A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Joe McGann

 

Joseph McGann was born on the 24th of July 1958 in Kensington, Liverpool to a metallurgist father also named Joe, and a teacher mother named Clare. The eldest of four brothers, although his mother tragically lost his eldest brothers at birth in the 1950s. He went to St Anne’s Primary, Overbury Street and then to St Francis Xavier’s College in Woolton. With a friend he also took part in theatre at Speke Comp, although Joe says his own school, St Francis Xavier, was never very encouraging, "The Jesuits frowned on the arts generally. I remember talking to them about wanting to be an actor and they just pooh-poohed it. It was considered completely ridiculous." The theatre bug first bit Joe while he was growing up in Liverpool, virtually in the shadow of the legendary Everyman Theatre. Again he says, "We lived in the inner city, right near the Everyman, so it was like our local youth club and it was a great place to meet girls! It was also the kind of city where you could be playing football with your friends and none of them would take the mickey if you said you were going to drama classes tonight. It was all-inclusive." He first went to the theatre as a reward for passing his 11-plus exams; "It was The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley and I remember thinking, people actually do this for a living! That's when I decided I wanted to be an actor and the week after, I joined the Everyman Youth Theatre." Joe was the first of the brothers to join the Youth Theatre, but jokes "I’m not claiming responsibility!"

Sadly, since he was a child Joe has suffered with depression and feels it is inherited melancholia coming from his father and has affected all his family. His father had been critically wounded on D-day and was among the servicemen who were treated with the first mass-manufactured batch of penicillin. He was depressed, deeply depressed – and undiagnosed. As a child Joe always knew his father was in one of his black moods as he could feel it in the air as soon as he came through the front door. However Joe has sympathy as he was from that generation who came back from the war and believed that there were jobs for life. He did shift work in the metals industry, and in 30 years, never took a day off. He remembers him walking in to the house after eight miles in the snow. Then, when he got ill, they made him redundant. Joe's disgust at this is palpable. He says,"That was the late 1970s/ early 1980s, and he wasn't alive long after that. He died in 1984, after by-pass surgery. He had bits of complications, he probably could have recovered, but he'd had enough. He checked out." However, the true 'heroine of his life is his mother. Growing up, Joe, despite being the eldest, always knew that he wasn't the first child, or even the second, as there were twins who died before he was born. He knew he wasn't the first Joseph, his twin brothers in 1957 had died, one stillborn, the other too premature to survive. His mother was just 21 at their birth and never got a chance to hold her dead babies and was never told by her husband where they were buried. However the family did eventually find the graves, marked them properly and got a headstone made.

Joe's first TV appearance was as a guitarist on the series 'Metal Mickey' (1980) and then in another minor role as Steve in 2 episodes of 'Johnny Jarvis' (1983). More small parts followed in 'The Gentle Touch (1983), 'The Brothers McGregor' (1985) and 'Boon' (1987) before he had a more substantial part as P.C. Gerry O'Dowd in the crime series 'Rockcliffe Babies' (1987-88). More TV work followed and he was the voice of Masklin, a four inch high Gnome, in the animation series 'Truckers' (1992), based on Terry Ptatchett's books, and in 7 episodes of 'Harry Enfields's Television Programme' (1990-92).

'The Upper Hand'

He then became best known as an ex-footballer in 'The Upper Hand' (1990-96) also starring Diana Weston and Honor Blackman, as Charlie Burrows who had left London with his daughter, Joanna, to start a new life in the country. He takes a job as a housekeeper to a female executive, Caroline. Her son Tom, lives with her, but next door lives her man-eating mother, Laura West. Both Caroline and Charlie repeatedly attempt to find love elsewhere. For years denying their blossoming feelings for one another, they lead the viewer on a will-they-won’t-they chase lasting until the end of the sixth series. By the seventh series the viewer sees them as husband and wife. During this period, he also appeared in 4 episodes of the series 'Hanging Gale' (1995) and starred in 'Tom, Dick and Harry' (1995) , with his brothers Stephen and Mark, a play by Ray and Michael Cooney at the Duke of York's Theatre. More single appearances followed in a variety of shows before his next major role in the drama soap 'Night and Day' (2001-2003).

In 'Night and Day'

He featured as Grimes at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the 2003 stage musical adaptation of the novel 'The Water Babies'. On the 16th of  December 2007, he played one of the three Magi in BBC Three's 'Nativity'; a live performance of the Bible story of Jesus's birth, set in modern-day Liverpool. His main solo song was 'Lady Madonna', singing to the newly-born Jesus who is lying in a shopping trolley in a pub garage. The following year he appeared on tour with 'Fiddler on the Roof' playing the paterfamilias, Tevye, but left the show 2 months before the tour ended due to an arm injury sustained on stage. In 2009, he appeared on BBC's 'Celebrity Master Chef' and reached the semi-finals. Coming back to the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, in May-June 2009, he appeared as Richard in 'Lost Monsters' by Laurence Wilson. 
It was announced in 2019 that he had joined the cast of 'Hollyoaks' as Edward Hutchinson, his first major role for some years, as the father of established character Tony Hutchinson. After 86 episodes, in December 2020, it was announced that Joe had filmed his final scenes on the soap, which aired later that month. After splitting from his therapist wife Tamzin of 10 years in 2016, in January 2021 he paid tribute to his new partner's campaigning and dubbed her "the greatest human being" he knows. He said this of campaigning mum Frances Molloy from Woolton as he opened up on their relationship. Her tireless efforts had paid off - with tyres aged ten years and older banned from lorries, buses and coaches on roads in England, Scotland and Wales following her son's death in a crash on the A3 in Surrey which occurred after a coach's 19-year-old tyre blew out.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/02/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-julia.html