Leslie proves he’s quite a character (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Leslie proves he’s quite a character

8:48am Monday 28th June 2010 in

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Outside family and friends, football and acting are Leslie Grantham’s principle passions.

Better known for his role as Dirty Den in EastEnders, for the past few months he has been touring the country as the ducking and diving Private Walker in Dad’s Army Marches On, while keeping an eye on England’s performances in the World Cup at the same time.

“Last Friday, the audience in Newcastle was phenomenal, even though England were playing. The Geordies must have known something was going to happen,” he said, referring to England’s dismal 0-0 draw with Algeria.

It was only natural for him to use the form of the national side to make a point about the stage show.

People see me in the street and say, ‘Hello, Den. When are you going back on EastEnders to sort that lot out?’

Leslie Grantham

“We are working more as a team. There are no egos. We have a company of 17 or 18 people. You have to get on,” he said. “The only people that count are the audience. They pay our wages. They have to get their money’s worth,” he added.

Two-and-a-half years ago, he came to the Alhambra as Private Walker in the first transition from television to stage – Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes. He seems to be enjoying himself travelling the country with the new show, a compilation of four episodes chosen by Dad’s Army writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

He said: “It’s the National Geographic tour. We’re just the tribute band, really. We have to look like captain Mainwaring, Private Godfrey, Corporal Jones and Private Walker, but we still have to provide something else because the audiences don’t want John Le Mesurier.

“It’s a family show. Saturday matinees are like pantomimes, because there’s nothing to offend anyone – except perhaps Germans. I don’t think they’d understand it. It’s the little guy beating the bully and we love that, don’t we?”

Now 63, he knows people go to see him because of what he did in EastEnders between 1984 and 1989, and again for two years from 2003. He was killed off twice in the show and more than 46 million people tuned in to watch. Is the Dirty Den role an impediment?

“People see me in the street and say, ‘Hello, Den. When are you going back on EastEnders to sort that lot out?’ If they stop talking to me, that will be the time to worry,” he said.

“I am not an actor up my own backside. I look like Den Watts, I sound like Den Watts. That’s what you get asked to do. I am not putting myself in the same bracket as Bogart, Cagney or Eastwood, but that’s what they did: played themselves. Everyone gets compartmentalised.

“It just so happens that I was high-profile for a while and people remember me for EastEnders. You have to find a happy medium. You can’t go out of a soap and say ‘Sorry darling, I’m off to play King Lear’. The audience wouldn’t have it. If I came on wearing a skirt and played a homosexual, people would say, ‘No, I don’t believe that’.

“I must be doing something right,” he said, more than once.

For all but five months of the last 29 years, he has worked on stage and on screen. But his life could have been very different.

As all Dirty Den fans know, in 1967 Leslie Grantham was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He served ten years. He went in as a convicted criminal and came out as an actor. What made the difference?

He said: “Family and friends. People maybe saw something in me that was good, rather than bad. Life is like a motorway, full of diversions. It was a certain chapter of my life, something I am not proud of.

“It goes back to your question, whether I am a good guy or a bad guy? I leave that to people I meet. The majority of people I work with seem to think I’m an okay guy. My line is: ‘You can tell the truth when I’ve gone.’ “I am doing what I want to do, travelling round the nation, seeing the country, and getting paid for it. I must be doing something right.”

- Dad’s Army Marches On runs at the Alhambra from July 5 to 10, starting at 7.30pm. For tickets, ring (01274) 432000.