Liverpool Lothario?
Keeping Up Appearances'
Richard Bucket
THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE INTERVIEW
WITH MR. SWIFT DONE BY BRITISH TELEVISION
CLICK ON THE LOGO FOR MORE INFO.
by British televisions A.S. Berman
Love it or hate it....and surveys suggest that the numbers are pretty
evenly split down these lines. Keeping Up Appearances is one of Britain's
most popular exports since the American colonists.
As British Television Magazine recently discovered, a large part of that
success has to do with actor Clive Swift who plays hen-pecked husband Richard,
and the unexpected attraction he holds for many of the programme's female
fans. As you will see, no one was more surprised by this revelation than
the actor himself.
[What follows is an excerpt from one of the most extensive interviews we've
ever conducted with an actor. In the complete interview, Swift recalls his
experiences on the set of "Keeping Up Appearances", as well as
other memorable TV shows on which he has appeared.]
Swift: I was just thinking that's another side of me that people may not
know of. I've been an actor since 1959, and I've done a hell of a lot of
television over the years. It's amazing how much some of the fans know.
I thought [when I was last in the US] they knew more about me and what I
did than I knew about myself [laughing]. Extraordinary. Some people live
a little by proxy, don't they?
BT: It sounds like you've already sampled the internet if you're making
those kinds of observations...
Swift: No, I'm not on that. I'm just struggling with my word processor still.
BT: If you think they know a lot about you now...
Swift: Can I ask you? I haven't surfed the internet at all, so I can't
imagine what they say...
BT: It's an amalgam of things they've read and thought along with pictures,
discussions, everything. There are hundreds and hundreds of adoring Clive
Swift groupies in North America.
Swift: I'll fly over tonight. [Sounding more excited] Really?! Is that because
they think that I'm like Richard Bucket, that I'm sort of a pliable guy?
BT: I wouldn't even want to approach the psychology of it, but it would
have to be from that show. So if you ever need a pick-me-up...
Swift: It is lovely, I must say. We stopped making the show in 1995 and
I haven't really done any television since. I'm glad to say that actually
this week I'm involved in the pilot of a new sitcom, although we don't know
what will happen to it, if anything.
BT: What's it called?
Swift: It's called A Small Addition. It's being made by a company called
Hat Trick, who did Drop the Dead Donkey. Also, I don't know if you know
that another kind of interesting thing ­p; have you seen Drop the Dead
Donkey? Well my older brother, David Swift, plays Henry Davenport the newsreader.
BT: Everyone seems to have worked with everyone else or be related to everyone
else in British TV.
Swift: Well England's a very small place [laughing]. I started acting before
my brother. He was in business, and then he married a girl who was very
keen on the theatre and an actress herself. And then he just took the plunge.
This was about four years after me I suppose.
BT: What would your second career choice have been if acting hadn't worked
out?
Swift: Do you know, it never occurred to me. I'm asked that quite a lot.
I mean I got a middling kind of degree at Cambridge in English literature.
I was so involved in acting ­p; I played Falstaff in both parts of Henry
IV, and got very good notices. And while I was at Cambridge, Peter Hall
actually offered me a job. He said "oh come to Stratford and be a part
of the Company." This was in 1960. And so I thought well, somebody's
offered me a job. I better take it. I was rather impractical. My father
was in business, he sold furniture. We were a Liverpool family and Dad had
said "look, I don't want you in the business because you will ruin
me in two weeks ­p; you're such a dreamer." So I really hadn't completed
anything else at all. And I often wonder what the hell else I could've done.
I suppose I would've tried to teach somebody something, God forbid.
-- from British Television #9, on sale now!
Josephine Tewson Interview
