Friday 21 December 2012

Twitter

Apologies for lack of updates on the blog.
Ensconced in Pantoland until January 6th -
"Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs",
Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells.
I've now also set up a twitter account @n1ckwilton
and am tweeting fairly regularly during the run
so please follow me there.

 

Saturday 1 December 2012

EE Advent Calendar

Thank you EastEnders for the fantastic Christmas card, which is also an advent calendar. It's great.

Monday 19 November 2012

Ad break

No, this is not a picture of my wife, Lynette,
seeing me in the Specsavers ad for the first time -
it's her in her own ad for Gala Bingo.
Apparently we were both on in the same ad break last night.  Hooray!

 
 

Tuesday 13 November 2012

EastEnders tonight

After my very brief appearance in last night's ep, which was just the set up for tonight's story, I'm back tonight with a couple of good scenes (always depending on the edit, of course)
 

One last episode for me this year coming up on December 13th, which just happens to be the day before opening night of "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs" in Tunbridge Wells.

Saturday 3 November 2012

Bill the Bodger

Something I recorded back in 2002, that never saw the light of day.
Thought I'd drag it out, add some pictures, and bung it on YouTube.


Bill the Bodger 2002

Words: Nick Wilton
Music: Julian Littman
Featuring Nick Wilton, Julian Littman, Matt Devitt and Lynette McMorrough

EastEnders - November

Two Episodes this month. 
One quick set-up scene on Monday 12th for a nice bit of storyline on Tuesday 13th (3 scenes).
Back again on Thursday December 13th, the night before I open in panto - 
Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells.

Friday 2 November 2012

Featured in Dr Who fanzine


Issue 11 of 'The Finished Product' is available now.



Featuring the second season of adventures for the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller, this issue delves into the making of the season featuring exclusive interviews with executive producers Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery, script editor Alan Barnes, writers Pat Mills, Jonathan Morris, Jonathan Clements, Marc Platt, Eddie Robson and Paul Magrs, composers Timothy Sutton and Andy Hardwick, actors Katarina Olsson, Richard Laing and Nick Wilton, plus unseen cover sketches from Grant Kempster.
For more details contact thefinishedproduct@hotmail.co.uk

Monday 17 September 2012

EastEnders 18th September

Up at Elstree tomorrow filming 3 more scenes for November,
and I'm in a couple of scenes going out in the evening
(BBC One Tuesday 18th September 7.30pm)

 
 

Friday 31 August 2012

September News

Coming up on TV this month:

Justin's House    
Sunday Sept 2nd      
CBeebies 11.00am & 5.00pm
Justins House Series 2 Going for Gold

EastEnders         
Thursday Sept 6th    
BBC1 7.30pm
EastEnders 06/09/12

EastEnders          
Tuesday Sept 18th  
BBC1 7.30pm



Other News:

Monday Sept 10th.
Play reading of " Saving Toad"
by David Seidler
("The King's Speech")
at The Pleasance

Tuesday Sept 11th.
Panto Launch
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Tunbridge Wells
/www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk

Sept 12th - 22nd.
Filming two more episodes of EastEnders (for November)



Wednesday 15 August 2012

Cash on Delivery - Review 4

Wednesday 11th July
by Sally Bryant

Farce has to be fast and - well,really farcial and this one's got the lot.
The central character is in an implausible siyuation, about to get worse, and of course his wife doesn't know.
As the action romps away everyone is confused, apart from Eric Swan who is to blame for the whole mess and he can hardly hold it together. Before long there is a 'corpse' who refuses to lie down and die, a comedy chase and a man in a dress - as I said, it's all there!
Cash On Delivery is written by Michael Cooney, son of master playwright Ray, who obviously inherited the funny gene.
The plot is simple but convoluted, as the genre dictates - Eric Swan has lost his job but he has hidden this from his wife and is putting money in the bank by conning the department of Social Security. He is claiming every benefit in the book for a crowd of fictitious lodgers, but it all goes horribly wrong when an inspector calls...
The role of Eric Swan is played by Rikki Lawton, fresh out of university with a first in acting and a very bright light indeed. Even if farce isn't your favourite, it's impossible to keep straight-faced if the pace is right and Rikki goes for it like a greyhound out of the trap from the first line.
His energy and ability to squeeze every drop of humour from every word meant the whole first-night audience was laughing within minutes of 'curtain-up' - and they didn't stop until the end.
The newcomer's performance in this production is perfectly matched by the experienced comedy timing of Nick Wilton, who plays hapless lodger Norman Bassett. He has the consummate face for farce and had the audience in stitches time and time again, often with just an expression.
Michael Kirk also plays a comedy blinder as Uncle George, and deserves a round of applause for his physical fitness alone.
In fact there isn't a weak link in this chain of hilarious disasters. Anita Graham is spot on as Sally Chessington, the well-meaning but vacant bereavement counsellor and Mill regular Royce Mills excels as slightly-too-smiley-and-blissfully-unaware undertaker Mr Forbright.
And my award for the side-splitting scene of the night goes to Lawton and Felicity Duncan, whose character Ms Cowper makes any decent Miss Trunchbull pale into insignificance. I can't give away any more but to say the level is 'Carry On', with a touch of the playground, and everyone of every age was sobbing with laughter - my 18-year-old couldn't breathe or see for a good five minutes.
Cash On Delivery certainly delivers a good night out. The time is more than right for a farce resurgence amid gloomy news of floundering economies and enless rain - go on, take a seat for a really good laugh. I challenge you to remain po-faced through this one.


