Ricky Tomlinson on picketing, prison and new play United We Stand

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/oct/27/united-we-stand-ricky-tomlinson-picketing-prison-play

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Ricky Tomlinson recalls how he made the switch from the building trade into show business. “I got a call from this director, Roland Joffé, who said he was going to be in Oldham and wanted me to do a workshop. Well, I’m a City & Guilds plasterer, not an actor, so I load my van, drive all the way there with my tools and ask him where he wants me to put it.”

He convulses with the barking laugh one usually associates with the discoloured underpants and terrible posture of his alter ego, Jim Royle. He is spread out on a white leather sofa at the Green Room, the cabaret bar and supper club that he co-owns in Liverpool, and where he appears regularly in his unofficial role as ambassador to the city. Tomlinson says he fell into acting only because he couldn’t find work in the building trade: “It had reached the point where no site in the country was willing to employ me.”

Tomlinson was blacklisted following his involvement in the national construction workers’ strike of 1972. He and fellow union activist Des Warren were given two- and three-year prison sentences respectively, having organised the picketing of a Shrewsbury construction site known as Brookside. He remains a vociferous voice on behalf of the Shrewsbury 24 campaign, which is seeking to have the pickets’ convictions overturned.

Now Tomlinson has become the subject of a play himself. United We Stand, which arrives in Shrewsbury this week, is a touring production that uses the tropes of old-school agit-prop – folksong, political skits and cabaret routines – to give a satirical account of the 1972 strike and the court cases that followed. “We tried to work out what the 55-day trial would cost in today’s terms,” says the writer, Neil Gore, “and it would be over £10m – to convict two builders whose picketing methods were peaceful and within the law.”

Tomlinson does not perform in the play but was happy to give the project his blessing due to the track record of Gore’s company, Townsend Productions, for high-octane political drama. The company has previously created a musical drama about the Tolpuddle Martyrs and a two-handed adaptation of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. “Robert Tressell’s novel is almost a sacred text for Ricky,” Gore explains. “I think that’s what persuaded him to trust us with his story.”

“I read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in prison and it changed my life,” Tomlinson confirms. “It was given to me by the governor, who was a wonderful man – an ex-construction worker who told me it was the building labourer’s bible. Everything that Tressell described – dangerous, inhuman conditions, irregular employment, pitiful pay – were exactly the same things we were protesting about in 1972.”

Twenty-four pickets were charged with conspiracy to intimidate, unlawful assembly and affray. “What actually happened was that we addressed workers in the canteen,” Tomlinson says. “It was so unfit for purpose Des Warren said he wouldn’t put a match to it. There were no arrests, or any complaints registered with the police. Then, a full three months later, two officers knocked on my door and informed me that I had been charged with conspiracy.”

Gore, who also plays the part of Tomlinson, based the drama on his own research, though Tomlinson was on hand to supply personal anecdotes and splashes of colour. “Ricky told me a great story about how the Sunday People tried to run a defamatory profile of Des Warren, claiming that he had a Jaguar and a colour television,” Gore says.

Tomlinson unleashes his boisterous laugh. “That Jaguar was ancient – it wasn’t even on the road. Dezzie’s cat had a litter of kittens on the back seat. And it wasn’t a colour television at all. It had some sort of filter in front of it that made everything look green.”

Did Tomlinson offer Gore any tips on how to play him? “Well – I’ve got a beard ... ” Gore responds. “No,” Tomlinson says firmly. “I told him it’s his interpretation, he has to do it his own way. When I was in Jimmy McGovern’s television play Hillsborough I met the father of the victim that I was playing, but I said, “I don’t want to impersonate you, I don’t want to study your mannerisms –please, just trust me to be truthful.”

Tomlinson is collecting material for his own documentary about the Shrewsbury case, and still travels tirelessly up and down the country raising awareness (the day before we meet he addressed a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference). The main issue of contention is that confidential papers relating to the case may not be released until 2021 despite Parliament voting overwhelmingly in January this year in favour of making the documents available.

“It beggars belief that a collection of memos about a bunch of hairy-arsed builders are still being held back in the interests of national security,” Tomlinson says. “Four of the Shrewsbury pickets are now dead. The oldest is 89, and I’ve just turned 75, so it seems obvious to me what’s going on. The government doesn’t want the truth coming out until we’re all safely dead and buried. But this play is part of the mission to keep the issue in the public eye. It’s a way of reminding the authorities that we’re not going anywhere just yet.”

• United We Stand is at the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury from 30 October to 1 November, then touring. Details: Townsend Productions