Paul Hunter
Hello and welcome to Regrets I've Had a Few. I'm Paul Hunter, artistic director of Told by an Idiot. And this is a podcast where I talk to friends and colleagues delving into what made them the person they are today.

Paul Hunter
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Regrets I've Had a Few. Today. I'm joined by a dear showbiz pal, star of stage and screen, Mr Jason Barnett. Jason, welcome. How lovely to see you.

Jason Barnett
Hello. Lovely to see you as well.

Paul Hunter
Thank you so much for dropping in. It feels very recent that we last bumped into each other, of course, when you were in Bath filming your Agatha Raisin TV and we were reopening our homage to Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel and erm, we had a couple of very nice evenings and you very kindly came to see our show. I wanted to kick off by asking whether any of that kind of world of silent comedy was any part of your youth or your childhood. Did you like Stan and Ollie or did it pass you by?

Jason Barnett
Oh, my goodness, no, not not in the least did it pass me by. I loved it. My introduction. I think my introduction to silent comedy was Harold Lloyd, though, because and this will age me to anyone who knows but it used to play on BBC Two, I think after the children's programmes.

Paul Hunter
You're absolutely right, Jason. I remember it well.

Jason Barnett
Half an hour of Harold Lloyd sort of bits. They were. I mean, he was amazing, the stuff that he did. I mean, obviously, I think famously the hanging from that clock, which was just it was amazing. So he was my introduction and then Chaplin followed that weirdly. And, yes Laurel and Hardy of course as well. And all of those guys, Keystone Cops and, ooh who else, well lots - with the house falling over him what was his name?

Paul Hunter
Oh Buster Keaton?

Jason Barnett
Buster Keaton yes.

Paul Hunter
I mean, it's interesting with the show we've made because, of course, it hopefully appeals to a very wide audience. But people of our generation, Jason, I've had a few conversations with people that say 'I remember watching them as a kid and encountering them then'. So it's nice to bring that back. Another thing that we share Jason many things, I mean, we've worked together. But I realised we both share the same name as a sportsman. I don't know if you know this. There is a Jason Barnett who played 270 times for Lincoln City and I share my name with the late, sadly late, snooker player Paul Hunter.

Jason Barnett
Ahh.

Paul Hunter
So there's something. Now I know we will touch on some footballing and acting a bit later on because you played a very famous sports figure, of course, on stage, which I enjoyed very much. But I will come back to that. But first of all, I'd like to take you all the way back if I made Jason, what was your first kind of introduction to showbiz, if you like or performing was it a school play, or youth theatre. How did you get involved?

Jason Barnett
I got involved because I think when I was very little. I think I wanted to be a famous explorer for a while, then I want to be a famous doctor and I wanted to be a famous journalist. And then I realised that the key thing that ran through that was famous, rather than the actual career. So that was quite early on. I realised I quite enjoyed the sort of limelight. And I remember doing a school play. My very first school play was a show called Antics, which I think ran in the West End in the Sixties, maybe at some point. And we did it as a school play and I played one of the worker ants and I just I still remember pulling on my brown socks, not brown socks, brown tights and putting all my little ant headwear and just being so excited to be involved in that because the previous year I'd seen Michelle Buckingham play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and I was just like, right, I've got to have some of this. So that was my introduction.

Paul Hunter
Well, I can picture you in your ant costume. That is an image that I'm finding very pleasing at this time, on a Wednesday morning. I won't dwell on where Michelle Buckingham is this now following her Dorothy but was there, I often asked this of guests, was there at any point - I'm assuming, I'm not assuming, I'm asking actually - is there any kind of history of showbiz in your family? Anybody in that world?

Jason Barnett
No

Paul Hunter
So you were the first to go into that world?

Jason Barnett
Yes, it just came from nowhere really. Nobody was interested in that sort of thing. Everyone's very brilliantly, hardworking and

Paul Hunter
sensible?!

