Perry Benson Talks Somers Town

5 months ago 12th Jan 10:17

Perry Benson began his acting career in television making a name for himself in the late eighties and early nineties with shows such as Hi-Dee-Hi and You Rang,M'Lord?

And while he still works in TV British independent film has taken up much of his time of late working with Shane Meadows on This Is England and more recently Somers Town. I caught up with him to talk about filming with Shane and what lies ahead for him.

Somers Town is just about to come out on DVD so can you tell me a little bit about it?

The film it traces the story of a boy who gets off a train at Euston Station and Somers Town is where he ends up, it's adjacent to the station, which is where a lot of transient people end up, or don't because it's a little bit of a missed area. And he is taken under the wing of several people and brought into the good will of them and I'm one of them.

And what was it about the film and the character that drew you to the project?

Money it was (laughs) no not very much but a bit and I had worked with Shane Meadows before and he had me in mind I think, probably. Funnily enough some of my ancestors come from Somers Town so it's an area that I'm quite familiar with, or it was when I was a kid but I'm forty seven now but when I was about fifteen I used to go down and see all my cousins.

I hadn't been down there in a long time but I am familiar with it my great grandmother was from there, Edith Neville Cottages they called it who was a person who built really nice low cost housing who was living before in tenant blocks. There has always been a community around there of people who built the railways.

What was it like for you going back?

Going back? Well I only live in Islington, which is not that far from it, so going to work I could walk to work which is really unusual when I'm doing a film you know?

And what is Shane Meadows like as a director as he has made quite a name for himself in a short space of time?

Shane Meadows is a brilliant director he gives you a lot of freedom and all of the stuff that I have done for him< I did This Is England as well, is improvised and that is how I was trained when I was a kid I did improvisational stuff at a place called Anna Sher's in Islington. So for me it really frees me up as an actor.

So you prefer working like that rather than sticking, perhaps not rigidly, to a script?

I don't know if I prefer to work that way but it's just more instinctive for me, I like scripted stuff as well as you can interpret that and make it as realistic as possible, but with improvisational stuff it's really off the cuff an it's more naturalistic I would say.

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