Elvis, Elvis...

Perry’s Blog

Elvis, Elvis, let me be…

keep that pelvis far from me!

I was having a lengthy conversation the other day with my old mate Julie Graham, and we were reminiscing about our early careers in show-business.

Julie is now a well known film and TV actor, but was telling me she had just finished working on a theatre show. She explained how she would warm the cast up before rehearsals… using a particular song that meant a lot to us both.

Julie is probably best known for her television roles as Mary in “William and Mary”, and as Abby Grant in “Survivors.” But, like all great actors of her quality, she started her career in the theatre. This girl had theatre in the blood (her mother, Betty Gillin, had been a well known actress) and had immense natural talent which shone like a beacon, even then. Anyone who knew her knew she was going places.

We both got our Equity Cards (too many years ago to mention) on a schools theatre tour with Borderline Theatre Company. We were both pretty talented young people who thought we knew it all – but in those few weeks of hard graft, we learnt just about everything about our craft. We did have the benefit of working alongside the genius of Barbara Rafferty and Iain Andrew, who together taught us more about the theatre in particular, and of life in general, than one should expect to learn in a lifetime.

You can imagine the banter that went on within such a group of artists. Six actors and me (as stage manager), together with set, lighting and sound, toured all over Scotland in a minibus, presenting two shows a day for weeks on end. What fun we had, in those carefree days. I can’t remember much about the show itself, but the craic was out of this world.

To while away the hours of travelling, we got up to all manner of shenanigans. One day (and it came from a very distant memory) I introduced the team to what very quickly became the company song. And I’d like to thank the big man himself, Elvis Presley, for the gift! 

The song in question was “Didja’ Ever?”, and it makes me smile to this day… especially knowing that, nearly 25 years on, Julie still uses “our” song as part of her routine.