Fatal encounter with Hazell star Nicholas (From Gazette)

Fatal encounter with Hazell star Nicholas

1:40pm Saturday 16th January 2010

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IT’S actor Nicholas Ball’s first encounter with a touring stage show since the 1970s and thankfully it’s turning out to be a very enjoyable one, despite the snow.

When I talked to the former-Hazell star last week, he had rather impressively just started back on the winter leg of a touring production of Francis Durbridge’s Fatal Encounter, in Horsham, West Sussex.

Despite the whole country seemingly closing down because of the weather, it was refreshing to hear the old “show must go on” spirit was alive and well with Nicholas and his fellow cast.

“It was the first night back after our break,” Nicholas said, “and I must admit we were wondering whether we would get back home to London.

“There was a pretty good crowd in as well and it was great people had made the effort to come out in such awful weather.”

Nicholas, who shot to fame in the title role in TV’s Hazell and more recently was the gangster Terry Bates in EastEnders, stars alongside well-loved British stars Anita Harris and Neil Stacey in the classic, red herring thriller.

The play follows Howard Mansfield, who is concerned for his wife Joanna, who has become unusually distressed and nervous. When he arrives home one day to find Joanna has accidentally shot his former friend Perry during a struggle, he decides to protect her by confessing to the shooting himself.

Although Chief Insp Chris Coldwell, played by Nicholas, accepts the shooting was an accident, Perry’s death leaves Howard caught up in a web of international blackmail, conspiracy and attempted murder.

Nicholas said: “Durbridge is the master of the red herring and that’s one of the many reasons why people love his plays. It makes you think. Just when the you think you know what’s going on, suddenly that thing you thought was important turns out not to be, and vice versa. It was the last one he ever wrote before he died and I believe it was his brother who stitched it all together. It’s still a classic piece.”

As well as being the first Durbridge Nicholas has performed, it also marks his first touring production for more than 30 years.

It was after leaving Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where Nicholas trained as an actor in the 1960s, that he embarked on his first touring adventure as a member of the highly regarded Portable Theatre Group.

“It’s where writers like David Hare and David Edgar started out,” Nicholas said. “We would do everything, book the venues, build the set, hire the transport and then take it out on the road. It’s very different now as the touring company has its own people to do that kind of thing.”

It still makes a nice change for Nicholas, an actor who very much started his career with television and radio and has continued with it ever since.

His first big break was as former police detective Hazell, which at its peak in the 1970s had viewing figures of more than 20 million.

Nicholas added: “John Nettles got turned down for the part and of course he went on to do Bergerac, which was a similar kind of thing. I actually later appeared in a few episodes of Bergerac.”

He has also appeared in quite a few other major television shows, such as EastEnders and as the larger-than-life chairman of Earls Park Football Club in the supremely trashy Footballers Wives.

“He was a complete rat, firing people and sleeping with other men’s wives,” Nicholas said. “But he was great fun to play.”

But for now it’s a life on the stage, with a tour that continues well into 2010.

Nicholas said: “I’ve always enjoyed working on the stage.

“One of the most enjoyable times was while I was in America. I went over for a month and ended up staying there four years and while I was there I was in a production of Pinter’s the Dumb Waiter, which was directed by Mel Smith.

“It was in one of the few theatres that actually put on plays in Hollywood.

“They have plenty of what they call theatres, but most of them put on Burlesque shows or are strip joints.”

For some, that would be a fatal encounter.

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