One-man show celebrates legendary Oliver Reed

It’s hard to argue with Rob Crouch’s assessment that the late actor, Oliver Reed, was no ordinary drunkard.

A movie star before there really was such a thing, Reed, who died in 1999, was perhaps best known for wrestling naked with Alan Bates in the 1969 film, Women in Love, and best loved for his portrayal of burglar Bill Sykes in Carol Reed’s film Oliver!

Renowned as much for his binge drinking and drunken antics as he was for his acting, the legendary Reed once boasted of drinking over 100 pints of beer on a two-day bender before his wedding. He is also said to have once consumed four cases of wine at one sitting, followed by a bottle of Channel No 5 perfume as a chaser. No – no ordinary drunk.

It’s unsurprising that a monologue play about Reed’s life, then, is set in a pub. Oliver Reed – Wild Thing is set in a watering hole in Malta, in 1999, the year he died while filming Gladiator, and Crouch, who plays Reed, is holding court, sinking pints and regaling the other patrons (the audience) with tales of his life.

Sure couldn’t we just go to any Galway pub to find a drunk reminiscing on old times? Crouch, co-author (with Mike Davis) and performer of the one-man show, agrees but says Reed’s life was like no other. “He wasn’t just any old pisshead that you’d meet down the pub who’d tell you their life story – he was a world-class pisshead,” says Crouch, adding that Reed mingled with the likes of Orson Wells, Lee Marvin and Alex Higgins.

Is there a danger of glorifying drink?

“It’s something we had to be wary of, certainly,” he says. “But the whole pisshead thing is slightly exaggerated. That was one of the many roles he played. He’d get tanked up and created mischief on TV chat shows but that was just one part of him . . . a lot of it was about selling newspapers and he played up to that but he wasn’t always drunk.”

Anyway, says Crouch, Reed was a ‘sociable drunk’.

“He didn’t need a whiskey on his cornflakes before leaving the house – he was sociable. He was happiest when he was drinking and it perhaps glorifies drinking but he was not necessarily happiest when drunk, if you get the distinction? It glamorises it if that’s what you want but you’ll see what drink did to him.”

It’s difficult being alone on stage and holding the audience’s attention for 90 minutes, says Crouch, but given the rave reviews the show has received since opening in the Edinburgh Fringe last year, he nails it.
“It is a real challenge” because he has to interchange into so many different characters, from early Reed, to actor Reed, to sober Reed, to drunk Reed.

Reed’s son, Mark, has seen the show, and it was a bit scary for Crouch, the first time he came. “The way I approached it was it’s just another character and I didn’t really think of [Reed] as a real person . . . but then it hit me he had family and friends who are still alive who love him.”

Mark Reed was “very pleased” with the show, finding it an “accurate and honest portrayal of the sort of complex person he was”. What better a recommendation?

Oliver Reed – Wild Thing visits the Town Hall Theatre next Thursday, May 2 at 8pm as part of a 21-night Irish tour. Tickets are €18/€16 from www.tht.ie or (091) 569777.