Graham Fellows interview

Actor Graham Fellows is probably best known via alter ego, keyboard-playing northerner John Shuttleworth. Here, Lucy Wood finds out more about his career and his plans to eventually pension off the keyboard-playing northerner...

Graham Fellows has experienced two sorts of stardom. At the tender age of 19, he was on Top of the Pops fronting the pastiche punk band, Jilted John, famous for the hit single, Gordon Is A Moron (Video). Fast-forward a few years, and he has morphed into John Shuttleworth, he of the red polo-neck, slicked-back hair and daft tunes on his keyboard.

The connection between the two is, of course, music, and Sheffield-born Graham - who couldn't play a single chord on the guitar - has molded it to suit him.

"My dream was to be in the RSC and I trained as an actor, but eventually went into comedy music. Jilted John was really good fun. I was around at the time of punk but I wasn't really into that; I was more of a part-time punk, just at weekends. In my first year of drama college at Manchester Polytechnic, I spent a lot of time in the refectory mucking about with the guitars there. I couldn't play but someone taught me how to tune it into an open chord, so I got the rift for Gordon Is A Moron, and the song came from that. I went to a local punk label, which re-recorded it and with that, John Peel picked it up and it took off."

"Many Gordons have come up to me over the years and I'm amazed that, instead of punching me, they've shaken my hand. It has been hijacked for political means and I don't like that. Rory Bremner changed the words to relate to Tony Blair - but I didn't mind that, because I was being paid for it! There are quite a few people who've done their own versions on YouTube, which is nice - and one of my daughter's friends has Gordon on their iPod."

While there is much to be said of Graham's bona-fide 'pop' career, it is The Shuttleworths we are interested in. His transformation into the bespectacled character is quite startling; John looks nothing like Graham, who is quick to point out he is nothing like John. "I like him", he clarifies, "but I'm very different. I wouldn't wear the clothes he does, for a start. And the character came about by chance in 1986..."

"John Shuttleworth was just a hobby; it was just me mucking about," said Graham, 52, a father-of-four who lives in the pretty Lincolnshire market town of Louth. "But eventually I got an agent and got some gigs. My agent sent a tape and I got a radio pilot." That pilot became a series on BBC Radio 4, and then another, and another. The list goes on.

"When I got my radio series, people were still making shows on analogue," he laughed. "In fact, I fooled the BBC for the first two series. I made them using reel-to-reel when they didn't want me to - they never knew the difference."

TV followed, and while Graham loves these, he also loves performing live. "Everyone gets nervous before they perform," he said. "If they don't then there's something wrong. It's about controlling it and using it. Don't drink alcohol before a gig - that would be silly - and don't eat too much."

"I played to 25,000 people when I supported Blur at Mile End stadium, and that was less nerve-wracking than a smaller audience. There is nothing worse than sitting in the back room of a pub with three or four people staring at you. Now, that's scary!"

Graham has other characters under his belt. Take Brian Appleton, for example, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer. Like the Shuttleworths, Brian has a background and history - an authenticity which sets Graham's work apart from other character comedians.

So who does Graham admire? "I was a big fan of Mike Leigh when I was a teenager," he said. "I do think he's been off the boil though. I was in London recently for an audition and he walked by with an old trolley. He looked like a tramp; maybe he was doing some research."

"I also liked Alan Bennett and Ian McKellan. I often get asked which comedy I like nowadays, and I really like Ideal. But I just don't get Noel Fielding. I don't understand what's funny about what he does."

Graham has plans for John - he wants to eventually send him into retirement... not into oblivion, but to cartoon. Already, the character has been made into an animation, of which Graham is very proud of, and he'd love to see John "live out his older years" in cartoon form.

"John Shuttleworth plays with the idea that everything's a bit crap," Graham concluded. "John plays the keyboard thinking he's good but he's not. It was the same with Jilted John; a pastiche. I have had some great fun with him. For me, I'd like to do more acting. I think that's my way forward."

To find out more about Graham visit www.grahamfellows.co.uk