Jason Barnett
Sensible, you know, I think as well. My parents were like first generation immigrants from Jamaica sort of thing and there wasn't a lot of room for frivolity, basically, however we put it acting sort of is. And so, yeah, it just wasn't an option. I mean, obviously they had fun and we had lots of parties and there was music and there was frivolity in the household. But that wasn't an option for work.

Paul Hunter
It's interesting. I was the same. I think I've said this on previous podcasts. My mum was a dinner lady and my dad was an electrician in Birmingham. So there was no context, the idea of being an actor. I think the assumption was I'd go and work in a car factory. So it's interesting that when you come very left field with something and how your parents try to, I suppose, understand that. Was that a bit of a journey for them?

Jason Barnett
I think it was, I remember sometimes, my mum and dad had a little black and white telly in their bedroom, which I would sneak off to watch sometimes if I was allowed to and I would always watch the adverts and just copy them happily to myself sort of thing. And a few times my dad just caught me, just, he would sit whatching for five minutes as I was like, doing all the different voices in the adverts. And every now and then I catch him chuckling away to himself. So I think that was his intro that I might be interested in that.

Paul Hunter
And what about was there any as you went through school, your made your debut in the ants thing. Was there any particular teacher along the way that inspired you sometimes that's the case or not really?

Jason Barnett
Yeah, I had really good teachers. I remember my head of year, Mr Thool, at Norbury Manor Boys School. He was just like, you know what, you should go and join Croydon Youth Theatre, which is, which utterly changed my life actually doing that. And he just, you know, at twelve, he just said, look, I think you'd really enjoy it. There's nothing more than that, but that sort of instruction and just telling me where to go and you know, it'll cost you a quid every Saturday and you'll need to be there. And he knew what I had to do. I'd have been a bit flummoxed otherwise, I wouldn't have known what the next.

Paul Hunter
Sometimes you need that introduction to something, don't you? Someone to give you a kind of lead on where and a good youth theatre, which Croydon Warehouse famously was a very good theatre. Does it still operate today? I don't know.

Jason Barnett
Well, the buildings not there anymore,

Paul Hunter
Oh no, of course, sadly

Jason Barnett
It was a great little theatre that. There's lots of theatres like that that have just gone by the way haven't they.

Paul Hunter
But it's interesting as you kind of - I was at youth theatre and I think as well as having a great time and enjoying, obviously, it kind of taught me a bit of discipline as well, about lots of things about being part of a group, like you say, turning up. And I think I didn't realise that about acting, that it required a certain amount of discipline.

Jason Barnett
I remember because I was madly into the kids from Fame at the time, so all I wanted to do was sing those songs and prance about. And there were some other older kids at that youth there who were very much more serious and wanted to do a little excepts of Chekov and stuff like, I want to sing High Fidelity sort of thing. And I think having to put on a show which involved both of those elements, was always a bit of a negotiation.

Paul Hunter
But I think I think maybe this taps into my taste as someone who makes theatre now with my own company, I think the combination of High Fidelity from kids from Fame and Chekov in the same show, sits perfectly comfortably but maybe that says more about our work than anything else I suppose! And then did you go to study acting or drama or did you just continue that route through youth theatre and then into work or?

Jason Barnett
No. Well, I mean, it's funny that this podcast is called Regrets I've Had A Few because I didn't go and study, not acting. Again that was a negotiation with my parents, as I said before, they didn't really have any sort of concept of this as a career and a way of sort of making money and buying a house and all those things which you should do, or they felt you should do. So when it came to University, I had to negotiate with them, and it like more, right, okay, go and do a degree in English, and the negotiation was I did a degree in English and Drama. But it wasn't, it wasn't an acting degree, really. It was very sort of academic because then, you know, you can teach and all that sort of stuff afterwards. So I didn't get to do that, and that's always been, not always been, I think, over the last ten years, I've let it go. But I've always felt slightly - ooh dear I didn't train, and all these lovely people around me are so brilliantly trained and like have a philosophy and techniques and all the stuff that I actually do have because I've picked them up along the way, but you always feel as if it's sort of a bit secondhand and grubby.

