The Voice of Mr T

My Twitter profile claims that, amongst other things, I am ‘the voice of Mr T’. No one has ever questioned the validity of this statement, probably because no one has ever noticed it, or maybe people just think I’m trying to be a bit leftfield and whacky.

But I’ve actually treated those 160 characters as a tiny CV of my career in entertainment (my real one is hardly any bigger), and the statement is actually sort of true. Well, obviously it isn’t at all true, but there is a truth behind it. I wouldn’t claim to have voiced any other ’80s TV legends, because I haven’t. Yet.

But, on and off over a period of about two years, I voiced Mr T on my friend Guy Lloyd’s radio show on Brighton’s Juice FM. So it’s kind of true.

It started when Guy and I were both in the Maydays (see previous post) and he asked for some ideas to use in his show. He particularly wanted a different angle for the ‘celebrity gossip’ part of the show (it is local radio after all). So I came up with the idea of Mr T, phoning in every Saturday morning from the call box in the trailer park where he now lived (this was pre Snickers ad revival and the real T hadn’t been heard of in some time).

This was no ordinary trailer park, though. This was the Beverly Hills Residential Vehicle Encampment, a trailer park to the (former) stars owened by none other than (in T’s words) “Mr David Hassahoffa”. T’s neighbours were such luminaries as Corey Feldman, Kirstie Alley,  “that lil’ boy what plays Mini-Me” (Mr T had a hard time understanding why he never seemed to get any older), and “that lady from that movie The Cryin’ Game, you know, the one with the winkie”.

Naturally, in T’s regular 3-minute slot he spent very little time on the genuine celebrity gossip (which suited me just fine as ‘research’ was just a quick skim of some celeb goss websites on a Friday afternoon) and quickly turned the topic to the latest goings-on in the trailer park. He formed a Monkees tribute band with his best friend and neighbour Dolph Lundgren, along with Mark Hamill and “that crazy foo’ from Police Academy what makes all the noises“. We learnt about his disastrous first date with Kirstie Alley (“She sho’ likes fried chicken”), his efforts to cheer up the younger residents of the camp by erecting a tyre swing (“that Macaulay Culkin just sits on there for hours an’ laughs an’ laughs”), and his possibly unfounded conviction that Daniel Craig had stolen his career.

As you can probably tell, I really enjoyed my stint as Mr T. So did Guy, as did Andrea, who joined him as a presenter when the show moved from Saturday afternoon to Saturday morning (they’ve now been promoted to the weekly breakfast show, which probably has nothing to do with Mr T’s contribution). Mr T developed an immediate crush on Andrea, even writing her love poems, with the help of Mark Hamill. He even got to do his own Christmas Day speech, which of course mostly revolved around life in the trailer park (“this year, some people have been lucky enough to have a change of fortune and move out, like Mickey Rourke and the Backstreet Boys. Other stars have fallen on hard times and moved in, like Matthew McConaughey, and the Backstreet Boys”).

But although the three of us enjoyed it, I’m not sure what the listeners thought (or if there even were any). The radio station had a meeting and decided to drop the Mr T bit because it was “too intelligent” for their audience (which is very insulting to Juice FM listeners). T was snuck back in every now and then for an update (he was last heard of filming a remake of Bergerac in Hawaii, with his old A-Team buddy Dirk Benedict as Charlie Hungerford).

I voiced Mr T on the radio between 2004 and 2006. I got no money for it and very few people heard it, but it was a lot of fun. I was constantly being promised the digital recordings of his broadcasts, but they never materialised, so I have what is probably the only evidence on a couple of old tapes under my bed. But I will always have a little bit of Mr T in my heart, which is nice.

And when my young daughter saw an episode of the A-Team for the first time, she couldn’t believe some crazy fool had ripped off my act.

Terry Bunt

Terry Bunt is a 36 year old cab driver who lives and works in the city of Liverpool. He is a deeply angry man.

What makes him angriest of all is the wretched way he feels the people of Liverpool have treated one of their own – namely, the Incredible Hulk. Terry Bunt feels very strongly about this, very strongly indeed. He simply cannot understand how lesser scousers like the Beatles get praised heaped upon them when the Hulk doesn’t get so much as a mention. It upsets him a great deal.

He also can’t abide human beings with the heads of dogs. He insists this is not due to any racism on his part, but in his experience people with the heads of dogs all act like they’re better than everyone else, and he doesn’t like it.

These are just some of Terry Bunt’s issues. He has so many issues now that he’s started to keep a video diary. When he’s sussed out the Internet and made sure it’s not a device through which Daniel O’Donnell can manipulate his thoughts, he’ll start posting them on YouTube. I’ll let you know when he does.

Improv, Part 2

Tomorrow sees the first Off the Cuff rehearsal in a proper rehearsal space in a few weeks (we’ve had some venue issues recently). It’ll be good to get back to regular rehearsals – we do rehearse, not because we plan what’s going to happen in the shows, but because like everything it’s better if you keep up the practice.

Anyway, we’re still performing short form improv shows on the first Wednesday of every month at the Brunswick in Hove, and we’ve also confirmed some dates (six, I think) for the Brighton Fringe at the Sanctuary Cella.

I wasn’t an actor or even a comedian before I first started doing improv, nearly five years ago. I wanted to be a writer, and mostly wanted to write comedy, but had no interest in performing whatsoever.

In an attempt to improve my writing ability I went to some evening drama classes, where I met someone who was in an improv troupe called the Maydays (no link, just noticed their website is down).  I went to see them do a show in which everything was totally made up by the actors absed on suggestions from the audience. I thought it was amazing (having worked and improved along with them for three years, I can now confirm it was not actually very good at all). Anyway, one of them convinced me in the pub afterwards that I should go to one of their weekly classes, so I did, thinking I’d take advantage of the free first lesson then bugger off.

What happened instead was I became hooked, and found to my surprise that I could be quite good at performing spontaneous comedy. I ended up going every week and was lucky enough to be asked to join the Maydays after a few months.

Like I said, I worked, learned and performed with the Maydays for three years. I learned absolutely loads about improvising and performing in general. Through them I also got some acting jobs, started performing stand-up comedy, and even started teaching improv classes myself.

In fact, I learnt so much that I developed some quite strong opinions about what I wanted to do creatively, and how I wanted to do it. I started pulling in a different direction from the Maydays and eventually we parted ways. I got bloody loads from the time I spent with them but the majority of the rest of the group wanted to go in a very different direction. Best of luck to ‘em.

After six months of improv cold turkey I was lucky enough to find Off the Cuff, whose more relaxed and anarchic approach to improv suits me a lot better. That’s where I met most of my Pink Bear Club cohorts too, so it really was lucky. What can I say? We just have chemistry – like Dr Jekyll…

A Quick One Before Bedtime

Dear blog, sorry I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve been off doing stuff and I get so tired, so very tired. But I haven’t forgotten you. I will do more blogging, I promise. Right now I need to go to bed  but here’s a few little nuggets to keep you going:  I auditioned for and got the part of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Burgess Hill Theatre Club. I’ll be playing a childish, manic depressive stutterer – wonder why they thought I’d be good in that part?

The Pink Bear Club is marching on – we now have animations, puppets and even a theme tune. Still negotiating a venue but we’ll get there.

And now I must sleep. But I won’t leave it so long next time. And I may even talk about something interesting, you never know.