Between the devil and the Deep Blue Sea

After being in a National Youth Theatre stage version of The Master and Margarita, about Satan turning up in revolutionary Moscow, he is about to make his debut at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Terence Rattigan’s masterpiece.

And yet his life might have been very different for the 29-year-old former Bradford Grammar School head boy.

From the age of ten to 16 he was a promising rugby union player both for his school and Yorkshire Schoolboys Under 15s and Under 16s.

For a couple of years he played in the same teams as Charlie Hodgson, the fly half who went on to full international stardom for England.

John said: “He was captain. He was always outstanding. But I was never going to make it as a pro.

“At 16 I had back pains in my lower spine. I had a lot of physiotherapy. My doctor, who didn’t like rugby, said I couldn’t play again.”

So he hung up his boots and studied drama for a year at the grammar school. That opened the door to successful auditions for the National Youth Theatre and later the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

But for a grant-aided place in the grammar school none of that would have happened.

John, raised alone by his mother Jane Hollingworth in Oxenhope, praised his old school for giving him the self-belief he lacked.

He said: “It gave me a lot of confidence, the teachers were great, I had a lot of fun and the school encouraged me to play sports.

“To be head boy was an honour, to be able to repay the faith they showed in me, letting me in as a scrotty ten-year-old and allowing me to be a more confident guy."

Although £29,000 in debt from four years’ studying at Trinity College Dublin and three years at RADA, the former Waterstones’ bookseller, in Bradford and London, is making his way as a professional character actor.

He said: “Last year I was only out of work for two weeks. That’s unbelievably lucky."

The three productions he did with the National Youth Theatre include The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the epic stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel by David Edgar.

Bertolt Brecht’s acclaimed The Threepenny Opera was next in 2002. That was followed by The Master and Margarita, a stage version of the Russian novel by Mikhail Bulgakov.

John said: “Matt Smith was in that show. That’s where he got picked up for Doctor Who. His career took off."

He got picked for The Deep Blue Sea after appearing in the Frank McGuinness play, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.

* The Deep Blue Sea is on at West Yorkshire Playhouse from Feb 16 to March 12, starting at 7.30pm. The box office number is (0113) 213 7700.