Thursday 26 July 2012

Cash on Delivery - Review 3

Saturday 7th July 2012
by Sue Hutchison

THE Mill at Sonning has done it again. Cash on Delivery cooks up every ingredient necessary to produce a delicious farce in the best tradition of a dinner/theatre package, which this theatre’s regular audience loves so well.
Rikki Lawton, playing the central character Eric Swan, has woven a complicated web of deceit to outwit the authorities and claim benefits for an army of fictitious lodgers.
When it all becomes too complicated, he decides to kill them off with a variety of “accidents”. But the resulting mayhem — as real and make-believe characters collide — ensures a hilarious evening of first-class comedy.
The action starts as soon as the curtain rises. Eric begins to panic when a DSS inspector arrives unexpectedly, quickly followed by Sally, a dotty bereavement officer, beautifully played by Anita Graham. Then enter a psychiatrist, an undertaker, and finally a corpse who isn’t really dead (Uncle George, who has been Eric’s accomplice from the start).
As lies and more lies lead to even more confusion, the audience roars with laughter. The action throughout is perfectly timed, so quick that the actors struggle to keep straight faces themselves.
This is farce at its absolute best. The Mill has another winning show, giving their audiences a delicious evening of jolly entertainment.

Saturday 7 July 2012

EastEnders Wednesday

Back at Elstree on wednesday morning to shoot a short scene for the top of an episode - only a couple of lines but very glad to know that Mr Lister lives on - then on to Sonning for another week of running around with eyebrows up.
(and back with EastEnders for two more scenes in a couple of weeks time)

Thursday 5 July 2012

Cash on Delivery - Review 2

Wednesday 4th July 2012
by Christopher Gray

In the very week that David Cameron declared war on “the benefit scroungers” the Mill at Sonning Dinner Theatre opened its revival of a splendid comedy that fully reveals the profits and perils associated with cashing in on — or in this case fraudulently exploiting — the availability of generous state hand-outs.
Michael Cooney’s 1997 farce Cash on Delivery focuses on Jack the lad East Ender Eric Swan, played with a cheeky charm, a fine sense of comic timing and considerable athleticism by watchable newcomer Rikki Lawton.
During a two-year campaign of peculation, of which his wife Linda (Helen Armes) is in utter ignorance, Eric has netted a fortune — “twenty-five thousand a year, no tax,” he gloats — by making false claims for himself and on behalf of an army of imaginary lodgers: “They just kept giving me all this money.”
Nor is it only money. Physical ailments — alopecia, back problems and the like — allegedly affecting the lodgers and their equally fictitious families have guaranteed a steady supply of wigs, corsets, stockings and outsize brassieres.
A misconstruction put on these when Linda discovers the stash leads her to call in a shrink (played by Brian Godfrey, who also directs) to deal with Eric’s supposed cross-dressing.
As it turns out, the only female impersonation we see comes from the Swans’ one genuine lodger, the nervous, nerdish Norman (Nick Wilton). He becomes complicit in Eric’s deception — much against his wishes — with the arrival of a snooping social security inspector (Eric Carte).
Hitherto, Eric’s only partner in crime has been his Uncle George (Michael Kirk), on whom much indignity is heaped during this day of disasters. His misfortunes include — so it appears — that of becoming a corpse, thereby requiring the presence of both a remarkably jovial undertaker (Royce Mills) and a simpering grief counsellor (Anita Graham).
For reasons I cannot begin to explain (far too complicated) Norman’s fiancée (Lynette McMorrough) believes the stretchered stiff to be her beloved, which sets yet more comic business in chain. All that is needed to complete this gloriously silly romp is the arrival of a big-bosomed benefits boss (Felicity Duncan), the dragon every farce requires.
As may have been guessed, Michael Cooney is related to veteran farceur Ray (son, in fact). The creative fecundity he displays here demonstrates he has absorbed all that dad could teach him and more. It’s a hoot.

