I have been nominated for a Bafta this Sunday for best leading actor in the BBC drama Marvellous. In the programme I play clown, kit-man, local celebrity and bird and vicar spotter Neil Baldwin. Neil could describe his life in many different ways, but he never cites “disabled” among them.
When it was transmitted, Neil’s story had a great reaction, apparently trending on Twitter, and receiving unanimously positive reviews. All welcome praise, but most satisfying of all was the praise from outside the world of acting and television. The charity Mencap contacted us to say the team behind Marvellous had helped to challenge society’s perception of people with learning disabilities.
The script for Marvellous was indeed brilliantly written. It’s one of the hardest feats to produce something that is overwhelmingly optimistic yet avoids mawkish sentimentality. Somehow Peter Bowker managed to dramatise Neil’s unusual and often challenging life without patronising, belittling or simplifying its richness.
Neil was diagnosed with a learning disability but refuses to be defined by this label. He counts the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gary Lineker, the late Tony Benn and Prince Edward among his many famous and renowned acquaintances. He was granted an honorary life membership of Keele University Students’ Union in 1968 and his 50th year there sparked a two-day celebration. In the 1990s when he became the Stoke City FC’s kit-man, he was described by then-manager Lou Macari as the “best signing I ever made”.
People ask me if there were challenges playing someone who is considered to have a disability, or “ special needs”. In retrospect I realise that the question never arose. Of course, all drama tends to focus on characters with “a special need” that’s why they are “dramatic”. The peculiarities of that struggle constitute the story. In this sense playing Neil was no different to any other character I have played. But Neil’s “needs” are the practical daily needs we all share: getting a lift to the football, a job, an extra sandwich.
Prior to filming Marvellous, my understanding of the issues affecting people with a learning disability was minimal. I am Patron of InnerSense, an arts company who continue to lead pioneering multi-sensory workshops for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and I had improvised and performed with their clients. Often the participants are people who may need considerable, round-the-clock support and struggle to communicate to even their closest family members. But talking to Pete and Neil, I realised how unusual this film is.
What struck me most starkly is how rarely I had ever seen people with a disability like this in society, let alone the media. When disability is featured in mainstream drama it is often vulnerability, naivety and tragedy that is emphasised. Peter’s version of Neil’s life story gloriously subverts these expectations with humour, self-determination and victory.
Neil’s abiding optimism is an unusual subject for drama. The film depicts struggles with his local Jobcentre to find a suitable role, and the bullying that he faced. These are the challenges often facing the 1.4 million people in the UK with a learning disability, says Mencap. Yet when you speak to Neil, his outlook is relentlessly positive, either unaware of or simply undeterred by any emotional, physical or practical obstacle. In many ways the community in which Neil has thrived is as much the hero of the drama. Stoke, the church, the circus, the football club and most poignantly his mother, form a circle into which Neil is integrated and nurtured.
Of the many things I have learned meeting Neil, his network and indeed Mencap, two key lessons stand out. Firstly, that drama featuring characters with a learning disability need not always be depressing or tragic. Neil Baldwin is one of the most cherished people I have ever met. He continues to expand the sphere of his influence fearlessly and energetically.
Secondly, that the media needs to do more. Society’s attitude to people with a learning disability has too often been to sympathise and forget. Without a progressive media informing the public of what is possible for the disability community, we risk a society where those who are viewed as different remain at the corners of society, not due to their disability, but the way society views their disability. Marvellous celebrates the achievements of a dynamic, resilient individual whose disability is rendered irrelevant by the communities in which he continues to thrive.
