(Image: National Pictures / Hannah McKay)
After 50 years in showbusiness, Kevin Kennedy tells Andrew White why a dark new role is sending him back on the road.
After half a century in showbusiness, Kevin Kennedy is preparing to do something that sounds more like life in a touring band than the comfortable routine you might expect of one of Britain’s most recognisable actors.
“We’re doing one-nighters and that’s proper rock and roll,” he says.
“We just turn up, do it and leave. It’s how actors used to be.”
The former Coronation Street favourite is talking about The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical, a new adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Gothic tale that premieres at Darlington Hippodrome before touring.
Written and produced by Darlington native Mark J. Middlemiss over 18 months, the musical is due to tour the UK and Ireland for six months.
For Kennedy, best known as lovelorn eccentric Norman ‘Curly’ Watts, the show offers more than the thrill of being new.
He loves Wilde, and believes this particular story feels surprisingly well suited to our own times.
The musical follows Wilde’s original 1890 story, in which the young Dorian Gray’s beauty, wealth and charm come with a terrible bargain involving his portrait.
Kennedy believes its themes still resonate in an age of social media, ego and carefully curated online identities.
Kevin Kennedy is preparing for a dark new role as The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical opens in Darlington (Image: National Pictures / Hannah McKay)
“We seem to be moving further and further away from humanity right now,” he says.
“That’s perfect for Oscar Wilde because when he wrote it, that’s absolutely what he had in mind."
Kennedy is also drawn to the production’s “gaslit, foggy London feel” and echoes of Victorian music hall.
There is also the small matter of his character.
Kennedy plays Mr Isaacs, an unscrupulous theatre proprietor who is only a minor figure in Wilde’s novel.
For an actor, the lack of a fully formed character comes with an obvious advantage.
“It makes my job much easier because it’s a blank canvas, which means I can do what I want with it,” he says
And what Kennedy wants to do with it is apparently to be thoroughly horrible.
“There’s no redeeming features, you can literally get away with a lot of stuff,” he says.
“You can be as horrible as you like in this particular part, there’s no template. As an actor, that’s very exciting.
"I’m looking forward to doing that and seeing how dastardly I can get on stage. He’s not a pantomime baddie, this is pure evil.”
Kennedy likens Isaacs to the sinister Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a show he knows well from his own extensive stage career.
But there is another reason this production feels different - no one knows yet how audiences will react.
“It’s absolutely brand new, which makes it scary because we don’t know what the reaction’s going to be,” he says.
Darlington audiences will be the first to see the musical when its tour opens there.
“I’ve played Darlington many times and the audiences there have always been great," he says.
“They come to have a good night out and enjoy themselves and with this being a new work, I think they will be very supportive.
“Of course, it’s the first time ever in the world it’s been shown and I can’t think of a better place. It’s a feather in the cap for the good people of Darlington.”
For all the stage roles that have followed, there is no getting away from the character with whom Kennedy remains most closely associated.
Kevin Kennedy as Norman ‘Curly’ Watts in Coronation Street, a role he played for 20 years (Image: CHAMELEON MUSIC MARKETING)
He was just 23 when he joined Coronation Street as Curly Watts.
The young jobbing actor never expected the role to last 20 years. At first, he simply liked that it was close to home, with no digs or washing to worry about.
Walking onto those famous sets also felt different from starting an ordinary acting job.
“I kind of knew all the characters,” he says.
“Most of the time as an actor, you turn up on the first day with a lot of other actors you’ve never met before. But with this it was different.
“I ‘knew’ Eddie Yates and Elsie Tanner and I knew the Rovers Return and I’d seen the sets. It’s something you can’t escape.”
Kennedy believes Curly endured because audiences could recognise something of themselves in him.
Kevin Kennedy became a familiar face to millions as lovelorn Curly Watts in Coronation Street (Image: CHAMELEON MUSIC MARKETING)
“I think he was an everyman,” he says.
“He wasn’t the best looking guy, he wasn’t the hunk of the street, you couldn’t really pigeonhole him.
“He was lovelorn, he tried very hard and wasn’t getting very far and people were very sympathetic to that character. They found him funny and entertaining.”
Decades later, the reach of the character can still surprise him. Kennedy says he has been recognised as Curly as far afield as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
“The amount of people who still remember you is a very humbling experience,” he says.
“I think everyone in the industry likes to have their work remembered and appreciated and I’m particularly proud of it.”
But perhaps the best measure of Kennedy’s career is not fame or the longevity of one character.
He was 14 when he began performing, long before Coronation Street, West End musicals and years of touring stages around the world.
Asked what that teenager would think of Kevin Kennedy still doing it 50 years later. he says: “I just wanted to be an actor.
“I loved what I was doing. I loved my time in youth theatre, I loved my time in drama school.
"Before Coronation Street, I was wandering about being a jobbing actor and loving every minute of it.
"I spent 20 years on Coronation Street and then 20 years on a stage somewhere.
“So the 14-year-old me would say, ‘Well done, you’ve fulfilled what you wanted to do and you’re still doing it’.”
From playing bass in Manchester band The Borderline to embracing musical theatre after Coronation Street, Kennedy’s career has repeatedly presented him with something different.
Even now, his appetite for new challenges has not dimmed.
“I’ve just finished a summer tour, I’m just heading out with this one and I just love it,” he says.
“Something my dad said was, ‘If you find a job you love doing, you’ll never work a day in your life.’ And he was right.”
Next comes Dorian Gray, “proper rock and roll” and the chance to discover how dastardly Mr Isaacs can be.
And Darlington gets to see it before anybody else.
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“Darlington can have the bragging rights of a lifetime by saying we were there first to see it,” Kennedy says.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: A New Musical opens at Darlington Hippodrome on Monday, October 19.
Tickets are available from the show’s website and Darlington Hippodrome.