Elvis won't be lonesome tomorrow night, reports Charles Hutchinson.
IS Reg Micklethwaite, the Elvis enthusiast in Alan Booty's new play A Fool Such As I: My Life And Elvis, just like Eddie Vee, York's king of Presley tribute acts? All will be revealed tomorrow night when Eddie will be in the audience at the Chapel Studio Theatre, College of Ripon and York St John, Lord Mayor's Walk, York.
York actor Alan has written the play as part of his MA studies in theatre and contemporary performance at University College, Scarborough. The piece began as a story about an Elvis impersonator but the emphasis has since changed.
"As the character of Reg emerged, I found I wanted to include the fascinating paradoxical quirks I've observed in others and which others observe in me," he says. "Reg thinks that his obsession with 'The King' will make him more interesting. He's one of those people who go to evening classes so they can tell other people what they're doing, rather than because they want to learn the subject.
"Unlike Eddie, Reg needs an idol for his own aggrandisement, and if he hadn't chosen Elvis, he would have found somebody else. Reg's personal circumstances are more extreme than Eddie's. His partner has left him and he has no children. If Reg is to move on, he must accept himself as he really is and leave Elvis to the adoration of genuine fans like Eddie and me."
Alan - who incidentally played Abraham in the York Millennium Mystery Plays in York Minster this summer - has all Elvis's records and every book about him ever written. "All my friends have found it somewhat quaint that someone can be interested in things academic and still be proud of his Elvis collection," he says. "Certainly, when I was at university, it was something to keep quiet about if you wanted any credibility. Everyone else was discovering 'underground' music."
Everyone else except Eddie Vee, that is. Eddie was and still is obsessed with Elvis Aaron Presley. That much he has in common with Booty's Reg Micklethwaite - but there are differences. "I don't feel as sad and confused as the character in Alan's play: the highlight of his infatuation is to go round Tesco dressed as Elvis, whereas that's a weekly duty for me - I have to eat."
Difference number two: Reg is standing in the wreckage of a broken relationship but Eddie's marriage to Jane has firm roots, even if she did famously rock the boat through the media. "I've had to compromise a lot with Jane, especially since the Channel 5 documentary show, and I think things are a lot better between us now than they were a year ago," he says. "I don't make a fortune from doing Elvis, as Jane will tell you. For most local shows I get less than £200 for a full two-hour show but it's very soul satisfying, is generally a lot less harmful than drugs and alcohol, and at the end of the day it does give a lot of pleasure to a lot of people - and that's good enough for me."
With Eddie, the Official Elvis of the Monster Raving Loony Party, looking on, Alan Booty presents A Fool Such As I: My Life And Elvis at 7.30pm tomorrow in a double bill completed by his monologue performance as Graham in A Chip In The Sugar from Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series.
Tickets for Talking Heads And Elvis Too are on sale at £6.50, concessions £5, at the York Theatre Royal box office, tel 01904 623568, and on the door.
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