The secret life of Jim Hacker

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 11

The secret life of Jim Hacker

MIRIAM GROSS, of the “Observer,” London, talks to Paul Eddington, an actor who has not only become a popular television personality, but a part of political mythology.

For the first time in British history, there seems to be two Prime Ministers. One is in 10 Downing Street, the other is Jim Hacker, who — as portrayed by Paul Eddington — has become not only a popular television figure, but part of political mythology. The manoeuvrings on "Yes, Prime Minister,” (sequel to “Yes Minister”) the uncanny parallels with some recent entanglements, have given viewers a new sense of what politics is like behind the scenes, and Paul Eddington himself is now frequently treated like a public figure. "My wife and I have only got to set foot in another country and they lead us straight to the head of government," he says. This has actually happened to him in Norway, where he was flown to have breakfast with the Prime Minister, and in Australia, where he found himself, without warning, asked to address a general election rally. His next official visit is to Denmark, where he will be received by the Minister of Culture. In Britain he is the only non-politi-cian, apart from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has ever been asked to address the lobby correspondents at Westminster.

Although he has

claimed that in playing the part of Jim Hacker (“as unlike Mrs Thatcher as any Prime Minister could possibly be”), he is to a large extent playing himself, to meet, he is thoughtful and self-as-sured, with none of the helpless, dithery qualities of the character. Fame on this scale has come comparatively late to him. The turningpoint, as he makes clear, was undoubtedly “The Good Life.” He had been picked for it, unusually for television, on the basis of his stage work, in particular in Ayckbourn plays. At first he had thought it was going to be a low-key little domestic series “about people across the garden fence,” but it soon took off and started breaking all previous sit-com records. This led directly to his being given the role of Jim Hacker. Before “The Good Life” he had worked mainly in the theatre, though he had appeared fairly regularly in lesser television parts — “mainly cads and bounders and sinister characters.” As a stage actor, he has had a high

reputation within the profession for many years. Most recently he has appeared in Tom Stoppard’s “Jumpers” and Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off.”

Michael Frayn, like many of his friends, stresses not only his intelligence as an actor, but his exceptional personal qualities. For example, when “Noises Off’ was rewritten in a way that cut his part down to practically nothing in the last act, Paul Eddington never once objected or complained.

His range is much wider than his recent success in comedy might suggest. Two of his outstanding performances have been in Ibsen’s “Brand” and Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Michael Meyer, the translator of Ibsen and Strindberg, thinks he is one of the very best actors he has ever worked with. “He can act anything and act it with distinction, and he is always professionally courteous.”

In the days when he mainly played straight parts, he used to long to be offered comic roles. “I found comedy interesting and comparatively easy — I say this cautiously because, as Garrick or somebody said, any fool can play tragedy, but comedy is a serious business.”

Now he is a bit worried about being typecast as a comic actor. “I sometimes rather guiltily feel that I should have done more tragedy, in the same way that Jonathan Miller feels he should be doing medicine. And I must say that when you play a tragic role, the silence; which is the equivalent of laughter in a comic role — the quality of the silence varies enormously — is tremendously pvritine ” Paul Eddington does not come from a theatrical background. He spent his early years in North London, in what he thought was Hampstead

until a boy at school informed him that there was no such place as Hampstead NW6. His father’s family were Quakers, his mother was a Catholic; their marriage was not a happy one, and they separated when he was in his early teens. “My father wasn’t a success in worldly terms — he went from one job to another. His most unfortunate failing, I think, was that he was a gambler.”

still together, in the thirties, they used to invite people they thought interesting to their flat to speak about their beliefs to a gathering of friends. “One week it would be a prominent Fascist, another week a Communist, or a Quaker, and I think Father D’arcy came to speak about the Jesuits.”

In his teens, his mother moved to Birmingham, and he was sent to a Quaker boarding school, which he liked very much. The question of further education never came up, and his first job was as window-dresser in a department store, where the staff were ruthlessly exploited — “if anything could have made me into a Communist, it was that.”

His mother, with whom he and his sister lived after the break-up, was a strong influence. She supported them, mainly by managing restaurants; she was also a rebel, always “agin the Government,” dating from the time in childhood when she had seen her father, who was master of a workhouse, locking and chaining the gates and turning the firehoses on a crowd of the workless.

He then decided that he wanted to become an actor, and managed, because so many people were away at war, to get a job with ENSA, entertaining the forces. He was sent to the garrison

While his parents were

theatre at Colchester, where he spent a year playing minute parts and .helping out. When he was called up, he decided to become a conscientious objector — “it was because of my background and my school and perhaps something of myself.”

After the war, he was taken on by the Birmingham Repertory Company, which under Sir Barry Jackson was then reckoned to be the best in the country, and then moved on to work with other provincial reps, in particular at Sheffield, where he met his wife.

After six years on the stage — he was already playing leading parts — he decided that he ought to get some formal training and spent a year at RADA on a small grant. (One of the students there at the same time was Joan Collins: “She was 18 or 19 — you can imagine, stunning.”) After that, he played many leading parts in the provinces, though not in the West End — they included . Shakespeare, Shaw, Noel Coward. He also began appearing on television — the first time he got any regular work was in a Robin Hood series: “I was there to play any part that was required of me— wonderful training, of course. In one episode I played my own great-uncle, dying upstairs in bed and making merry about my inheritance downstairs.”

He married his wife, Patricia, when they were both in their early twenties and she had begun a promising career as an actress. They have four children, and it is obviously a very happy and solid marriage. Her one regret is that she had to give up her acting once they started having children; there simply was not enough money for domestic help. She emphasises, though, that there is no discrimination against women in the theatre. She is now a teacher.

band?" But she is too much of a person in her own right to let it get her down.

He takes a philosophical view of fame. “When it first happens, you think, Oh, terrific, but the feeling of euphoria wears off fairly quickly when you realise you can’t stir out of the house without having shaved or dressed properly. One yearns to be recognised, to be known — I think everybody does — and you mustn’t resent people badgering you. That would be illogical, since it’s the aim and object of the whole exercise. The fact that it’s a little tiresome when you’re trying. to buy underwear at Marks and Spencer and people know who you are and what kind of underwear you wear has to be put up with."

He has always taken an interest in politics. In his teens, he used to read the “New Statesman” and “Tribune” and he belonged to the Labour Party, but broke with it over conscription. The only time he has ever objected to the political content of “Yes, Prime Minister” was when Jim Hacker was made to mock anti-nuclear protesters and he got them to tone it down slightly. “But I’ve never had any serious objections about the programme. After all, if someone asks me to play Macbeth, I wouldn’t say I really can’t,.! object to regicide. In general, though, I feel shy about disclosing my politics. As Sir Humphrey would no doubt say, it would not be helpful.”

Since Paul Eddington has become a household name, she has inevitably had to cope with some of the problems of being “an unknown wife.” When they go out, people are always saying things like: “Can we borrow your hus-

And does he find that the politicians and civil servants he meets think the programme gives a realistic picture of what goes on? “Oh yes, to a man. Not to a woman, of course, because there are virtually no women in that world.” \

When he first started playing Jim Hacker, he says, he rather envied Sir Humphrey’s role — “I think Jeeves is a rather better part than Bertie Wooster.” But now that he is Prime Minister, he feels the role is more interesting. In contrast to Sir Humphrey, the character has begun to develop — the way Prime Ministers sometimes do.