They’re a mixed lot, The Exorcist fans. There’s a bunch of pale faced Goths sitting alongside some grey haired ladies who look like they’ve used their pensioners’ Freedom pass to get here. Meanwhile two brave chaps, for whom middle age is no barrier to a cult T-shirt, have bagged the scariest seats in the house: front row.
Outside it’s an unseasonably sunny autumn afternoon. Inside everything is dark. The stage is a gloomy palette of ebony, tobacco and gunship grey, so dark, star Paul Nicholas tells me, there’s a lady behind the scenes whose job it is to lead him from his dressing room to the door where he makes his entrance.
Paul Nicholas, now 74, plays Father Merrin, the exorcist of the title. On stage his bright white hair and sharp cheekbones, crafted into a death’s head by clever lighting, make him look almost supernatural himself. ‘I don’t get so immersed I don’t know who I am as a human being’
The subject of the play is darker still, a faithful adaptation of the book about a 12-year-old girl possessed by Satan, on which the cult movie was based. The special effects which made that one of the creepiest films of all time – the head swivelling, the projectile vomiting, the bloodied writing appearing on walls – are a tough ask in live theatre, but they’re all here.
Nicholas, now 74, plays Father Merrin, the exorcist of the title. On stage his bright white hair and sharp cheekbones, crafted into a death’s head by clever lighting, make him look almost supernatural himself. It’s only the cassock and zucchetto (the priestly skullcap) that tell you which side he’s on.
But hang on a minute, Paul. Didn’t you used to be ultra-loveable Vince Pinner, the chancer with come-to-bed blue eyes and a fluff of blond curls in the Eighties sitcom Just Good Friends? What are you doing in The Exorcist, a story so controversial it was banned in several countries, condemned by the Catholic church, and made cinema goers faint. Are you as much of a closet horror fan as this unexpectedly diverse audience?
‘Well no,’ he says. ‘I saw Pyscho when I was about 15 and have not watched a horror film since, not even The Exorcist. I have never been very good with things which make me jump.’
Pause. ‘Other than women.’
It’s the kind of line Vince might have used in Just Good Friends as he pursued the well-bred Penny Warrender across the class divide. Actually, Nicholas’s own voice is richer and posher the Vince’s, a mellifluous baritone.
‘It’s more that I’ve been more than half a century in the business and I’ve never done anything this dark, I’ve never played a priest. I thought why not.’
Well, perhaps because The Exorcist has a macabre reputation. Two actors died shortly after filming wrapped on the 1973 movie, two stars were injured and the son of the actress who voiced Satan – here it’s Sir Ian McKellan – murdered his wife and children. When Jenny Seagrove appeared in the West End version in 2017 she spoke of talismanic stones, cleansing chants and burning purifying herbs in her dressing room to ward off the evil she conjured at every performance.
‘So far I am hanging on,’ says Nicholas when I tell him this. ‘You do have to treat the role seriously but ultimately you are playing a part. I don’t get so immersed I don’t know who I am as a human being. I was the first guy to play Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar and I was crucified eight times a week but you don’t see me walking on water do you?’ (Someone in the front row once sneezed during a performance of ‘Superstar’. Nicholas, as the Messiah, couldn’t resist leaning forward and whispering ‘Bless You.’)
Uniquely he has undergone an exorcism himself, performed – of all people – by Roger Daltry of The Who. They were starring as Wagner and Lizst in Ken Russell’s film Liztomania. ‘I was the wicked one, whizzing around the room,’ Nicholas laughs.
It’s a reminder of the extraordinary breadth of his career. In the Seventies he was a bona fide pop star. The Eighties were dominated by the Bafta-winning Just Good Friends. He’s been a top-of-the-bill name in musical theatre from Cats to Barnum since he opened as the lead in Hair back in 1968 and there have been movies and soaps including EastEnders. Most recently he’s dabbled in reality TV as a cast member of The Real Marigold Hotel. As a co-producer he’s been responsible for successful revivals of musicals such as Grease and Saturday Night Fever on the London stage. ‘I learned the business end of show business. There was risk. You can make money and you can lose money. I earned a helpful amount,’ he says.
Nicholas as ultra-loveable Vince Pinner, the chancer with come-to-bed blue eyes and a fluff of blond curls in the Eighties sitcom Just Good Friends
The point is he’s still acting 50 years after he started because he loves it, not because he needs to. ‘I don’t have any hobbies, I don’t play golf and I don’t have lots of friends and this is what I like to do more than anything else. It’s good for older people to work as long as they can, to stay involved with the younger generation, with life.’
(At one point in The Exorcist Father Merrin has to jump on and off a bed. Nicholas leaps, lithe and silent as a cat, no sign of creaky knees. He’s also just made his first rap record which will be out next year, and is writing a book about his life in musicals.)
Can he foresee a point where he would stop working? ‘No way! I’m beyond leading man these days but there are plenty of roles for older people, as I keep reminding my agent.’
He’s longing to play Tevye, the lead in Fiddler on the Roof again. ‘It’s all about his family and about his relationship with his wife Golde, I’d relish the chance to do that. It would feel right.’ He means because he’s a happy husband and father.
‘My wife Linzi, who I have been with since about 1903, is gorgeous still,’ he says. Actually they’ve been together 48 years. They have two children of their own and raised Nicholas’s two older children from a previous marriage after his first wife, from whom he was divorced, died in a car crash. He also has two children born out of wedlock to two different mothers when he was a young man, the kind of love-rat history that caused headlines when he became a household name in the Eighties.
‘There’s no point in regretting the less stable part of my life. It was an irresponsible way to behave as a 19- or 20-year-old but you have to look at the result and as long as everyone is sort of OK and knows the truth, then that is all you can hope for. I have kids in their 30s, 40s and 50s. I have ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Every year we have to add a chair for someone around the Christmas dinner table. My youngest daughter is getting married soon – all five of my other children will be at the wedding. That’s where we are today.’
It is Linzi who has tethered Nicholas both professionally and romantically. Even now he’s on tour with The Exorcist, if he’s less than 100 miles away he’ll trudge back to their north London house after a performance. ‘Acting is such a haphazard life you need someone grounded and constant by your side. Linzi is a normal human being and it’s good to go home to someone who is not pretending and get the full SP on putting the rubbish out.’
It’s this ability to adore showbusiness while acknowledging its fakery that made Nicholas a prime candidate for reality TV and The Real Marigold Hotel. ‘Everyone on it is so old they love having a camera on them for any reason, me included.’
His over-riding memory of the show involves his undies. ‘I unpacked mine in Mumbai and left them in a drawer. So when we flew to Kochi I had to go and buy some new ones. Mostly I could only find the big flappy Indian style pants so I was delighted when I got hold of some ordinary briefs, not least because they were called Playboys. I asked for a medium and I have to say, that while I am probably an average size in er, most areas, I found them a bit snug so I had to go up to a large.’
Right now he is trying to scare the pants off his Exorcist audience. Some horror fans have admitted to having to hold hands while watching the play, others have admitted running all the way to the Tube afterwards, wondering if they’d be able to sleep that night. It’ll be a full house on Hallowe’en in Dublin.
Nicholas can’t wait to bring down the darkness once more but I leave him strolling down the sunny side of the street, smiling, off for a pizza between performances. He’s an old school trouper to his bones and an infectiously happy man.
‘The Exorcist’ is on a UK and Ireland tour, kenwright.com.