespeare rather than play football in his free time. but in lochgelly, he says :
i didn' t do anything else that would feed into that. i wasn' t seeing any theatre. the first thing i wanted to do, as a boy, was to be a skier, because i had seen film footage of somebody skiing. when you see moving images, it (takes you into a ] dream world .
of his two daughters, one, aged 18, says she would like to follow him into acting. with her dad in london, at least she won' t have to go the traditional actors' route of living in awful digs while they learn their craft .
i' ll look after her ,
says cranham. he' s certainly an example to follow when it comes to staying in work for nearly five decades. it' s all a question of timing and keeping up with the changes, he says .
the 67 - year - old was speaking in edinburgh ahead of the film festival premiere of flying blind, a bbc films co - production and his third movie this year after maleficent and suspension of disbelief. directed by katarzyna klimkiewicz, it' s a british drama about an aviation scientist, played by helen mccrory, who is engaged in secret state work when she finds herself the object of a foreign student' s affections. cranham, playing her father, is among those wondering if mccrory is doing the right thing in becoming friends with the stranger .
he is in scotland this week to narrate stravinsky' s the soldier' s tale with the bbc scottish symphony orchestra .
it' s fantastically alarming, because as i do it, (it ] is going straight out on radio 3 ,
he says. part of the bbc sso' s russian winter series, performed at glasgow' s city halls, it is the story of a man who makes a pact with the devil, with the 64 - year - old cranham playing the combined roles of the soldier, the devil and narrator .
“the play is self - energising: it resonates on a universal level, ” he says, showing me a crumpled, affecting letter from a stranger who had been moved to write to cranham about his own father' s battle with senility, after seeing the play. “too many of us know the situation: what are we going to do about dad? but also, i had been settling down into a series of character roles such as firs in the cherry orchard [ at the national in 2011 ]. now i' m back playing a leading man again. ”
cranham doesn’t think that the much - discussed debate over posh actors – the hiddlestons and the redmaynes – and the lack of opportunity for those from less well - off backgrounds is much to worry about. “it goes in cycles, ” he says, shaking his head. “when i was young, the older character actors who were playing at the national were all posh. then people such as tom courtenay and albert finney came along and changed all that. i was in the next generation and fantastically fortunate to be born when i was born. looking back now, i took it all for granted. ”
in 2016, he won the olivier award for best actor in a play for his role as andre in florian zeller' s' the father'. the play originated at the theatre royal bath' s ustinov studio in the autumn of 2014, before touring the country and transferring to the west end in the summer of 2015, and returning to the duke of york' s theatre in spring 2016. the play received an unprecedented five star review from every leading national press publication, and cranham' s performance was routinely described as' the performance of his life' (whatsonstage. com)' .
from school he went to the national youth theatre and rada. from shakespeare to pinter, from orton to chekhov, it would be quicker to list what cranham hasn' t done in the theatre or who he hasn' t met. if he has any advice to young actors it is to look out for remarkable writing .
if you can, try not to get yourself manacled financially so that you have to do some terrible old rubbish early on. try to get yourself a cv of decent stuff, some good writing. i was very lucky in that i was around for the right period. a lot of it is timing .
the astonishment with which the father has been greeted has not, however, passed him by. “my agent said, ‘it’s not a play, it’s an experience. ’” everything in it is ever - so - slightly skew - whiff. strangers wander into the home of pyjama - clad andre, addressing him as an intimate. single roles are shared among various actors in a subtly changing set, so that the viewer, like the lead character, can never be certain of anything. where the traditional alzheimer’s narrative encourages pity, the father never allows us to know more than andre. “if i get it right, ” says cranham, “you should be on his side. ”
we are at the tricycle theatre in north - west london. wearing a black jacket and knotted blue silk scarf coupled with navy tracksuit bottoms, cranham resembles a mythical beast: the top half of noël coward, the bottom half of danny dyer. his mouth is framed by bright white bristles, his hair short, spiky and silver. he is 70 but gets cast older. “when they hire someone in their 80s, they tend to fall asleep on trains and miss the matinee. ” not that he is claiming spring - chicken status: “my memory’s not what it was. ” doesn’t that suit playing andre? “no! you need to give people their cues. ” he pushes out a blast of rasping laughter .
