Kenneth wins top trophy for comic role

Kenneth Alan Taylor receives his award

VETERAN Oldham actor Kenneth Alan Taylor was cheered by fellow performers when he collected a major regional theatre award.

Kenneth, whose theatre career has spanned five decades, received the award for best supporting actor at Friday’s Manchester Theatre Awards.

This was the first year of the awards, reborn as independent prizes last year by a group of independent reviewers, among them Chronicle reviewer Paul Genty.

Kenneth, former Oldham Coliseum artistic director and a nationally-acclaimed pantomime director and actor among his other skills, received the trophy for one of the few comic roles — an elderly Jewish furniture dealer — in an Arthur Miller drama, “The Price”, at Bolton Octagon.

Experience
The production was one of the most acclaimed at the Octagon in 2011 — a season that gave the small theatre four major awards, including best production (for “The Price”, directed by Octagon chief David Thacker), and best actress, awarded to North-west actress Margot Leicester in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.

Kenneth said the production was an overwhelming experience.

Accepting his award, he paid tribute to David Thacker: “Everybody said ‘You and Thacker? You’ll never get on’, but I think it’s true to say I fell in love with him!

“It was the happiest production I have ever been in, except perhaps my own pantomimes.”

But Kenneth wasn’t completely overwhelmed by his award: “in fact I’m very disappointed by it,” he told an audience of 200 performers and theatre workers from around the area. “I was hoping for the prize for best newcomer.”

The Coliseum didn’t collect any awards at the ceremony, even though it had been nominated for the second year for best special entertainment for its Christmas pantomime, which it won last year.

But bosses weren’t too disappointed: the winning show, a Manchester International Festival production, “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic”, featured Hollywood star Willem Dafoe, internationally acclaimed performance artist Abramovic, and cult pop star Anthony Hegarty of Anthony and the Johnson’s — and is currently on a sell-out international tour!