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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jonathan Maitland

‘I hope you enjoy the show. I hope I’m not dead’: how Feelgood star Wilko never saw the play about his life

Dr Feelgood - Wilko Johnson, Lee Brilleaux and John B Sparks
Funny, scary and thrilling: Johnson, Lee Brilleaux and John B Sparks in Dr Feelgood. Photograph: Ian Dickson/Rex/Shutterstock

It’s summer 2021 and I am sitting in the front room of a terraced house in Southend owned by my favourite rock star of all time. Someone who is, according to the Guardian, “a 100-1 shot to be our Greatest Living Englishman”.

I am about to read Wilko Johnson my play about his life, but I am extremely nervous as a) it’s very much a warts-and-all job, b) Wilko is, as usual, looking very scary indeed and c) I am playing all the parts myself and, perhaps unwisely, am going full Wilko, accent-wise: a vowel-stretching Essex-cum-Cockney drawl.

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