Pure theatre!
Reporter: Martyn Torr
Date published: 12 September 2011
MARTYN MEETS... The extraordinary tale of how stage favourite Jeffrey Longmore stumbled into a life of acting...
WITHOUT a shadow of a doubt the finest pair of pins I have ever seen — on a man, and a married man at that!
The man in question will take that as a huge compliment — trust me, it’s true.
Jeffrey Longmore, not from these parts but now a badged-up confirmed Oldhamer, well, he lives in Lydgate, is an actor who fell into the profession via a complete fluke but has made his living treading the boards these past 36 years.
He will be known to a great many of you through his years at Oldham Coliseum — those halcyon days in 1978 under Kenneth Alan Taylor immediately after the venue was rebranded from the former Oldham Repertory Theatre.
“There were only eight actors,” he recalled. “We would rehearse a play and it would run for two-and-a-half weeks. Opening night was Thursday and the following Monday we would begin rehearsals for the following performance.
“Those were the best experiences ever — it was a simply fantastic experience, the best. I will be eternally grateful for that opportunity.”
Jeffrey, now 58 with four children, never expected to stay at the Coliseum, but they were days that were to shape his life as he met his wife Elaine and settled to become one of us.
“I don’t think Kenneth (the artistic director) thought I was very good,” he said.
“I had this part in a Willy Russell play ‘Breeze Block Park’ and there was a moment when I had to pause before delivering a line.
“When the play opened the audience went mad at my comic pause, night after night, and Kenneth must have had a rethink about my abilities!”
Jeffrey was laughing at the memory, something that his profession is able to do spontaneously.
After all, he has spent around 20 years dressed in women’s clothing on stage, in front of audiences of all ages, so he can hardly take himself too seriously.
But long before he made a name for himself in tights and basque, and latterly as a pantomime dame — he’s already booked as Baroness Hardup in “Aladdin” at Nottingham for three months this Christmas — Jeffrey was a thoroughly professional actor.
And he must have improved too, because the producer who has booked Jeffrey in Nottingham, for his 33rd successive year in panto, is the same Kenneth Alan Taylor who never really rated him.
So just how did he get into the business, given there is no history of acting in his family and, by his own admission, he isn’t very good?
“It was a complete fluke,” he candidly admits, adding: “I grew up in Stoke on Trent, an only child.
“At 18 I thought I would become a teacher and spent 12 months in a school as a sort of paid teaching assistant, something that isn’t available to today’s youth. I thought I would enjoy teaching and looked at doing drama as I thought it would be interesting. So I applied to Manchester Polytechnic and they sent me an application form and asked me to rehearse two audition speeches.
“I thought it was a funny request but went along with it.”
He was welcomed to the college by a young second-year trainee who went on to become an icon of the industry, a young aspiring Julie Walters.
He later trained with David Threlfall, who has since made a name for himself in Channel 4 hit “Shameless”.
A few days after his interview and audition, Jeffrey received confirmation of his enrolment on a drama course.
“I had applied for the wrong course, I never intended becoming an actor,” he said.
But he did, and three years later, he graduated with an agent and an Equity card and soon found himself on a ferry to Belfast to make his debut in three plays, the first of which was Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”.
Recalling those still vivid memories of his trip to troubled Ulster, Jeffrey told me: “I was terrified. I didn’t want to go to Northern Ireland — on the ferry I deliberately sat between two nuns. I thought I’d be safe.”
He thoroughly enjoyed his time there though — despite his lodgings being raided by the IRA one night. On another occasion he was escorted by armed IRA members in black balaclavas to one performance.
Jeffrey was about to play in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, again in Belfast, when he received news that his father was seriously ill back home in the Potteries.
“I travelled home immediately. Both my parents died within a short space of time. I was an only-child and had precious little family with whom I could share my grief. I kept my emotions bottled up for four years but it all came out and I had a sort of bad time for a period,” he said.
All the while he continued to find work and that was when he came to Oldham, initially only for four plays.
The work in between included television advertisements for Stones bitter. He filmed in The Rockies in Canada and at Hollywood superstar Sylvester Stallone’s hacienda in Acapulco, Mexico — “although Sly wasn’t at home,” he recalled.
And then came the part that was to change his life — in more ways than one.
Jeffrey had seen the London stage version of “The Rocky Horror Show”, which was to become an iconic piece of jaw-dropping theatre, and set about trying to convince Mr Taylor to bring the show to Oldham.
“Eventually Kenneth arrived at the rehearsals one day and simply announced he had secured the rights.”
It was a moment of theatre history for Oldham — and there have been many of those at the Coliseum — as our little theatre was to become the first outside of London to stage Richard O’Brien’s madcap mayhem.
And the first person to play the part of Frank ‘n’ Furter — iconoclised by the simply sensational Tim Curry — was none other that our very own Jeffrey.
“It was simply a case of let’s see how it goes — we did not have a clue how an Oldham audience, a regional audience more used to Mike Harding plays, would react to a piece of almost decadent theatre that was risqué — even for London.
Jeffrey rolled back his eyes and the years when he recalled his dramatic entrance on to the stage “lowered on a trapeze, in basque, suspenders and high heels . . .”
He said: “There were complaints, of course there were complaints, and some people walked out but eventually we won everyone over — people would come back two and three times.”
After the stunning Oldham debut the musical toured and for five years Jeffrey was Frank ‘n’ Furter, even in his home town of Stoke where his old school pals turned out in droves to see what had become of their old chum.
Eventually, Jeffrey needed a break and he was succeeded by none other than Bobby Crush “who was simply brilliant” — said Jeffrey, who still has happy memories of the role which he has continued to play since, including twice in Oldham and live performances interspersed with film footage of the movie, including one memorable Hallowe’en event at the former Pennine Way Hotel.
Jeffrey, resplendent in all the gear, was judging a parade of weird and wonderful Frank ‘n’ Furters of all shapes and sizes when one of the, er, larger versions fell off the stage and through the screen!
The part has proved pivotal in his career in more ways than one. Make-up, an essential element of the role, took quite a while and a former Chronicle photographer asked Jeffrey if she could produce a series of pictures on the process.
On the appointed evening, the photographer arrived, accompanied by a friend, who was just along for the evening. That friend left the shoot and said: “I’m going to marry that man!”
So she did. Elaine and Jeffrey are living happily ever after.
Jeffrey now runs a business taking theatre into schools all around the country, in addition to continuing to work in theatre.
“There has even been an enquiry from a school in Vietnam,” he told me.
Now there’s a spine-tingling thought, an image with which to conjure — an Oldhamer playing Frank ’n’ Furter in the land of the Vietcong.
Can’t happen, can it..?
