O/T John Simm

[ClaretDiver]

I am just watching Prey with him in....great show....

Also just been in Trauma and Collateral.....

Grew up in Burnley and Colne amongst other places.....cracking actor IMHO!

[ClaretEngineer]

I am just watching Prey with him in....great show....

Also just been in Trauma and Collateral.....

Grew up in Burnley and Colne amongst other places.....cracking actor IMHO!

Add Mad Dogs, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes to your list if you haven’t seen already (Ashes to Ashes cos it follows on from LoM and has Keeley Hawes )

[Herts Clarets]

I stood in front of him at the Fulham game in 2000/01 when there was the blockade of fuel depots. Think it was the one where Andy Cooke was rugby tackled in the area and the ref gave nowt. Briscoe was sent off too from memory.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

I think he went to Mansfield.

[Bin Ont Turf]

Lived on Temple Street in Nelson for while.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Sorry it's Edge End.

[DCWat]

First saw him in The Lakes, which was a decent series too.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

I thought Life on Mars was brilliant.

And I see that Eric Knowles is also a 'notable student' of Edge End or Nelson Secondary Technical School - whatever that is.
It says on Wiki that he's a Wycombe fan? I'd always thought he was a Burnley fan. Or is this just one of those wikipedia doctored facts?

[TVC15]

Eric Knowles is a Burnley fan.

Don’t know who John Simm supports - I know he went to Nelson & Colne College

[evensteadiereddie]

According to some on here, all actors do is mimic others or recite lines they've learned.
Bonkers.
Simm was suitably grotesque as The Master in "Dr. Who".

[THEWELLERNUT70]

Prey is actually written by Howrich born,Burnley based,Burnley supporter Chris Lunt, who incidentally is one of my best mates

[THEWELLERNUT70]

John Simm is a lifelong Manchester United supporter

[TheFamilyCat]

I've read interviews with him talking about his time in East Lancs. Sadly, he didn't have much very complimentary to say.

[spanishclaret]

I stood in front of him at the Fulham game in 2000/01 when there was the blockade of fuel depots. Think it was the one where Andy Cooke was rugby tackled in the area and the ref gave nowt. Briscoe was sent off too from memory.

Was I stood next to you?

John was with James Buller on that match, another Edge End graduate of Brian Wellock's drama class (along with Lee Ingleby).

I went to school with John and James, and hung out with Lee Ingleby later through a mutual friend.

Oh, the glamour!

[longsidetrumpet]

Brian Wellock (RIP) was my brother in law and nurtured some real talent at Edge End. I didn't think Collateral was John's finest moment, a bit too wooden for my liking. Not like I can act, or remember lines and stuff.

[Walton]

John Simm talks about his early life, and my uncle Brian Wellock, in this interview from 10 years ago:

https://www.tes.com/news/tes-archive/te ... -john-simm

An English and art teacher with a passion for drama helped this actor find his feet
When I was growing up in Nelson, a working class mill town near Burnley, Lancashire, my future, like everyone else's, seemed mapped out. It involved leaving school at 16, finding a menial job, getting someone pregnant and marrying them. Game over, pretty much.

In my case, the above didn't happen. I was lucky that Brian Wellock, my English and art teacher at Edge End High School, the local comprehensive, entered my life at a crucial point. He was the reason that I became an actor. It's thanks to him that I've had an entirely different kind of life.

Mr Wellock was more than just a teacher to me. He was an inspiration. He wore huge glasses and chain-smoked. He was a big noise in the local amateur dramatic society and he had a brilliant sense of humour. He was also the first teacher I'd known who didn't make Shakespeare seem like a foreign language and the first, too, who didn't patronise pupils, but spoke to them as though they were equals.

I remember my first real conversation with him vividly. I was 14 years old with a head full of football and not much else. But one evening I'd stumbled on the film Rebel Without a Cause and it had blown me away.

I saw Mr Wellock in the corridor next day and decided to tell him about it. He could have brushed me off or humoured me but instead he knelt down to my eye level and asked me what I'd loved about James Dean's performance. We chatted and he said: "Here's an idea. Why don't you come to the drama club?"

I auditioned for Billy Liar and was gutted to find myself in the chorus. But I persevered and later Mr Wellock cast me in the lead in The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, the Robert Bolt play. I was good at art, I was good at football, but finally I had found the thing that truly defined me.

There was so much more that Mr Wellock did, aside from just casting me from then on in leading roles in school plays. At 16, I applied to do drama at the local college. But he didn't rate the course and felt I needed to get out from the shadow of Nelson. He suggested a much better course at St Anne's in Blackpool and, although it was oversubscribed, he fought tooth and nail to get me on to it. I went on, at 19, to get a place at The Drama Centre in London, but those three years away from home at St Anne's, courtesy of Mr Wellock, were crucial.

I wasn't the only actor that he helped. I can think of five pupils of Edge End High School who went into the profession with varying degrees of success. Lee Ingleby, for example, who came five years after me, was also one of his protegees. We worked together in Life on Mars, the BBC series. Oddly, Lee played my father in the final episode.

I know for a fact that Brian Wellock watched that show. He died aged 63, in December 2006, following a routine operation and though, sadly, I'd lost touch with him over the years, I called his widow, Joyce, to tell her how sorry I was. She described how he'd watched that episode of Life on Mars and sat back on the couch with a look of complete satisfaction on his face to see Lee and I sharing the screen. "There again, he watched everything that you did, John," she said. "He was incredibly proud of you."

I was happy that I'd lived up to his expectations, but devastated by his loss. I was sorry too, that he hadn't been able to see me playing Vincent Van Gogh, the film I'd just finished making. Art and drama - his two passions. He'd have loved that.

After his death the local paper ran a story in which he was referred to in the headline as a local star-maker. But, of course, for those of us who had benefited from his encouragement, his belief in us and his passion for acting, Brian Wellock himself was the real star. No question.

[JohnMac]

There is a signed photo of him in the Thatch & Thistle.

[CHEWBACCA]

Alway's been a fan!

[bobinho]

Went to temple st youth club as I remember. A couple of years younger than me and a cheeky chappie as a kid.

Grown up into a fine actor. First saw him in the lakes, and he was excellent in it. Been excellent in everything I’ve seen him in tbh.

Hope he’s in plenty more, very believable.

[Leisure]

I stood in front of him at the Fulham game in 2000/01 when there was the blockade of fuel depots. Think it was the one where Andy Cooke was rugby tackled in the area and the ref gave nowt. Briscoe was sent off too from memory.

He went through the turnstiles just in front of me.

[Diesel]

Known in the dressing room as 'card'.

[turfytopper]

Brian Wellock (RIP) was my brother in law and nurtured some real talent at Edge End. I didn't think Collateral was John's finest moment, a bit too wooden for my liking. Not like I can act, or remember lines and stuff.

I was taught by Mr Wellock at Walverden prior to us all relocating to the newly formed Edge End High school in 1973.
Im very sorry to hear he's passed. He must have died far too young. A very good man. If my memory serves me right I think he married a fellow teacher.