Actor makes debut as legendary comic, Spike Milligan (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Actor makes debut as legendary comic, Spike Milligan

5:10pm Friday 22nd January 2010

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Actor Sholto Morgan has picked a tough task for his stage debut - playing the legendary comic Spike Milligan in Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. The production, an adaptation of Milligan’s war-time memoirs, heads to Richmond Theatre next week and Morgan spoke to Will Gore ahead of the run.

Tell us about the show

It starts in 1939 with Chamberlain effectively announcing the start of the Second World War and it charts all the way through Spike's campaign from his training in Beckfield and Catford and then to North Africa, Algiers and Italy. It has been written it as if the soldiers are putting on a show for the troops in an old music hall with an Entertainment Corps-style band. We all play our own instruments in the show – I play the trumpet and sing - and there is lots of physical comedy. The show is bursting with vim.

Was playing Spike Milligan a daunting prospect?

I had six auditions but it all happened so quickly and, it sounds funny, but I didn't realise how phenomenal he was until I started rehearsing and the responsibility only really dawned on me after the first time I did it in Bristol when a fan of Spike’s came up to me and said: “I think it is incredibly brave of you to take on the part.”

How about the physical resemblance?

Physically, I'm quite slender and tall like he was and I've had my hair cut in the particular way that looks like he had it. I watched lots of film of him and, to be honest, I've got elements of other gangly people, like Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler form Aerosmith, in there too.

Does the fact that you are playing a young Milligan help in coming up with your own version of him?

He was 21 when he went to war and it does admonish a little responsibility for me. The great thing is I don't have to be side-splittingly funny as this was him in his rawest form when he was being informed by the people around him. He found a lot of characters in the war who would later turn up in his comedy but I still had to tap into his energy and really wacky way of thinking.

Have you become something of a Milligan expert now?

In preparation for the part I read all seven of the war memoirs. He did miss out bits, he didn't write extensively about Rommel's campaign in Italy for example, so I also had to read around the subject. I also read memoirs of other people in which he featured to get a sense of what he was like to others. I'm a huge fan now and I was joking that I could on Mastermind with Milligan's war memoirs as my specialised subject.

Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, Richmond Theatre, January 25-30, ambassadortickets.com

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