Timothy Spall

High on my list of Greatest Living Britons (just behind Bill Bryson). Seems to have made a sailing programme where he sits in the same harbour the whole summer eating. My kind of sailor.


I've seen Timothy Spall twice, some ten years apart.
The first time I was a barman at the Grove, a Harvester
On the South Circular between Forest Hill and Dulwich.
He came for a steak with his wife and kids.
We gawped from afar and made jokes
In bad Midlands accents, not even knowing
He was actually from around here.

A decade or so later I was having dinner in a chinese
In Nottingham when the entire cast of Outside Edge
Came in for a meal. Robert Daws was at one end
of the table,and Spall was at the other.
He was flirting with two of the younger,
Prettier diners, when the matriarchal tones
Of Brenda Blethyn cut grandly through the air:
“Timothy, don't you think you should phone your wife.”


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