My Favourite Londoner: Timothy Spall

Rafe Spall explains why his actor father is his favourite Londoner.

Oct  4 2006

Actor Rafe Spall was born in south east London in 1983. After deciding to follow in his father Timothy Spall's footsteps he joined the National Youth Theatre, before landing parts in 'The Rotters' Club', Andrew Davies' dramatisation of the 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' trial in 1960, and, this week, a BBC4 adaptation of Jean Rhys' 'Wide Sargasso Sea'.

I thought long and hard about who I was going to choose to be my favourite Londoner, about different Londoners who've inspired me and, even though I'm quite cagey about my dad and have never spoken about him in this capacity before, I realised he personifies the city. He looks like London. He's got a London face. People like John Terry and Ray Winstone have got these faces in which London is ingrained. One of his most famous parts was playing a Brummie in 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet', so he's often asked what part of Birmingham he's from, to which he replies 'Battersea'. He grew up there just off Lavender Hill, on an estate with his three brothers. His mum was a hairdresser and his dad a postal worker, and he went to Battersea County School.

At 18, it was a toss-up for him between joining the army and becoming an actor. A kind teacher suggested he audition for the National Youth Theatre, which he did, thank God, for all of us. At 19, he went to RADA – he turned up on the first day with a pair of tights in a brown paper bag and someone thought he was the window cleaner. But he thrived there and won the Bancroft Gold Medal for being the most promising actor in his year, despite being one of the only working-class boys there.

Obviously, he's delivered on this promise. Apart from him being my dad and me loving him as a father, I think he's one of our great actors. That's the thing about Tim Spall, he's loved internationally by everyone from taxi drivers to film buffs. He's got a quality that people relate to, that they see as being 'real'. That's what he does, he represents people you see in the pub or around, but also extraordinary people like a hangman in 'Pierrepoint', which I think is his best performance to date.

I haven't necessarily got a first memory of him being an important actor, I've always been used to people coming up to him and recognising him in the street. It's just what I thought all dads were like. I was brought up in south-east London in Honor Oak Park where my parents still live, and he had three kids by the time he was 27, which is a big responsibility as an actor. You have to make decisions about taking jobs for money, yet he did this without jeopardising his integrity and we never wanted for anything. He worked bloody hard, and he always has. He was away a lot, but he had to be to earn money.

When he was at home, he'd take me and my sisters on 'Magical Mystery Tours' around London where we wouldn't know where we were going. He'd take us to the Zoo or to see a play, or to a museum or to Joe Allen's – so we got to know the city from a very early age. That's the thing about living in a suburb, you really get a grasp of the whole town because you’re always travelling in and out and around. Honor Oak Park
station, near where we live, goes into Charing Cross, from where you can do that beautiful walk through Trafalgar Square to Soho. It's a walk we've both done many times.

He's recently been in New York for four months, but when he came back, and, in fact, whenever he comes back from somewhere, he says 'Thank God for London'. He's one of the only people I know who's never considered moving out to the country, something I've inherited from him, too. I'm not particularly proud to be British or English, but I'm really proud to be a Londoner, and he's instilled that in me. He knows the city backwards. Whenever I want to get anywhere he's like a black cab driver, he'll tell me where to go. He knows Soho like the back of his hand as a lot of actors of his generation do – the whole Maison Bertaux and The French House actors' Soho clique.

It was him and my mum who encouraged me to become an actor. They saw me play Bugsy Malone when I was at school and suggested I audition for the National Youth Theatre, but I never admitted I wanted to be an actor to them. I don't know why. Dad actually heard me admit it to a family friend when I was 14, and he said, 'Aha, I've caught you!' I think he's proud of me, but he'd be proud of me whatever I did. I didn't go to drama school like he did, but, in a way, I've had 21 years of drama school at home – 21 years of him hurling abuse at soap operas in front of my long-suffering mum, who loves them. I've learnt what's good and bad in acting from him. He's always instilled in me that it's not about money or being famous, it's about loving what you do.

He casts a shadow I've got to step out of, but I've given up worrying about that. I'm proud of my dad and who he is. I've dodged the subject in interviews because it's private and, after this, I still will – I hope this is a definitive take on it. It was a good opportunity because he's a Londoner through and through. I literally I think it's in his blood.

'Wide Sargasso Sea' is on Monday, 9pm, BBC4

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