Greg Hicks tells Viv Hardwick why he thinks that Newcastle deserves its own Royal Shakespeare Company theatre in future.

ACTOR Greg Hicks is so taken with Tyneside that he firmly believes that the region deserves its own theatre funded by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Hicks long association with the RSC dates back to a debut in 1977 which coincided with the company’s first tour to Newcastle. Thirty-two years later he has lead roles in The Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar, which run between October 27 and November 7.

He says: “In many ways I’d love the RSC to open a theatre in Newcastle. A permanent working exploratory place where in the Northern part of the British Isles this kind of longevity of work would be possible.

“That would be the next progression. I do think that the Northern sensibility and the appetite is of a different hue for example to the Midlands or down south. It’s a different dynamic.”

Even a small theatre space he feels could be developed into a genuine presence, indicating that he’d enjoyed a similar set-up at Glasgow’s Citizen’s Theatre “based on one of Scotland’s worst housing estates” which he feels was a defining moment in his career.

He’s very much a man of the theatre and his growing statue saw his RSC portrayal of Coriolanus collect the Critics’ Circle award in 2003 and an Olivier nomination a year later. Between Macbeth and the Merry Wives he has found time to appear in Casualty, Trial and Retribution and Waking the Dead.

On his five RSC tours to the North-East he says: “I’ve been to Newcastle five times with the RSC and you do all this work at Stratford, which is a very small town with its own particular challenges, but then you go to Newcastle and everything opens up with a whole different energy. I like that and I’ve always liked that. I’ve always regarded Newcastle as a hot place theatrically. It’s hungry for good drama.”

He’s very proud of The Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar when Tyneside audiences will see him as Leontes and the title role respectively.

“I came to Newcastle playing Brutus, so this is a great return for me,” says Hicks who has also been cast as King Lear for the 2010 season in a play which will be one of the strong candidates to re-open the RSC’s rebuilt main house in Stratford as well as playing the Theatre Royal at Newcastle.

“Everybody says I should be older, but I’m 56 and a grandfather. But the part of Lear was written for a 38-year-old. Gielgud played him at 24. It’s only because we say he’s an 80-year-old man we feel it should be played by someone around that age. I don’t believe that. Kathryn Hunter is playing The Fool (he indicates to show that a traditional male role can be played by a top female actress). I’m not an old man, but that’s who I am playing,” says Hicks, who hasn’t decided if he will try to age his features with make-up.

“That’s not the problem. The psychology of the man is beyond the boundaries of the timeframe really.”

He feels drawn so often to the RSC because it means exploring one of the world’s greatest playwrights. “We have time and fantastic resources to explore these plays to their fullest. Mostly as an actor you do a play for a short period of time, but here you have two years to develop a role with fantastic back-up, marvellous costume, lighting and music. I always think of Stratford as a starting point. Then we take the work out in the world.

Actors don’t normally get that opportunity.”

Hicks is a blues harmonica player and is particularly looking forward to attending Newcastle’s Jazz Cafe and playing at an acoustic night being organised by RSC ensemble member Pete Peverley, who is from Washington.

“In my fantasy world I would have liked to have guested for the Rolling Stones at any given time.

Pete is brilliant. Apart from being a brilliant musician he’s a great host and he’s introduced this acoustic night idea which is going to be a big success.”

Hicks was brought up in Leicester but his European Jewish roots arrived there by way of London’s East End and the Ukraine.

“The only reason my father ended up in Leicester is that when he stopped working with Lancasters during the war he and his mate stuck a pin in a map on St Pancras Station and he came out of the RAF and became a market trader selling dresses.

“My dad ended up running a nightclub in Leicester called La Ambassador to which all these great people would come like Bob Monkhouse and Tommy Cooper. My dad was never rich but he sent me to a brilliant school called Oakham and it just so happened that my English teacher noticed I had some proclivity towards Shakespeare and encouraged me to do that. So I only became an actor because my dad bought me a school place when I could have been a market trader’s son. That’s why I’m sitting here now talking to you guys.

“In my private dream I’d very much like to open the new Stratford theatre with Lear. But everybody else is thinking that. Any number of actors is saying ‘oh I want to be the one’. I do hope it’s a production that I’m in that re-opens the RST because it will be a very special moment.

“I never thought I’d play Lear. I always thought I’d play Hamlet but it’s always eluded me. And I never will play that role because it’s in the past.”

■ The Newcastle season, Tuesday-November 7, sees four Shakespeare plays – As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar and a young people’s version of The Comedy Of Errors – touring to the city’s Theatre Royal plus the world premiere of A Tender Thing by Ben Power, a look at Romeo And Juliet as older lovers, and a new version of Roy Williams’ Days of Significance playing Northern Stage.

Newcastle Theatre Royal: 08448-112-121 theatreroyal.co.uk Northern Stage: 0191-230-5151

northernstage.co.uk