Man Of Many Faces

From playing an unscrupulous reporter to a conflicted priest and now a comedy writing legend this Christmas, Weybridge’s Stephen Tompkinson is one of television’s most recognisable stars. Duncan Hall meets him on the set of his latest play

- Duncan Hall

HIS leading roles in Drop The Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel, Wild At Heart and DCI Banks have put Stephen Tompkinson among television royalty. So it’s a shock to descend to Studio Two in London’s Trafalgar Studios and be within literal spitting distance of the 52-year-old as he appears in Patrick Marber’s intimate three-hander The Red Lion. Set in the confines of a Northern League club’s tiny dressing room – stinking of liniment and dominated by piles of muddy football kit – Stephen plays Kidd, a slick manager who sniffs a possible change in his fortunes when talented young striker Jordan turns up for a trial.

For Stephen the play was a chance to marry his passions – sport and theatre – as well as work with Patrick, whose children go to the same Surrey school as his teenage daughter Daisy. “I have always admired him very much,” says Stephen, who initially took on the role at Newcastle’s Live Theatre before its transfer into London. “I wanted to go back to Live Theatre – I had done a play there previously but never worked with [director] Max Roberts who has run it for 40 years.” Patrick’s play made its 2015 debut at the National Theatre, but in its Newcastle incarnation it was completely reworked and relocated to the North East – home of the Northern League, the oldest football league in the country. “Before the manager had a Cockney accent,” says Stephen. “It was an image the audience had been fed ever since the black market spiv of First World War. Immediately there was too much distance between the audience and Kidd.”