The actor, musician and all-round subversive talks about getting his own back on critic AA Gill, his favourite football song and why he’d really like a part that involves lying down
You’ve performed naked on stage with Max Bygraves, bared all in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and posed nude for the BBC’s Celebrity Painting Challenge. Do you enjoy getting your kit off? VerulamiumParkRanger
I should point out that in two of those instances, I was paid to do so. The Max Bygraves one, I chose to do, merely to disrupt his show. I did a whole one-man show naked at the Albany Empire called Whatever Happened to the AA Man’s Salute, so I’m not afraid to be naked. I don’t think Saltburn is up my alley, but if a part came along and I had to dance naked to a song at the end … considering the world that we live in now with Photoshopping and “enhancement”, I’d be absolutely fine with it, as long as I could have it written into my contract that there would be a small extension.
I don’t think there is a better TV villain than you, Keith. Isn’t it time you were offered your own series, assuming you’d be interested? Soufflet
Yes. But do I have to be a villain? I think I could be the Whistling Beardy Detective, living on a barge, a six-episode series. Or a copper in a deckchair. At 70, most parts I’d like to get would be sitting down or, even better, just the whole series lying in a bed, like The Singing Detective.
