A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Tom Georgeson

Tom Georgeson was born on the 8th of August,1937 in Prescot, Liverpool but was reared in Liverpool and decided to become an actor after playing Laertes in a school production of 'Hamlet'. It was over 'a fag and a lemonade behind the science block', he and the leading man made a pact to tread the boards. "Once on stage, I thought, 'This will do me.' I discovered I had a voice. I probably liked showing off." He started his working life as a shop assistant in Jackson the Tailor, a job from which he used to escape by long walks around the city. But, feeling trapped in Liverpool, he emigrated to Australia, partly to act as chaperone for his sister who was also making the trip. The chaperoning did not last long as she met her husband on the ship. He did some teaching in Australia, married an actress and returned with her to Britain where he also took up the profession. Tom says, "My first job was with the Royal Shakespeare Company which saved me from going to drama school. I progressed from small parts and realised I could stay there for another 13 years and become Ben Kingsley -- but that was something I didn't want to do." So he joined the repertory circuit including a season at the Liverpool Playhouse under Dick Tuckey. After a while, he began doing television with his first acting role being in two episodes of 'Armchair Theatre' in 1969 and 1973. In the early 70s in Liverpool he worked with Alun Armstrong, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Pryce and David Bradley. "We were having a wonderful time and doing fantastic stuff", he remembers. That also included him working in Bleasdale's first ever play 'Fat Harold' and the 'Last 26' at the Liverpool Playhouse. However he became best known for his roles in several groundbreaking TV dramas including 'Boys from the Blackstuff' (1982), 'Scully' (1984) and 'G.B.H.' (1991) - these three all penned by Alan Bleasdale and 'Between the Lines' (1992-94). Alan Bleasdale had this to say about his performance in both 'The Black Stuff' and the follow-up series, 'Boys From The Blackstuff', "Tom Georgeson played the gang’s one time foreman Dixie Dean – and Alan said: “His performance was fantastic. Dixie’s tragedy, in a way, was bigger than the others. He believed in a hierarchical society. If people were at the top, he thought it was because they deserved to be at the top. He’d been a foreman, but once that role was taken from him he wasn’t a man any more.” 

Bernard Hill (Yosser Hughes), Alan Igbon (Loggo), Peter Kerrigan ( George Malone), Gary Bleasdale (Kevin), Tom Georgeson (Dixie Dean) and Michael Angelis (Chrissie),

Tom says he has got a lot to thank Alan Bleasdale for as he gave him some great stuff but when he walked the streets of Liverpool he often got called 'Isiah' which he found amazing. Isiah was a character he played many years before in the television series 'Scully'. "He was a policeman who had had a bottle in the face, which meant one eye was higher than the other, '' Considering it was a one-off series, rarely repeated he is surprised, "Some of the people must be too young to remember it, but only the other day I was stopped by the cathedral by someone calling, `Oi, Isiah!' It's very strange." Other television work has included roles in police and hospital dramas such as 'Holby City', 'Juliet Bravo', 'The Manageress', 'Peak Practice', 'Poirot', 'A Touch of Frost', 'Cadfael', 'The Bill', 'Dalziel and Pascoe', 'The Professionals' and 'Z-Cars'. He has also appeared twice in 'Doctor Who' and in 'Ashes to Ashes', 'Foyles War', 'Brookside' and 'The Crimson Petal and the White'. He has played nasty characters in the past but has worked hard not to get typecast. It has allowed him to play everything from a detective in 'Liverpool One' and a villain in the film 'No Surrender' to a priest in 'The Virgin of Liverpool'. There have been movies, but only English ones. "I don't want to go to America playing a Nazi baddy as always happens to English actors," he says. For film fans he is perhaps best remembered for his role as crook George Thomason (a play on his own name) in John Cleese and Charles Crichton's 1988 comedy smash 'A Fish Called Wanda' (1988). He also appeared in 'The Reckoning' (2002), the lawyer's clerk Clamb in the BBC One serial 'Bleak House' (2005), and in 'Notes On A Scandal' (2006).

as 'Isiah' in 'Scully'

Tom says, "The problem is that theatre people see me as a television actor so they are not always keen to employ me. They look at my CV and say, 'Oh, you have done an awful lot of television', in a detrimental way. They are very snobby at the top of English theatre. Not here in Liverpool or places like Sheffield and Leeds, but in London it's all Oxford and Cambridge." He has, however, done some regular theatre jaunts and quite successfully. He was in the National Theatre's 'Dealer's Choice' and 'The Good Hope' which toured to the Liverpool Playhouse. He was nominated for a 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in 'Frozen' at the Royal National Theatre:Cottesloe.

His daughter Rosalind 'Rossy' is married to Tom Bell's son Aran Bell, and they have an actress daughter Florence Bell.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/10/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-marji.html