Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston reunite for RTS Midlands screening 

The nation’s favourite TV husband and wife, Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston, are roadtripping their way round Britain in their new show for More4, revisiting places that shaped them as performers and people.

Ricky, Sue & a Trip or Two is a celebration of their 40 years as an on-screen married couple, first as Brookside’s Sheila and Bobby Grant, then as Jim and Barbara in The Royle Family, and the lasting bond it has created between them.

Episode two, which is based around the Midlands, was shown at an RTS Midlands screening at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), followed by a Q&A with the two stars.

Jazz Gowans, Creative Director at Nine Lives Media, who was behind the show, revealed how it came together: “We’d been working with the brilliant Colin McKeown [co-creator of Brookside] and his team at LA Productions, trying to find the right project. They rang up and said Ricky and Sue might be available at the same time. We were jumping up and down and pinching ourselves.

“The idea for what they’d do was collaborative. It was very much driven by what they felt was real and authentic.”

Tomlinson said they knew that this very personal travelogue would work. “The chemistry between us was just natural. We have a lot in common – we’re both fanatical Liverpool supporters. And we have a good laugh. We’re lucky at our age [Tomlinson is 84 and Johnston is 80] still to be working and having a laugh and a joke.”

The first episode in the three-part series focuses on Liverpool, the city they’re most closely associated with, but the second reveals some surprising, and emotional, connections to the Midlands.

Many of their guides to Birmingham were in the audience at the MAC, including comedian Shazia Mirza, who tried to persuade plain-food-loving Tomlinson of the delights of curry with a meal at the Michelin-starred Opheem, and local historian Professor Carl Chinn, who navigated a trip on the canal.

Director Debbie Isitt, whom Tomlinson worked with on the film Nativity!, was also there, and a community group who were out rowing on the canal when they saw the Royle pair go by, and lost an oar in surprise.

There were tears amid the laughter, as Tomlinson recalled his time in Shrewsbury Prison, after being jailed for his activities as a trade union picket during the national building workers’ strike in 1972. He and construction worker Des Warren were known as the Shrewsbury Two as people protested at their unfair imprisonment – including Johnston.

“We did our time, but we wouldn’t wear clothes and we wouldn’t work because we shouldn’t have been there,” recalls Tomlinson. “It killed Dessie; they were giving him the liquid cosh [a cocktail of tranquillisers] and needle. I went on hunger strike for 31 days and was so ill they moved me to the prison hospital.

“One of the last times I saw Dessie before he died – he’d been hard as nails – he was just a crease in a sheet lying on a mattress.”

Johnston recalled the groundbreaking work she did as an actress with Theatre-in-Education at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre: “It was wonderful. It opened up children’s lives and minds. Teachers told us they had never seen their pupils react that way.

“When I did Brookside, the young make-up assistant remembered us going into her school when she was 11, and it affected her. We did things that mattered, they meant something.”

Johnston said she was proud they had shown off the often under-appreciated beauty of Birmingham in the episode, though, in typical Jim Royle style, Tomlinson said he wouldn’t be back for another curry: “No thanks, my arse still hasn’t recovered.”

The screening and panel, hosted by Nikki Tapper of BBC Radio WM, was an RTS Midlands event held at the Midlands Arts Centre on 20 March. It was produced by Jayne Rae.

Source: Royal Television Society Alison Jones

BBC This Town where it’s filmed – every location across Birmingham and the West Midlands

Druids Heath in south Birmingham

Although they are supposed to be high-rise flats in Chelmsley Wood, those were knocked down years ago. Doubling for them in This Town are the tower blocks in Druids Heath instead.

The high rises off Kimpton Close of Saxelby House, Kingswood House and Barratts House feature heavily as the one of the main character, Dante, played by Levi Brown.

Writer Knight spoke of his affection for the towers saying: “These blocks are beautiful when pigeons are flying at them and if you live in them, the view is amazing and you can see the curve of the earth. I wanted to reflect working class life as it is lived and not perceived by other people.”

A stage direction note by Knight in the script for the opening sequence with the tower blocks even read “the sunset dignifies the tower blocks of Chelmsley Wood”.

Nechells in Birmingham

Film crews went to Heartlands Parkway near Star City in Nechells to film scenes where a spaceman is being carried in the shadow of a motorway. The road’s distinctive diamond brickwork gives away the spot as you can see in this photo above. Thousands of motorists pass the section every day as they head to and from the direction of the Fort Shopping Centre.

Gravelly Hill

The iconic Birmingham landmark of Spaghetti Junction features in This Town but may look a little different. It’s because actors were underneath the motorway junction in Gravelly Hill.

West Bromwich

The Happy Trooper pub in Chelmsley Wood was knocked down many years ago so the set designers had to recreate it elsewhere. Swapping the sign, the film crew used the Horse and Coaches pub in Kesteven Road, Hateley Heath, West Bromwich. This is where some of the bizarre scenes take place in the show including a memorable one involving a space suit.

Aston

In the heart of Aston’s community is a modern church dating back to 1973. It was here in South Aston Church, in Upper Sutton Street, that filming took place to give an authentic feel of Birmingham in the 1980s.

Walsall

The busy junction between the M5 and M6 has some added glamour of featuring in This Town. Normally packed with queues, it is a scene where Dante and Jeannie connect in the drama. This filming location was on the canal bridge at Bescot that looks towards the two motorways when they link up.

Coventry

The BBC said Coventry was used for filming, aptly as it was the home to Two-Tone band The Specials and where the movement started.

Source: Birmingham Live

Channel 4 launches first equity strategy

Source: BROADCAST

Cillian Murphy to star in ‘Peaky Blinders’ film, shoot set for September

Speaking to Birmingham World at the premiere of his new BBC drama “The Town,” “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight confirmed that recent Oscar winner Cillian Murphy will be reprising his beloved role in the upcoming film version of the British crime drama. Knight said Murphy is “definitely” coming back, and filming on the “Peaky Blinders” movie kicks off this September.

“He definitely is returning for it. We’re shooting it in September just down the road in Digbeth,” Knight confirmed.

Murphy’s apparent return as Tommy Shelby for the “Peaky Blinders” movie isn’t too much of a shock considering the “Oppenheimer” star has long been vocal about his interest in starring in a “Peaky Blinders” film as long as the script was worthy enough.

“If there’s more story there, I’d love to do it,” Murphy told Rolling Stone U.K. last year about a “Peaky” movie. “But it has to be right. Steve Knight wrote 36 hours of television, and we left on such a high. I’m really proud of that last series. So, it would have to feel legitimate and justified to do more.”

Murphy told the Irish Star just last month ahead of winning the Oscar: “I have always said that if Knight delivers a script that I know he can deliver, because he is such a phenomenal writer, I’ll be there. … If we want to watch 50-year-old Tommy Shelby, I will be there. Let’s do it.”

During a conversation for Variety‘s Actors on Actors between Murphy and “Peaky Blinders” superfan Margot Robbie last year, she mentioned the series, saying, “Can we please talk about Tommy fucking Shelby for just one minute?” She then asked him about a potential spinoff movie, begging him to do one, to which Murphy said: “I mean, I’m open to the idea. I’ve always thought that if there’s more story to tell.”

Source: Variety