Paul Hunter
I don't know. It's an interesting and it's interesting that you bring up the title of podcasts and kind of Regrets of things. Similarly, I did go to study acting, but part of me as I've got older, whether I will or not, I don't know. I kind of think, well, I'd quite like to go to university or study something different now I'm older, I think. Yes, because I didn't do that University thing. So maybe it works a bit the other way. But I can certainly relate to that feeling of sometimes thinking all those people have trained in this. When I first came out of drama school and I was trying to make my way and I was so interested in all that visual explosion of work Complicite and all the stuff that was coming from Paris, I always felt very conscious in a room if people had studied at Lecoq, I always thought my God, they must be brilliant. And then someone once said to me, look, Lecoq can't make you brilliant. They might be good. They might not be good, but nowhere is going to make you a brilliant actor. So I think it's sometimes it's good to be able to go, do you know what, as you say, we pick up things along the way, we learn in different ways. And that's kind of what I like about acting is it can be quite a broad church in terms of where people have been and what their experiences are, you know.

Jason Barnett
I feel very lucky now, actually, because exactly that - my career has been such a broad church. But my sort of English degree in those leanings mean that I'm mad about script and I love to forensically, like examine scripts, but I'm also just I find physical work so joyous as well, and I feel actually being open to both of those ends of the spectrum - I don't know if that's the right way of looking at it - but open to both of those things might not have been the case had I gone to somewhere a bit more prescriptive.

Paul Hunter
And I think you could be right, Jason. I think also, if I think of you and the work I've seen you in and the work I've done with you, I think you've managed - I'm sure some of this is luck, as we all know along the way, luck plays a big part - but you've managed to combine that balance of different types of work in what you do. And we're all trying to do that, aren't we? As actors, you're trying to not get stuck in one thing or perceived as one thing.

Jason Barnett
That's true yea.

Paul Hunter
And when we get the chance to do different things, we not only challenge ourselves, but I think we challenge what other people think of us. So you came out of University and then what was it straight into theatre were you, because I remember obviously bumping into you down at Battersea Arts Centre and around there, what was your kind of starting points once you got going?

Jason Barnett
Well, I took it a year to earn some money. I was a home help actually in Fulham for a year. I used to cycle around helping lovely old people with their shopping and stuff. But during that time a couple of friends from University, we were like, let's start a theatre company. So we started this company. Two of us were actors and two of us were dancers. And so it was a dance theatre company. And again at the same sort of time when DV8 were very much out there and doing amazing work. And we kind of wanted to do that. I remember once I went along to a DV8 audition, actually, I had a couple of contact sessions with the dancers that I knew. And I was just like, yeah, that's the stuff. It was the most embarrassing thing that's ever to me ever. I started off in the front row of these dancers, there must have been probably 50 or 60 people in the room and just couldn't keep up from the very beginning. Slowly went row by row, back until I was in the back row and I could just sneak out. And like, I think Lloyd Newson have been like, who was, who did he think he was, that geezer, wandering in here with his tracksuit. Oh dear, awful.

Paul Hunter
But you do kind of I think those memories of those awful auditions are good to remind yourself of those sometimes, not too much, of course. And I remember one where I went for a musical at the National and I'm certainly not musical theatre at all, really. But they were doing a new version of The Frogs by Aristophanes as a musical. So I went along and I sang this musical song and I got through to the second stage and I went back and you had to sing and dance. And I remember getting in the lift at the National to go off. And the other guys in the lift started going, oh, so are you still in Five Guys Named Moe? And they went, yea yea yea. What about you? Ah yea, I'm just finishing Company. I nearly got out at the floor where the canteen was and pretended I worked there. So it's good, but not too good to dwell on them, I suppose. I suppose my first real memory of getting to know you was obviously, as I said down at Battersea Arts Centre where lots of people, lots of us used to hang out and not just make work, but see extraordinary shows. It was an amazing place, Battersea Arts Centre I think in the early nineties throughout that decade with Tom at the helm, was that somewhere that you kind of found yourself drawn to, or was it just one off projects?

