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www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk battle cry for freedom
Brian Blessed's infectious passion for life comes toGlitheroe INTERVIEW
ive minutes into the interview, Brian Blessed finally. pauses for breath , and then there’s a
mighty, crash, bang, wallop, writes Tony Dewhurst. “Blimey.Justamo,”
concern briefly rising in his voice. OneofourShetland Ponies is charging across the
.
frontlawn.Backinajiffy.old pal’.” He adds: “Here, have a word with my driver Steve,. he’s a lovely fella.” He is too. We chat briefly
about the weather and holidays. Suddenly that booming explosion of an
accent, thatsuperhuman •
.force of nature with the earth- shakingpower of Krakatoa, is
back on the other end of the telephone. So far Blessed has regaled :
me with tales of saving bears in China, training to be a cosmonaut in Moscow;. attempting the ascent of Everest twice, his growing animal sanctuary, and following his acting dream. . r, “Ilive my life aslspeaicit
and whenl come toClitheroe v I’m going to share that . . dream'ofwhatispossible for everybody,” says Blessed,: . who will talk about his life •- " in an exclusive one-off show- at Clitheroe’s The Grand on February 25th.'
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“I do very few of these talks
I now, but as soon as I heard about The Grand I wanted to come. You neglect the arts at your peril, and there are so many theatres struggling to stay alive. But John Lancaster (owner of the Grand)is a true hero. He is a beacon of hope for the rest of Britain - my Sir Galahad. “I wish there was 50,000 ’
John Lancasters -he has ■ created this theatre for the love and em'oyment of the people; He should be Sir John Lancaster. I want to meet him, shake him by the hand / andsaythankyou John for. making this possible.”
. ' ' Blessed roared: “Follow your dream, that’s what I say. A teacher at secondary school once told me: "To become a - famousactorandfamous •
I explorer is impossible for a boy from your working-class background. • “AndljustsaidiB*******.' I’
lldoit.rilshowyou.” -
It is a virtuoso performance by one of
Britain’s finest actors, who’s starred in theatre, film and TV for more than so years.
' . “My parents taught me honesty, compassion and : kindness and how to care for people,” added Blessed, who first found fame in the 60s cop series Z Cars. “Also, they encouraged me
to take risks, to boldly go. • “Theytaughtmethe
greatest danger in life is not taking adventure. “My parents were so proud
when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school - it was • unheard of that a coal-miner’s
son should go to drama school. Thelettersaid:‘I was impressed by your audition and I predict that you have a very fine future ahead ofyou.’ And then we all wept. “Along with kissing my wife for the first time, my
daughter being born and climbing Everest, it was the greatest moment of my life.” ■ ' Blessed is just warming up. This is just the opening act. There is a Shakespearean howl of laughter as he explains how he has collected 900 animals ofvarious sizes arid species at his rambling, ,
• eight acres Surrey home. “I love animals. My wife
has saved them all - dogs, cats, ponies, sheep, goats, hens, ferrets.”
' HesayshisJackRussell-
Misty-hasjust fallen asleep on his head and is snoring ■ contentedly.
“My most recent acquisition for the menagerie
was a friendly white baboon - he had been in a circus in Bolivia -and has spent 20
years riding on the back of a lion. I met him at the airport like you would a Prime Minister and brought him
back to my lovely home. He loves it here.” Blessed seems to defy the
natural ageing process. He is like an out of control twister tearing across the planet and there’s no absolutely no sign of the 78-year-old slamming
'on thebrakes.He has the energy of a night-clubbing teenager high on life and is, apparently, the oldest man in
the world to climb 28,500 feet without oxygen. He tells me that’s a world record. “I was 68 at the time,” he said. I love going on
adventures. NextyearI’m . going to Ecuador to climb Sangay-whichmeansterror
-the most dangerous volcano • in the world. “It is 19,000 feet high and
erupts every eleven minutes. “I’ll be with some of the
top climbers on the planet and wearing a gas mask, helmet and shields. That’s what I call a propelr day out.” He says he has no time
for ‘silly showbiz parties’ and the ‘boring nonsense’ of the West End. “A waste of energy all that. I save it for climbing mountains and one day I’ll go into space. I’ll make it to Mars. Definitely. I’m a number one reserve for the International Space Station. “I will never retire. The
secret is that I love life.” - Hegrewupinaviliage . between Doncaster and.!
Barnsley, where his father worked in the coal mining industry. And talking to Blessed, however briefly, makes you wish that there were more like him, instead of the shallow husks of X Factor style celebrities • that somehow pass for entertainment., “Every Saturday morning
we would go to the cinema and 1 remember watching the black and white version of Flash Gordon,” he recalled. - . “IabsolutelylovedVultan,
King of the Hawknien, never realizing that I would play
him many years later.” And before I ask, he
roars at the top of his voice • ‘Gordon’sAlive! Imustsayit 100 times a day.
“I walk down the street
anywhere in the world and they all shout:‘Please say ‘Gordon’sAlivel’mate “Her Mqjesty The Queen asked me to say it and so did
David Cameron when I went to 10 Downirig Street to have a meeting about explorers.” ' And there’sjust one more
heart-warming yarn before he rushes off for feeding time ■ at the sanctuary.' ' :.'■
■ v “Listen to this, “he adds excitedly. “I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and we were half way up and this fellow in Masai Mara warrior dress saw me, grinned and went, ‘Please Mr Brian, say ‘Gordon’s Alive. We just hugged and laughed. “Those two words are a
battlecryforfreedom.” • Brian Blessed: Follow
Your Dream, Clitheroe Grand Theatre, February 25 th, tickets £22. Box office: 01200 421599.
