The Guinness Poster

I was asked about that picture, above, the other day – who did it? When was it? How did it come about?

Well:

I did a Guinness commercial about two blokes who go in to a bar and ask for two bottles of Guinness – here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzzPtypCrUE – I'm the one with the black hair.

When I did this I was less than two years out of drama school; I'd been in a soap opera, Crossroads, worked on one episode of The Newcomers and at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, so I was a little green, to say the least.

The other guy, Jeremy Bulloch, was a regular in The Newcomers even though I hadn't met him when I did my episode.

Originally the advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, wanted some name actor with dark hair to be with Jeremy in the commercial – whoever it was they couldn't get him so I got the role after auditioning with a load of other actors. Just once, no call back, or anything else.

I remember thinking that the director was really good; he wanted us to be Laurel and Hardy and on most of the shots you see we did about 20 takes; easy as they had loads of money and it was like a big budget movie.

We shot the outside scene in Windsor, around the corner from the castle, and shot the interior in the afternoon at Goldhawk Film Studios in Shepherd's Bush.

We had a few goes at the exit from the shop before shooting it and the director wanted me to do something funny on the way out so I suggested hitting my head on the bird cage. I tried it and everybody laughed.

They were rather concerned that it was hurting me but I actually headed the cage, like heading a football, catching it on my hairline so there was no bother.

What I hadn't realised, and look what I say above - I was a little green – they wanted loads and loads of takes of me hitting my head.

Maybe about ten or so from each angle – close up, shot from the back, shot from the front, up my nose, the back of the head, you name it.

I kept hearing 'does it hurt?' well it didn't as I got used to it – but where there's no sense there's no feeling!

A month or so after that, I was contacted, through my agent, by the advertising agency who wanted me to do a photo session for the poster (above).

The Production Designer or Art Director, or whatever he was, on the commercial, liked the work I did and wanted me for the poster; I was to be paid, maybe two weeks of the working man's average salary at the time, per hour, so I accepted the job.

At the time we were living in Shropshire – we bought our first house a month before starting drama school with the plan we would sell when I graduated – so I had to go to Richmond in Surrey to do the shoot and unfortunately there was a rail strike on the day. They did suggest cancelling and doing something else with me in the future but I guaranteed I would be there and stayed with friends.

The studio was full of reflectors, for the photographer to use to reflect light at me, and in the corner was a full barrel of draft Guinness. The aforementioned commercial was for bottled Guinness but this was for draft and the only way you could pour draft Guinness in those days was from the barrel; the award winning widget came in the eighties.

All I had to do was drink about one third of the pint in one go, then they would give me another pint and I would drink another third.

The photographer used a Polaroid instant camera initially, to see roughly what the final shot would look like – no digital in those days.

I found these Polaroids the other day and you can see I'm drinking the Guinness even before we started shooting seriously. They'd already sorted out a shirt for me and I've just noticed I am wearing a ring. That was my dad's and it disappeared years ago – so nice to see it.

When they were satisfied with the angle they liked they started to shoot. One third of the glass each time.

This involved someone perfectly pouring a pint for me, which is no mean feat, and they would stop shooting when I had consumed the right amount.

Then we would pause whilst a few more pints were poured and on to the next batch.

At one point, nearing the end of the session, the photographer looked at me and I can remember him nudging the art director and pointing at me; obviously I had been drinking Guinness for four hours and doing little else so I must have been having trouble getting any more down.

'That's enough!' the art director said and we wrapped.

On the tube on the way home I asked him where he had found me and that's when he told me he had worked on the commercial. 'I thought you were flailing towards the end' he said.

What he didn't know was I hadn't drunk much Guinness before that day - but I've drunk plenty since!

That was it till about a year or so later; we were still living in Shropshire, miles away from a city or any kind of conurbation, when my family called and said I was on Guinness Posters all over Birmingham; others called me from London with the same story and my aunt in Manchester reported the same.

I called my agent and she sent J. Walter Thompson an invoice who paid me the poster fee.

When I next went to Birmingham I couldn't go too far without seeing the poster. They were everywhere you can imagine and I remember late one night I was on the number eight bus going to my parents house and the bus stopped on the corner of Stoney Lane and Highgate Road, in Sparkbrook and there, for all to see, was a huge poster near the bus stop.

It was a stop where the driver had to get out and turn a key in a time lock so I had time to go to the loo nearby.

When I came out there was a drunk standing looking up at the poster. 'Look at him' he said to me 'with his bleedin' long hair; sucking that pint.'