Rob Brydon stars as Peter O’Toole in new radio drama

Rob Brydon says he found himself continuing to speak in Peter O’Toole’s voice after recording a new radio drama about the celebrated actor’s career and stage work.

Brydon plays O’Toole in Peter O’Toole Is Unwell, a BBC Radio 4 drama written by playwright Terry Johnson. Speaking to the Today programme, Brydon said the part became a challenge once he was in the studio, as he tried to capture the actor’s distinctive speech and remain in character.

He said he had expected to get close to O’Toole’s voice, but the script’s many words and the effort of taking on another person’s manner made the task demanding. Brydon described the script as wonderful and said it drew on O’Toole’s words in publications and memoirs. After the sessions, he said, he would still catch himself wondering how O’Toole might say something.

The drama is set in the Old Vic dressing room where O’Toole performed in two very different productions: Macbeth in 1980 and Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell in 1999. It looks back at the contrast between the reception of the performances and explores success, failure, love and ageing.

O’Toole’s Macbeth attracted poor reviews, although Brydon said ticket sales were strong because audiences had heard the production was bad. Years later, O’Toole played journalist Jeffrey Bernard in Keith Waterhouse’s play to acclaim. The play’s title refers to the wording used when Bernard missed a deadline for his Spectator column.

Waterhouse’s drama centres on Bernard being accidentally locked overnight in his favourite pub after falling asleep in the toilets. With a bottle of vodka, he reflects on his life. The new radio drama takes its name from that play and uses O’Toole’s return to the same dressing room as a way to revisit the earlier Macbeth experience.

Brydon said O’Toole had one of the most beautiful voices to listen to. He also spoke of his own longstanding affection for radio, saying he began as a presenter on BBC Wales in the mid-1980s and valued the medium’s intimacy and immediacy.

O’Toole was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor eight times, including for his performance as T E Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. He received an Academy Honorary Award in 2003 for his body of work and died aged 81 in December 2013.

Peter O’Toole Is Unwell is available on BBC Sounds. Brydon has also finished filming The Trip to the Northern Lights with Steve Coogan. The new instalment, directed by Michael Winterbottom, follows the pair travelling in Scandinavia and is due to air on Sky and NOW in December.

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