Stephen Tompkinson
- 59 years old
- English
- Actor
Press clippings Page 3
TV review: The Other One series 1 episode 1
How well you get on with The Other One will depend on your tolerance for cringe factor.
Alex Finch, Comedy To Watch, 12th June 2020The Other One: funny, rude and piercingly sad
In this comedy of affairs and second wives, we see the family as I like to see it: generous, expansive, richly humane.
Rachel Cooke, The New Statesman, 3rd June 2020Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's long-running Channel 4 comedy dwelt on the staff of GlobeLink News, constantly fending off the attentions of Gus Hedges (Robert Duncan), hatchet man for their (unseen) new owner, Sir Roysten Merchant.
Hedges, a management droid speaking exclusively in jargon, is determined to make GlobeLink more sensationalist and tabloid but embattled editor George Dent (Jeff Rawle) sticks to his guns. Stephen Tompkinson and Neil Pearson brought a plausibly worn quality to their hack characters.
A brilliant satire on the commercialisation of news in the era of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell, Drop the Dead Donkey must surely have been an inspiration behind W1A (2014-) in its targeting of mind-boggling managerial interference.
Joe Sommerlad, The Independent, 6th September 2018Eric, Ernie and Me, written by the estimably witty Dundonian Neil Forsyth, was the tale of market trader Eddie Braben's breakdowns as he rose and rose from scribbling gags on paper bags to giving us what many rightly think of as the television of the 1970s, the M&W Christmas specials.
Stephen Tompkinson was pitch-perfect as Braben, but the standout find was Mark Bonnar as Eric Morecambe. Flawlessly, he began to inhabit the soul of Eric, but slowly, moving from hesitant to comfortable, as indeed the clever script had Eric and Ernie move, under clever Eddie's tutelage, from vaudeville gagsters to two pals taking the gentle rip out of each other on primetime TV: the 1977 special was watched by 28 million.
Interestingly, Eric, as played by Bonnar written by Forsyth, came across as the reactionary scaredy-cat; Ernie Wise as the ebullient, exuberant, travel-loving hoofer. What a lovely programme, rewatchable often, if only for Braben's finest gags.
Euan Ferguson, The Guardian, 2nd January 2018Because Christmas wouldn't be Christmas and all that, a double dose of E&E. First, a trawl of their archive of home movies from the 1950s and 60s, seen for the first time by Eric's surviving relatives. Then, on BBC Four, an engaging Neil Forsyth-scripted drama starring Stephen Tompkinson as Eddie Braben, the Liverpudlian co-responsible for the massive success of the duo in the 70s but who was worked to exhaustion under pressure.
David Stubbs, The Guardian, 29th December 2017Eric, Ernie & Me, BBC4 review
It is good to see a writer getting some credit for a change. And deservedly so.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 29th December 2017Stephen Tompkinson and Mark Bonnar interview
Stephen Tompkinson and Mark Bonnar on starring in a touching BBC4 drama celebrating Morecambe & Wise writer Eddie Braben.
TV Times, 12th December 2017The genius writer who brought all of us sunshine
Morecambe and Wise are our two most treasured comedians, their television career as a comedy double act will never be eclipsed.
David Stephenson, The Daily Express, 3rd December 2017Stephen Tompkinson to play Eddie Braben in BBC biopic
Stephen Tompkinson will play Morecambe & Wise writer Eddie Braben in BBC Four's Eric, Ernie & Me. Meanwhile Mark Bonnar and Neil Maskell will play the comedy stars.
British Comedy Guide, 6th October 2017Nigel Havers, Denis Lawson, Stephen Tompkinson in Art
Nigel Havers, Denis Lawson and Stephen Tompkinson will star as Serge, Marc and Ivan in the new touring production of Art, which kicks off at Cambridge Arts Theatre in February.
What's On Stage, 19th September 2017