Jason Barnett
No, I think I sort of came of age in that sort of building, really, I think

Paul Hunter
Likewise.

Jason Barnett
It cemented me as an actor. And actually, again, I got to do such breadth of work. It was amazing. I think the first thing I did here was when the James Menzies-Kitchin Award kicked off. I did a Pinter there. Bijan Sheibani directed. And that was the first thing that and then

Paul Hunter
Was Bettrys in that?

Jason Barnett
Bettrys was in that. Yes, she was. Bettrys Jones was in that, and that's the first time we worked together as well. And then and then I got to do lovely work with Tom, Tom Morris and Carl Heap.

Paul Hunter
Yes

Jason Barnett
All that sort of gang and a lot of people that - I don't think we worked together there.

Paul Hunter
I think I tried a few times, but you were very busy, Jason. I do remember, of course, not just yourself, but lots of pals like Steve Harper and Niall Ashdown and the wonderful 1966 World Cup show, which I so, so enjoyed that. But I do remember at the time saying to Steve, I said he's going to do a show based on that? And he said, yeah. And I so enjoyed the kind of format and structure of it. And the spirit of it was so brilliant. But did you have any reservations about playing such an iconic figure? I mean, I know he was dead at the time, Alf Ramsey, but he's a major figure in British sport. Or did that not worry you at all?

Jason Barnett
No, I thought that was such an amazing opportunity, actually. And in a way, that sort of set me on a funny old career as well, because it was just so different and unexpected that, you know, this sort of portly black guy from South London is going to play Alf Ramsey.

Paul Hunter
I thought it was brilliant casting.

Jason Barnett
And I enjoyed it so so very much. And and that was a very good example of kind of diverse casting back in the day, really. And obviously there were women playing some of the football players and people all sort of different ethnicities and ages and just making up this motley crew of a team. And it was brilliant, but it was really lovely to just play something unexpected. And what I've always wanted to do is keep that element going. It was very hard back in those days to get telly work and stuff where you weren't a thug or a criminal if you were black and not entirely, but it was really

Paul Hunter
No, I'm sure. And I think, Tom, as you say some time ago. And I think that's what was so brilliant, partly about the show was how the team was put together and who you all were. And it kind of worked as also on one level, as a brilliant metaphor for this team of those Nobby Stiles and and the beautiful skills of Bobby Charlton, it kind of connected in that way, which I thought in a way was rather touching

Jason Barnett
Because Carl was a real fan of Westerns as well, so he wanted to base it all on the sort of Magnificent 7 and Alf Ramsey scoping the plains of England to find this group.

Paul Hunter
No, that worked brilliantly. Now I'm going to kind of jump around a little bit because when you mention iconic figures like Alf Ramsay, I realised I only through chatting to people who have children of a certain age. Another iconic figure is Waffle, the Wonder Dog. I have to admit, Jen our producer who has a dog called Frank is often stopped and asked about Waffle because of the type of dog that she has. But this is something presumably you're very proud of Waffle the Wonder Dog. It sounds amazing.

Jason Barnett
Waffle the Wonder Dog! The talking dog who turns up at my school. I'm not very, I play the head teacher in the show. I'm not very impressed that all of the kids want this canine to start attending school. But I got talked into it, he's my nemesis, but it's ridiculous. It's such a silly show, but it's amazing. And children - it's one of those things. Yes, little five year olds staring at you, open mouth in Sainsbury's and they're like - Is that Mr Nolan? It's lovely, its so nice. So nice to do the voice. And I see them like scuttle behind their mum or behind the shopping trolley or whatever, it's great. It's such a lovely show and brilliantly physical as well as a lot of children shows can be. But they like to make sure there's a mad cap sort of physical element to it.