glamorous the court may have been, but it was also part of a theatre scene fashioning a bleak new vision of england through the strange, violent imaginations of joe orton, bond and pinter. “to be suited and booted and get to speak lines like something from a jacobean tragedy, ” marvels cranham of plays such as loot, the caretaker and entertaining mr sloane, all of which he starred in. shakespeare never did it for him: “too much fat. whereas you get the opening sequence in the birthday party, with the landlady and stanley, and it' s like a dark donald mcgill postcard. and when you come from the 1950s the only sexual expression you could find was in seaside postcards. those orton and pinter plays: they spoke of what i knew. ”
cranham, who is two parts fruity - voiced luvvie, one part rough - cut cockney, has been part of the furniture on stage and screen since leaving rada in the 1960s. he' s best known for the television period drama shine on harvey moon, which ran on itv from 1982 to 1985, but he has also appeared in a string of british films, such as layer cake, hot fuzz, gangster no 1, made in dagenham and the bbc' s oranges are not the only fruit. he even popped up a couple of sunday nights ago as uncle mikhail in the bbc' s war and peace. “i wasn' t going to take it because it was such a small part, but then all of barnsbury [ the part of islington that he lives in ] saw it, so that was ok. ”
denise gough in people, places and things, which first showed in the national’s dorfman theatre and is due to transfer to the west end in the spring. photograph: pr image
it was called “career changing”, “ astonishing ”, and “emotionally shattering” and now denise gough’s memorable performance in people, places & things at the national theatre has won her a top award from theatre critics .
gough was named best actress at a lunchtime ceremony for the critics’ circle theatre awards 2015 in london .
she won the best newcomer prize in the same awards three years ago, for desire under the elms at the lyric hammersmith, but has admitted nearly giving up on acting after a year of rejections before she got the national part .
“times were really tough, ” she told the sunday times. “and i was thinking, i can’t afford to go on living like this. in my mid - 20s, i was, like, fuck it, i’ll do waitressing. but i found it too depressing. i was helping my sister out with her kids, but it was mortifying to be charging my sister to look after my own nephews and nieces because i was broke. ”
then came the role as a recovering addict in duncan macmillan’s play, which first showed in the national’s dorfman theatre and is due to transfer to the west end in the spring .
there were three awards for the royal court theatre including best new play, going to martin mcdonagh’s black comedy hangmen, which is enjoying a west end run at wyndham’s theatre. the play also won anna fleischle the best designer award .
the theatre’s third prize went to the actor david moorst, who won the jack tinker award for best newcomer for his role in violence and son .
judges gave the best musical award to bend it like beckham, based on the film of the same name. it was a production critics loved but was not enjoyed in sufficient numbers by the public. it is due to close in march after a nine - month run .
the other awards went to robert icke, winning best director for his version of oresteia at the almeida, three hours 40 minutes of gripping greek tragedy that made a surprise transfer to the west end; and the most promising playwright prize went to james fritz for four minutes twelve seconds at hampstead theatre downstairs and trafalgar studios .
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mr. sloane, entertaining mr. sloane, duke of york' s theatre, london, 1976
tommy, gangster no. 1 (also known as gangster nr. 1), pagoda film, 2000
also appeared in the clot, heart of the high country, and making waves .
corporal jack salt (a sapper), danger u. x. b. , thames television, 1979
gus mercer, el c. i. d. , granada television, 1989
also appeared in the bell, the black and blue lamp, thecontractor, donkey' s years, dunrulin, normal services, the sin bin, a sort of innocence, and the vision thing .
at the end of the second world war, the little mining town of lochgelly in fife boasted a miner' s institute, a library, a fish and chip shop and an italian ice - cream bar, mazzonis .
the latter had a stylish art - deco shopfront and an interior of peppermint - green marble and chrome, with a jukebox that played 78s .
the only acting i knew when i was a boy came from lochgelly ,
he recalls .
with a double bill, people would live their lives in the cinema. you would even see babies being breastfed in the audience .
he spent a string of childhood stays in lochgelly with his relatives. the stories of his mother, margaret mackay ferguson, and his aunt, who had down' s syndrome, living with his grandparents in a tiny two - bedroom flat on lochgelly' s dundas street, are the stuff of memoirs. most of all, though, he remembers the cinemas :
when i was in lochgelly as a boy, i went to the cinema every night – and on sundays i used to go to cowdenbeath and see something there .
the acting career that was inspired in part by those films has been remarkably diverse. they' ve run from his first tv role in coronation street to memorable dramas such as prospero' s books and a starring role as dr philip channard in hellbound: hellraiser ii, a cult hit about to get its 20th - anniversary dvd release in the us.
kenneth cranham ( born 12 december 1944 ) is a scottish-born film , television , radio and stage actor . he is popularly known for his work in hellbound : hellraiser ii and valkyrie . 
kenneth cranham (born 12 december 1944) is a scottish-born film, television, radio and stage actor. he is popularly known for his work in hellbound: hellraiser ii and valkyrie.
kenneth cranham (born 12 december 1944) is a scottish-born film, television, radio and stage actor. he is popularly known for his work in hellbound: hellraiser ii and valkyrie.