Rob Brydon: 'People Tell Me To Cheer Up'

HE’S BEST KNOWN AS GENIAL UNCLE BRYN IN GAVIN & STACEY as well as for his drolly funny trips around England and Europe with Steve Coogan and for his quick-witted hosting of Would I Lie To You? But it seems Rob Brydon can now add “sex symbol” to his CV thanks to Swimming With Men, the British comedy film where he spends much of his time in just a pair of trunks.

- Simon Button

The genial-as-Bryn Welshman laughs at the very idea, then deadpans: “I think it’s the inevitable next phase of my career. It’s a natural progression: Uncle Bryn, The Trip, Would I Lie To You?, then sex symbol. You can’t stand in the way of progress.”

In the film he plays Eric, a bored accountant going though a midlife crisis who joins a group of synchronised swimmers (played by the likes of Jim Carter, Daniel Mays and Rupert Graves) and finds himself en route to the world championship in Milan. It’s a first-ever leading-man role for Rob, who got his start in radio more than 30 years ago and has been acting since the mid-1990s, but he’s taking it in his stride.

“It’s pretty good,” says the 53-year-old, speaking down the phone from his home in Richmond and sounding as laid-back as the characters he specialises in playing. “I love my work and I’m so lucky to get to do what I do but it’s not my life. I’m aware this is the first time I’ve had top billing in a film and it pleases me, but that’s about it.”

He is, however, genuinely pleased about how Swimming With Men has turned out. “It’s an unusual story,” Brydon feels. “At the very least you can’t go, ‘Oh God, not another film about middle-aged men’s synchronised swimming’. It’s interesting because women in particular seem to like the film. Maybe there’s something about seeing men being very vulnerable, real and honest.

“I know someone who saw it who said, ‘I expected to laugh but I didn’t expect to cry’. They didn’t expect it to be so touching and I think one of the reasons it’s so touching is that you see all these men who are all a bit adrift, they’ve all sort of come loose from their moorings.”