Paul Hunter
It sounds great!

Jason Barnett
It's great sometimes we have stunt men and stuff. And it's always very funny when the stunt man turns up because he's usually like this brilliantly fit guy and then they start putting padding on him and I'll be there watching and they'll be like that, no more padding, no more padding, more padding and I'm like - I'm here! He clearly doesn't need that much padding!

Paul Hunter
Also think I don't know about you, but I sometimes think the world of TV and film in itself can be quite brutal like that because they're trying to make a job happen. They're not always conscious of how something comes across. I've had similar situations where I think I'm not sure about how they've just described me and my character but there you go. But I mean, you've managed, as I said, to make that crossover, which not everybody does. It's hard to make that crossover into TV and film. And was that a conscious attempt? Did you regret turning down some theatre to focus on it? Was there anything you missed out on?

Jason Barnett
No, weirdly I don't feel that particularly, it's sort of been what's come along at whatever time. I did three years in The Bill. At one point, just after, I think it's just after we opened Warhorse, so I didn't stay with the show, I went straight into The Bill. I remember going to Wendy Spon at the time and saying to her, look, Wendy, they've offered me this regular in The Bill, but I want to come back here, am I sort of treading on my chances if I do that? And she was like, well, you do know, I used to cast The Bill? And I was like, oh ok. And gosh who was in charge at the time, who was the artistic director of the national at the time

Paul Hunter
Oh at that point, Nicholas Hytner maybe?

Jason Barnett
Nicholas. And she was like, and Nicholas has never watched an episode of The Bill - it's really not going to put him off.

Paul Hunter
That is a really brilliant answer.

Jason Barnett
Didn't feel, you know, because of supportive conversations like that it just sort of just felt like, crack on, do what comes up, enjoy it. Again, and that was a very different part. It was, you know, a forensic scientist who was the sharpest person in the room. And so it was lovely to go to show like The Bill and not be a long running criminal or just a bumbling copper. I played lots of bumbling coppers, but at that point he was absolutely sharp, almost genius level. And that was different and great fun.

Paul Hunter
It's interesting as well as you say. And I think I completely understand the way you talk about your career challenges and perceptions, which you is crucially, not maybe. Do you feel it's changing slowly? The way the business is in terms of how people are cast? Or is there still a long way to go?.

Jason Barnett
I mean, both of those things really. But there is still an awful long way to go. I was talking to my agent about this yesterday, actually. And she was saying the breakdown she receives are massively different than they were even five years ago

Paul Hunter
That's good

Jason Barnett
And that is good. But I was saying that, yes, but it's still in the realms of the support and the best friend. Which, you know, those steps have to happen, but it tends not to be the lead, not at the star, the vehicle won't be a person of colour that much yet.

Paul Hunter
You know, it's interesting, when we cast Stan Laurel in our show, the Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel show, and I saw Jerone Marsh-Reid three times for the part because it's a very difficult part. You're asking a young actor to take on something very iconic again in that role. So I needed to be very sure. And I saw him in a workshop with a group of actors. I saw him again where I recalled him and I worked him with Steve Harper, and I worked them together just so I could see him playing. Then I brought him in against the person who was going to play Charlie. And very early on Jerone said to me. Can I say one thing? He said, I just want to thank you getting me in for the role. And I went, You're very welcome. That's fine. He said, because I thought my agent had made a mistake. I would never think I would be able to come in for something like this or a part like this. And I think you kind of forget. Or one can easily forget that even getting in the room is a big deal sometimes, to even get seen for that particular part. So luckily, he turned out to be brilliant so I could cast him. So it worked out all right. But you're right. There's still much more to do. In terms of something, which I thought, I don't know what, we both were involved, I think you did a lot more than me, I only did one episode, the extraordinary success that was Bridgerton. And it was funny because I remember doing my bit and spending some time talking to Adjoa the day we were filming, I didn't have a scene with her, but knowing her from the Lyric and all that kind of stuff, but that felt like they made a real conscious attempt to look at the diversity of casting in that a particular show. And I don't know, I don't know what you thought, but it felt like that when I was on set a bit more. I don't know.