Saturday 30 June 2012

Cash on Delivery - Review 1


Cash on Delivery
Published Friday 29 June 2012 by Sheila Tracy

Michael Cooney, who now lives and works in Los Angeles and has several film scripts to his credit, has certainly inherited his father’s talent for writing, having collaborated with Ray Cooney on the hit comedy Tom, Dick and Harry.
When he wrote Cash on Delivery in the mid-1990s it became a big hit in Oslo, to his amazement. Hardly surprising as I spent the first act of this play about a social security scam, mopping up tears of mirth, rating it as one of the most hilarious 60 minutes I have had the good fortune to see on stage.
Recently graduated Rikki Lawton gives an impressive performance as the young landlord, supposedly suffering from gout, playing the social security system for all it’s worth. With the help of Nick Wilton as his lodger, he is up to every trick in the book including a dead body, which proves to be very much alive. Wilton is custom-made for his role and is superb. All is well until the man from the Department of Social Security office arrives with a list of 25 different applications to be signed for, a role played with gusto by Eric Carte. News of a death in the house sees a bereavement counsellor, beautifully played by Anita Graham, introduced to the proceedings.
The star cast of 10 includes another Mill favourite, Royce Mills, with the director Brian Godfrey doubling in a minor role.

Cash on Delivery delivered

3 down, 52 to go. After a hectic two weeks rehearsal we opened with a matinee at 2.15 on Thursday, followed by a great first night in the evening to a packed house (which included the writer, Michael Cooney and proud father, Ray)

Sunday 10 June 2012

Cash on Delivery. Sonning.

Off to Sonning this afternoon to start rehearsals for Cash on Delivery (by Michael Cooney) tomorrow morning. I did the play at The Whitehall Theatre (now Trafalgar Studios) back in 1996;
it was the first time I worked with Ray Cooney, who directed. Brian Godfrey was Assistant Director then and he's directing this time round, as well as playing one of the parts. Anita Graham was with me in the West End and she is reprising her role too.
This time round my wife, Lynette McMorrough,  joins us, as well as some other mates -
Michael Kirk, Eric Carte, Helen Armes and Royce Mills (who I last worked with in The Sloane Ranger Revue at The Duchess Theatre way, way back in 1985). 


Click here to go to Mill at Sonning website:  Mill at Sonning Website

Doctors. Friday June 8th.

I was in Doctors on Friday.
Here's a link to the programme on BBC iplayer: Doctors

Friday 8 June 2012

Panto update

I've just realised I haven't updated my Panto news for a while, so here we go.
I can now confirm that this year I am back with UK Productions
and will be appearing in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs
at The Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells.


Click here to go to theatre website:  www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk

Monday 4 June 2012

Justin's House

I spent a very happy three days up in Manchester last week recording an episode of the CBeebies programme Justin's House; the show was recorded in front of a live audience of screaming 4-6 year olds and was great fun to do.
It was lovely working with Justin Fletcher and Steven Kynman, and to meet up with old BBC friends from the days of Playaway and Fast Forward.

Saturday 21 April 2012

EastEnders - Tuesday & Friday


Back in the Market on Bridge Street this Tuesday and Friday,
and I've finally made it onto the Soap pages in some of the TV Magazines.



Saturday 17 March 2012

Start two weeks rehearsal in London on Monday for "Out of Order",
which is playing in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
It's the third time I've worked for The British Theatre Playhouse
and I'm really looking forward to the trip.
Lynette's coming with me this time so that's even better.


Link to website with full details

Booked for Panto

Hooray! Booked for panto this Christmas.
Can't say where yet but I'm back with UK Productions and am really pleased with the venue.
I'll post full details when I know who else is in the cast.

Wednesday 29 February 2012

Walford and beyond

Early start today - 5.10 train to Walford. Got a room inside instead of one of the portacabins, and a new suit to boot so very excited. 2 scenes today and 5 on Friday for eps going out last week in April. Filming another episode of Doctors over the next two weeks, and then it's into rehearsals for Out Of Order on 19th March, which we're taking to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Good times.