After 18 years, would-be pop star John Shuttleworth has taken on a life of his own. ANDREW WHITE talks to the comic character's creator, Graham Fellows...
WHEN Graham Fellows created John Shuttleworth, the name-dropping would-be pop star famous for prodding his home keyboard and not a lot else, he was still intent on a songwriting career himself.
In 1978, he had a top five single with the novelty punk single Jilted John. Four years later, he was trying to make it as a songwriter.
Tickled by the many dreadful, home-recorded demo tapes he had heard, he dreamed up the character of Shuttleworth - at first for his own amusement, but later as an increasingly popular turn on the comedy circuit.
"He started life as someone who wanted to be a pop star and have his songs recorded by various acts. Now he's just a bloke who wants to give people advice about things," says Fellows, who brings Shuttleworth and other characters to Newport on the Isle of Wight tonight and the Theatre Royal Winchester next month.
A student favourite on TV in the Nineties, (he even opened concerts for Blur and the Manic Street Preachers) Shuttleworth has found a more discerning audience on Radio 4, for which Fellows has created four series of The Shuttleworths from his home studio in Louth, Lincolnshire.
Like Dame Edna Everage, Shuttleworth has taken on a life of his own in recent years, stepping outside his garden shed - home to his beloved keyboard - to develop new areas of interest and expertise.
"John Shuttleworth has proved versatile. He can talk about environmental issues, entertainment. He does a show about relaxation," says Fellows. The new show finds him waxing lyrical on home security.
Graham admits to occasionally getting "fed up" with characters. After his last national tour, he put Shuttleworth in storage for a good 18 months, and says he only brought him out again because "I had some more ideas".
"I suppose all characters have a shelf-life. I did John full-on for six years from the mid-Nineties to 2000.
"I don't know that I can do much more with him that's going to be very different."
If Shuttleworth should be put out to grass permanently, Fellows has a gaggle of other characters jostling to take his place - some of whom can be seen on the current tour.
They include rock musicologist and (suspended) part-time media studies lecturer Brian Appleton, and his latest creation, self-made businessman Dave Tordoff.
"Dave is a builder who's doing very well. He's into concrete flooring. Laser screeding is his speciality. It's a way of concreting a floor with great speed and gives a much better finish.
"He's very aspirational. He wants to be an after-dinner speaker. He thinks he's had an interesting life. He does scuba-diving in the Dominican Republic. He's got his own website with a picture of his daughter on a pony."
Fellows clearly puts a lot of thought into his characters. You get the impression he knows everything about them, down to the colour of their underpants and their favourite flavour of jelly.
"I try to make my characters as real as possible," he explains.
"I don't create a lot of characters. I have extreme admiration for people like Harry Enfield who produce thousands.
"But there's a downside to that. They're more crudely drawn. That goes for The Fast Show as well - they take short cuts.
"I don't know if I could work like that. I work very slowly, at my own pace."
Before finding fame as a comedian, Fellows made a couple of appearances in Coronation Street - first as one of Gail's early suitors, then, a few years later, as a lorry-driver.
He had great admiration for Coronation Street ("the scripts were beautifully written") and once auditioned, unsuccessfully, to become a writer on the soap.
A thoughtful sifter of roles, Fellows believes "the quality of a lot of TV programmes has gone right down", but recently made his first foray into children's TV.
He particularly liked Dangerville, the ITV drama he describes as a cross between Big Brother and The Truman Show.
"I've enjoyed kids' TV. Everyone seemed very professional," he says, with a hint of surprise - and delight that such imaginative programmes are still being made.
He's also got a small-ish part in the David Thewlis film Cheeky, playing a seedy local journalist.
But it's for his own lovingly-detailed characters that Fellows will be remembered.
He may not exactly churn them out, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that they have a much fuller existence than the average reality TV star.
"I'm just trying to do good work that I'm proud of and that's true," he says.
April 11 at 8.15pm, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight. Box office: 01983 528825, May 15, Theatre Royal, Winchester. Box office: 01962 840440. Tickets cost from £9.
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