Jim Bywater

BIOGRAPHY
TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS
Teaching Cert. Drama Loughborough. 1962-65
Actor/Teacher, Writer, Musician, Director. 1968-2001
D32, NVQ Levels 2&3 ECDL in Information Technology. 1999/2000

Born in Morley in the woollen district of West Yorkshire in August 1943 Jim was the eldest of two boys and son of an ½ Irish mother and a glass-blowing musician who could, allegedly, play all brass instruments (and the drums) and read and transpose on sight. Thus Jim is able to knock out a tune or a rhythm on most things that it is possible to knock out a tune or a rhythm on AND he likes a party. He was also trained as a cabinet maker and Drama teacher at Loughborough Training College from ’62 – ’65.
After two and a half years teaching in a Derbyshire Junior School he took up a position as an actor-teacher, a new animal, in the spring of 1968. For two and a half years he learnt how to create and construct a dramatic event (historic or fictitious) for a group of young people in which they participated fully. This is also where he learned to act – a matter of life or death for both the actor and the value of the young person’s experience. From there to Leeds Playhouse, doing the same job, for two and a half years and then on to freelance acting, directing, writing, music and singing.
In the ‘70’s Jim played the part of the Assistant Camerman in ‘Ready When You Are Mr. McGill". There was also pre-school television which Jim wrote for and performed on. There was ‘Tom, Dick and Harry', a sitcom for the under fives which he wrote for YTV; there was 'The Luddites', produced by Granada TV; there were folk clubs and song writing, and then there was BELT AND BRACES THEATRE COMPANY, a touring political rock music theatre company which, when Jim joined, was led by Gavin Richards – now resident in New Zealand. It was here that Jim met John Fiske and Paul Kessel.
This, from 1976 with ‘England Expects’, touring Britain and Scandinavia, through ‘A Day in the Life of the World’ to ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ at the Wyndhams Theatre in London’s West End and Channel 4, ended in 1980.
At this point John Fiske and Paul Kessel had moved to Sweden and were forging a career as Sweden’s only English double act. So Jim was involved as director on several of their shows, culminating in two productions at the Uppsala Stadstheatre: ‘The Big Viking Adventure’ and ‘Catch My Soul’.
The next period consisted of teaching at Rose Bruford College, both on campus and on site in Wolverhampton. Then six months on Coronation Street in 1984 followed by Sky Channel’s 'Deadly Ernest' who presented the 'Friday Night Fright' horror film slot from the Sky Channel graveyard. Jim applied, in blood, inventing 'Scarlett Aorta', Ernest’s ghoulfriend, on the way. This undead role died after three years. However, it spawned a couple of series of Fun Factory at Sky writing scripts and songs for Amanda Chadwick, the programmes producer. The last employment for the BBC was to write "Tricky Business", a 9 episode comedy series set in a magic shop, starring Paul Xenon and Patsy Palmer.
Later, at The Royal National Theatre Jim played a Satyr in ‘THE TRACKERS OF OXYRHYNCCUS’, by Tony Harrison, (t' bard) which played one performance in Delphi then toured to Scandinavia and Austria ending up in the Olivier Theatre at the RNT.
From here to Shakespeare’s Fools in ‘Measure for Measure’, King Lear, Two Gentlemen of Verona (at Shakespeare’s Globe, which toured to New York) and, Puck in ‘The Dream’, each one directed by Jack Shepherd. Jack also writes plays, one of which, ‘CHASING THE MOMENT’, was about a disparate modern jazz quartet. Jim played Harry, the string bass player, drug addict and new age philosopher, playing at the RNT studio, Southwark Playhouse, the Edinburgh Festival and, finally touring Israel.
The last port of call has been The Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch, Essex where Jim has been playing in plays that everyone else played in at the start of their careers – Blitz, Importance of Being Earnest, The Ghost Train and, pantomime. The final panto being ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in which Jim played the Dame, Nanny Clutterbuck.
Jim has also written and directed for the TiE dept., producing material which deals with immigration, bullying, literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, MacBeth, Animal Farm), healthy lifestyles (Olivia Twist – written by Jim) and Missing Dan Nolan about a schoolboy who went missing near Southampton on 1st Jan 2002, written by Mark Wheeller. Jim is also co-writing a novel for children with a friend when he’s not playing golf.