Stephen Tompkinson talks to Viv Hardwick as he dedicates his latest Tyneside play to the memory of his good friend Pete Poslethwaite.

STOCKTON-BORN actor Stephen Tompkinson has dedicated his latest North- East-set play to the memory of his friend Pete Poslethwaite, who died at the start of the year.

Newcastle’s Live Theatre is now regarded as an ideal breeding ground for successful productions and this week Thompkinson arrived back in the region to start rehearsals for Tyneside playwright Sean Prendergast’s new work Faith and Cold Reading which sees him drop the heroics of TV’s Wild At Heart and DCI Banks to become a Get Carterstyle gangster.

On the Poslethwaite tribute he says: “Pete was one of my acting heroes and I got to work with him twice in pivotal moments in my career.

Firstly, it was the TV series Tales Of Sherwood Forest and one of Alan Plater’s projects. Pete was the leading man and I enjoyed seeing him work and to see how involved he was with the script, because it was important to him, not only for his character, but the overall shape of the project. As an actor you are nothing without the words and to be working with Alan Plater and Pete Postlethwaite was a bit of a dream job.

“The next time I got to work with Pete was on Brassed Off. Because he came to acting late in life he was comfortable in his own skin and had a brilliant economy of truth about his performance. It was good to look back on our scenes and not remember where the camera and crew were positioned, you just remember the actor you were opposite. Pete was wonderful and brought out one of the best performances I’ve ever given. There’s a real sense of grief to everyone I’ve spoken to, even down to the taxi driver who dropped me off last night and he talked about the father- son relationship we had in Brassed Off. I think Pete loved his audience as much as they loved him.

We lost something very special. Pete had a real love for theatre and this is an opportunity for me to come here and honour his memory,” he says.

The fact that his friend Sean Prendergast has written a play casting him as a “nasty, psychopathic killer” has Thompkinson laughing and he feels that the majority are fascinated by gangsters.

“There seems to be some code of honour they live by, however despicable and there is some voyeuristic pleasure in it even though I have no intention of going there myself. A lot of my growing up was in Blackpool and seaside towns always have their own ‘businessmen’ as they are known and there are some people you didn’t try and get eye contact with.

“Sean Prendergast, who is one of my oldest and dearest friends, came to me about a year-and-a-half ago with this script and certainly some of the best work that he’s put together.

It’s a fascinating story, a fourhander, called Faith and Cold Reading which involves clair-audience not clairvoyance where you get visions of the spirit world, but where you act as a conduit for clients like a giant radio set.

“The medium does the ‘is there a Betty in the room?’ shows, but he’s a bit of a gambler who owes money to a very serious North-East gangster, Freddie the suit, and not the person you want to cross ever. Freddie turns up, but not about the money but because he’s lost his mother and never got to say goodbye to her. So he wants Sam to put him in touch with her for contact and closure. If he thinks that Sam isn’t able to do it or that he is taking the mickey then Freddie will kill him. It’s a brilliant piece and Sean has worked at Live a lot and he wrote it with me in mind so I could hardly say No.”

Tompkinson says the cast did a couple of rehearsed readings of it in London and invited producers and were lucky enough to get interest from Peter Wilson of PW Productions.

Max Roberts, artistic director of Live, says an interesting partnership developed and says: “When Peter asked us to produce this play with a view to taking it further, and then bringing Stephen along with the project, it was a complete no-brainer to welcome the guys to the theatre.

Stephen could be working at all sorts of theatres and projects.”

Asked on his reasons for taking on a play with West End potential rather than something already destined for a high profile run, Thompkinson explains: “I’m from Stocktonon- Tees originally, so it’s like coming home, and I’ve had contact before with Live by working with Robson Green and we came, when we were doing Grafters, to give a talk at Live and Sean is a Newcastle boy and it’s very much a North-East play so it felt like the only theatre that we wanted to develop this show. It’s the perfect birthplace.”

Thompkinson is looking forward to his relatives from Stockton and Whitley Bay coming to see his latest creation which also explores the world of the physic.

“Is it a con or are they essentially giving comfort? It is an interesting dilemma. Both sides of the coin are given here. Sean is very into his magic and he’s been researching this a lot, including people like Derek Acorah and Joe Power from Liverpool on whether they do make it up.”

Even though last year’s TV programme Derren Brown Investigates revealed how some physics use body language and research knowledge to help them, Thompkinson still feels there are some inexplicable things thrown up by the subject.

With or without a physic, Thompkinson’s future includes three more episodes of DCI Banks and another series of Wild At Heart in Africa.

“Then back to the UK again for Christmas,” he jokes.

■ Faith and Cold Reading, Live Theatre, Newcastle, February 9-March 19. Tickets: £10-£16. Box Office: 0191-232-1232 live.org.uk

■ Wild At Heart, ITV1, 8pm