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'C.’ r
holiday celebrating the birth- day of‘New China’ (post-1949). Although this occasion doesn’t mean much to me, the ten-day holiday we get certainly does! This year I decided to visit Shanghai, the last of the
I
• “Big Four” first-tier Chinese cities I had yet to visit (the other three being Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen), andalsotheleast appealing of the four. I had no real reason to dislike the place, and I had only visited briefly before, so this time I decided to spend a full week there and experience real Shanghai: the sites, the food and any interesting places nearby. I would like to say that a week wasn’t enough and that I left wanting to go back straight away, but to be honest this world-renowned metropolis is pretty boring', and lacks most of the features that makes China fun. It also turned out that you ■ only need about two days to savour Shanghai, and because we went in the holiday (along with half of China it seemed), everything and everywhere was crowded. This is riot to say that it is awful, as Shanghai would . make a great stop for first time tourists to China who , have money to burn, because in many aspects it is like China Lite, but to someone who has beerito many parts of China already it can be disappointing, as the food is bland, the sites lacking and the people many.. - Indeed, many expats here either love it (because it’s
n October in China we have the second most important Chinese holi day, the Guoqing Jie or National Day Holiday, which is a Communist China
Chinese characters spell out Guoqing Jie, or National Day holiday. mm
to have taken the worst parts of Northern and Southern Chinese food (two of my fa vourites) and blended them together to create a very aver age cuisine. We even had to book restaurants in advance, ■ which I have never had to do in China before, arid as we did not know we had to reserve tables all the recommended restaurants were full every day, so we ended up eating most of our food in Western- style restaurants, and of these Shanghai undoubtedly has the best in China (another reason why it is a great place for first-time tourists). All in all, Shanghai is a per fect, if not very authentic, - introduction to China. Just don’t visit during a Chinese holiday!
TheMaglevtrain ticketsjust£5can reach 268 mph.
The beautiful Yuyuan Gardens.
China but not China at the same time) or hate it (because it seems that everything fun about a China holiday is lack ing in Shanghai). The trip to Shanghai started off well as our flight left Shenzhen Airport on time (a rarity for Chinese flights) and when we arrived we took the airport maglev train from the coastal Shanghai Pudong Airport (near the mouth of the Yangtze River) to central Shanghai, a distance ofig miles in seven minutes, getting up to 268 mph, and as it is the only maglev train in regular use in the world it is worth the £5, although there is not much to see alongside the tracks. We booked a hotel by the older central train station -Shanghainowhasfour . heaving stations - as this had proved to be a great location for food in other Chinese
cities; but in Shanghai the whole area was lifeless. t One of the main problems with Shanghai is that the sites there seem to be in either one of two groups; temples or mu seums, and as almost every. Chinese city has museums in abundance (China does have lots of ancient artifacts on show in museums across the country but once you have seen a rusty odd-shaped piece of metal that was made 2,000 years ago or a vase with trees and clouds on it you have seen them all), and the temples are all the same (onceyou have seen one pagoda you have seen them all), but for anyone who has plans to visit Shang hai, there are some worth- ' while places the visit. Firstly, the Oriental Pear!
Tower, on the Pudong (or ‘East of the Pu River’) side ■ of the Huangpu River which
flows through the centre of Shanghai, affords great views of all of central Shanghai, ' including the famous Bund area and on a clear day the mouth of the Yangtze River to the north of Shanghai. This is well worth a visit, but be sure to arrive early oryou may have to queue for up to five hours, as we found to our cos t. The Bund, called Puxi or ‘West of the Pu River’ in Mandarin Chinese, which a few people may have heard of, is one of the most famous places in Shanghai, and while I can see why the Chinese may like it, as it resembles many European cities with its architecture. But because it resembles many European cities it can be underwhelming for • a European, but you do get great views of the much newer and modern Pudong side of the river on the
opposite bank. Another great place to visit is
' the Yuyuan Gardens. These gardens epitomise classical Chinese garden design, with hanging widow trees, eroded rock formations and heavy - stone bridges over carp-filled
' artificial lakes. As we arrived early we nearly had the place to ourselves, but it soon filled up and afterwards we had to fight our way out through the crowds to eqjoy a Shanghai delicacy, soup buns. These buns are similar to other meat buns in China' (steamed bread enclosing a meat ball or cropped vegeta bles) but the soup buns are craftily designed to allow scalding soup to explode over your face as soon as you take your first bite, and the taste is rather bland. Indeed this bland characteristic seemed to be a recurring factor in Shanghai food, which seems
An autumn
delicacy...Chinese mit ten crabs.
HAIRY CRABS One of the most famous foods eaten in the Shanghai region-
. is the‘Chinese mitten crab’, which can also unattractively 1 be called the ‘hairy crab’ or
the‘big sluice crab’ ifyou use the literal translations of
some of its various Chinese names. This is a freshwater
crab - before this I didn’t even
know crabs could live in fresh water - and is called the hairy crab because of the hair that grows on both of its claws and resemble little green mittens, and it is a Chinese autumn-time delicacy. It tastes much better than i t : looks, and can be bought all over China during Autumn, even in special cooled vending machines alongside - your coke and M&Ms at metro stations, but has sa’dly become an invasive species in ' parts of the UK where it digs intq the banks of rivers and can cause them to collapse. If you fancy cooking your own, then head to London and fish •
■ some out of the Thames!
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