Ricky Tomlinson

Ricky Tomlinson

Ricky Tomlinson is an English actor from the United Kingdom, born in 1939 in Blackpool and later a long-time resident of Liverpool. Before becoming an actor, he works as a building-site plasterer and becomes involved in trade union politics and activism. In 1972 he joins the flying pickets in a building workers’ dispute in Shrewsbury and is sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to intimidate as one of the Shrewsbury Two, alongside Des Warren. In 1975 he disrupts the TUC conference after being prevented from speaking from the stage, and in 2002 it emerges that MI5 has monitored him during the 1970s. He is also a well-known supporter of left-wing politics.

Acting career

Tomlinson appears as Bobby Grant in Brookside and later plays Jim Royle in The Royle Family. He also appears in Cracker as Robbie Coltrane’s second boss, replacing Christopher Eccleston’s character. His film roles include Mike Bassett: England Manager, Raining Stones and Hillsborough, a television film about the families of victims of the 1989 Hillsborough stadium tragedy and their attempts to win justice.

Other work and public appearances

Tomlinson releases an autobiography titled Ricky. He is a keen banjo player and plays the instrument in several episodes of The Royle Family. In 2001 he teams up with fellow Brookside actor Michael Starke and other friends to record folk songs including Are You Lookin’ At Me? and It’s A Long Way To Tipperary, and the album Music My Arse is released in the same year. He appears as a guest celebrity in Dictionary Corner on Countdown in 2006, tours UK theatres with An Evening with Ricky Tomlinson, in which he is interviewed by Elton Welsby, and later stars in a special episode of The Royle Family entitled The Queen of Sheba. He also fronts a series of commercials for British Gas despite his socialist views.