Jason Barnett
Yeah, that was really was really exciting. It was a Shonda Rhimes show. So that's what she does. She writes something and then she says right, she writes it so that anyone can play anything, and then she casts the person that she thinks is right. And obviously she's a black producer. And so I think that feeds into her work. She just wants everyone to be available.

Paul Hunter
And how brilliant to see Golda play the Queen, what a brilliant queen she was.

Jason Barnett
Brilliant yea, and brilliantly that ties in historically as well doesn't it as she was black, potentially Queen Caroline, isn't it? Or certainly had black antecedent sort of thing. And I think that's maybe where the germ of the whole idea sort of came from.

Paul Hunter
But I have to admit, Jason, I don't know about you. When I got this part, I thought, okay, it sounds interesting. I knew nothing about Bridgerton. And then over that Christmas, I got so many texts of people saying, oh, my God, you're in Bridgerton. And it became this extraordinary, successful show. No, I didn't know anything about.

Jason Barnett
I couldn't believe it. I was so good. I've never had more goody bags in my life, I really developed a relationship with my post person. And they were coming thick and fast. Sometimes two or three a day, Netflix are just brilliant. I don't actually do that much, but I'm in every episode, likely brushing the beautiful Regé-Jean's coat a lot and doffing my cap to him and stuff, but because I'm in every episode, I sort of count as the ensemble and so, I mean, so many gifts. It was absolutely brilliant, I haven't stopped drinking champagne off the back of that since! Well, that was lovely.

Paul Hunter
That's very well deserved. And the thing that I also enjoyed about our time when we've done shows or bits of stuff together. One of my favourite memories is sharing a dressing room with you at the Young Vic during Galileo. And and in our dressing room, we introduced Champagne Saturdays, last show of the week. And that feeling of coming in and sharing that with you at the end of a long day's week is something that I and all of us in that room, I have very fond memories of. And Jason, I've got one final thing to ask you if that's alright? I'm going to say some random questions, you respond immediately with your first choice as an answer if that's alright. Pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc?

Jason Barnett
Oh pinot grigio, absolutely, sauvignon blanc is disgusting

Paul Hunter
Porridge or Only Fools and Horses?

Jason Barnett
Ooh Porridge, Porridge has to be Porridge, I was in Porridge

Paul Hunter
Masterchef or Great British Bakeoff?

Jason Barnett
Oh Masterchef by a country mile, UK and Australia!

Paul Hunter
Perfect! Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor?

Jason Barnett
Ooh Richard Pryor

Paul Hunter
Steve Martin or Billy Connolly?

Jason Barnett
Conno, Conno, Billy!

Paul Hunter
Calves liver or steak tartare?

Jason Barnett
Tartare I think

Paul Hunter
Gardening or walking? It's a hard choice

Jason Barnett
Gardening, gardening

Paul Hunter
The Shining or Alien?

Jason Barnett
Ooh flipping heck, Alien I think. The Shining is scary.

Paul Hunter
Tightrope or trapeze?

Jason Barnett Ooh, in terms of being able to do either?

Paul Hunter
In your dreams you can do either you like! Tightrope or trapeze?

Jason Barnett
I would love to be able to do the trapeze, but I think I'm probably... ooh I'm, they're both

Paul Hunter
You can have the trapeze Jason! And finally Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton?

Jason Barnett
Buster Keaton.

Paul Hunter
Jason, it's been so lovely chatting to you. And let's let's let's make it not too long before we bump into each other somewhere and have a glass somewhere in town, I'm sure we will.

Jason Barnett
Lets have a champagne Saturday please!

Paul Hunter
Exactly! All the best Jason, take care, mate.

Jason Barnett
Thank you, bye bye.

Paul Hunter
Lots of love. Bye.

Paul Hunter
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