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Actor Robert Lindsay: Fame was a real shock after training in Nottingham

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Video: Robert Lindsay talks accents with Iain Chambers

His face is known throughout Britain after a glittering career on stage and screen – but Nottingham-trained actor Robert Lindsay has revealed how fame didn’t come easy for him.

Raised in Ilkeston and later studying in Nottingham, he first became a household name in the seventies with his his TV role in the comedy Citizen Smith.

It was a first big national break for the actor after he had started out studying A-level drama at New College Nottingham, then Clarendon College between 1966 and 1968.

“When I first came back to Nottingham [after Citizen Smith] I literally stopped streets. I couldn’t walk anywhere, it was a real shock,” he said.

“And my mother didn’t like my privacy invaded. She liked the fact I wanted to go into the serious theatre, I went to the Royal Shakespeare Company and I went to the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

“I was at a boys school until I was 16 and suddenly coming to Nottingham, and as we all know the most beautiful girls in the country are in Nottingham. That was the initial shock. That I was sitting next to a girl at college who was beautiful.

“It was quite distracting really when you are doing A-Levels.”

The 66-year-old is also renowned for his Shakespearean theatre roles and parts in sitcoms including My Family from 2000-2011.

He is the recipient of a BAFTA, a Tony Award, and three Olivier Awards.

New College Nottingham now has a theatre named after him and he was awarded the title of Freeman of the Borough of Erewash at a ceremony on Saturday.

He appears as a guest on Notts TV’s 6:30 Show tonight for a special interview on his life and work.

“Creatively kids have to express themselves, I recently saw an audience participation performance and I’ve never seen kids so animated to see Shakespeare,” he added.

“To me self-expression is everything, without that and without Clarendon or New College as it’s called now, as I just wouldn’t know what I was doing.

“Coming from Ilkeston and jumping into Nottingham, to Clarendon was a big thing for me. It was a big city. And it’s a beautiful city, which has had it’s problems, like all major cities but it still has a romance for me.”

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For more watch a 6:30 Show special: A Conversation with Robert Lindsay, on Notts TV at 6.30pm on October 3, Freeview Channel 7, Sky 117, Virgin 159.

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