CityLife

Interview: Count Arthur Strong (aka Steve Delaney)

Count Arthur Strong

Steve Delaney is looking forward to a couple of weeks in the sun.

“Oh, I’m gonna have a holiday! I’m going away for a fortnight in August. That’s the big news.

“We went away last year for the first time in years and I thought, how can you not do this every year?

“You’ve let 10 years pass and you haven’t been away anywhere apart from an odd week down to Cornwall or something like that, but I’d like a proper holiday so put that on the headline!”

Of course, for the man behind the legendary Count Arthur Strong – the increasingly doddery, chest-puffed old luvvie who malaprops his way through anecdotes from his uninspiring past in the theatre and barely existent TV career – Delaney has been pretty industrious of late, exactly the opposite scenario to that of his creation Arthur, who’s more likely to be discovered supping a blagged pint down the Shoulder Of Mutton.

“I’m very busy at the minute, I’m very pleased that’s the way it’s turned out,” explains Delaney. “To have a radio series (on Radio 4) every year is brilliant. It’s just absolutely broadened the audience for Arthur.

“The radio series has been brilliant for us being able to fill theatres.

“I can’t understand why some people move into TV and they never mention the fact that it began with the radio show. Personally, I owe a debt to radio.”

Though Arthur has slipped on his slippers and settled quite nicely in radio land where he’s built up a following of loyal fans (and has another series commissioned) there is talk of a move into TV.

As Arthur is perennially deluded by his over inflated notion of his own self-importance, is the success of landing a TV series likely to change him?

“I doubt it. I wouldn’t think so, no. In the show we’ve mapped out, he doesn’t change during it.

“He’s just the same and he only landed getting a show because of the recession. [The TV companies have] started putting out things they can for little money. That’s the basic theory.

Different

He’s not going to get better at it at his age. He’ll carry on exactly how he is.

“There may be a slight inflated air of pomposity, if that’s possible, but I doubt it because he’s always had an extremely high opinion of himself and his abilities. I don’t know how that can get higher, frankly,” he laughs.

At the moment, Delaney is working through TV ideas with Graham Linehan, co-creator of Father Ted, and Jeremy Dyson of The League Of Gentlemen.

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather work with on it. I’m delighted that I’ve ended up working with Graham and Jeremy.

“They’re both brilliant in their own way. We have a riot when we get together in the office.

“It’s not the sitcom version of the radio show, our idea is that that will follow later. It’s a broader show that people can tap into, that introduces Arthur to people that may not know him from the radio. And there will be a lot of people that don’t know him.

“So it’s a broader spectrum, more acceptable format really. In a sense it’s too much of a risk to try and plonk the sitcom straight on the television with no introduction of the character.”

After all, Arthur is a character that can split a room; as the old codger squints through his specs wondering where his hat might be, then discovers a stray coat hanger still in the jacket of his suit despite the fact he’s been wearing it for half an hour, some are creased in two with uncontrollable laughter, whereas a small contingent wonder quite what they’ve walked into. Delaney wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I love that people can be sat there very confused about it. I think that works very well live, but I don’t think that would work so well at home.

“I think people would just switch off. In theatre people can’t just walk into a new show in a split second if they don’t like something.

“I like that notion that there are always a few people in the audience that don’t understand where they are. But you have to be a bit more careful with TV in terms of how you arrive with the things you want to do.”

But first the latest tour must be completed; the last ever shows of The Man Behind the Smile tour are at the Dancehouse next week.

Though the show will be a slightly different beast to the one that headed out on the road last year, there are changes “that happen organically, bits here and there”.

“One wonders if you did the show for the rest of your life what it would be like at the end of it with the very slight changes that happen almost every time you do it, the odd line and word, things like that, how far from the script you’d end up.”

Count Arthur Strong is at The Dancehouse from February 17 to 19, 2010.