George Sweeney at the Phoenix Arts Club

Hi guys, hope you’re all doing well, welcome back to Big Blog Theory. Yesterday, me, my mum, my dad and my brother went to the Phoenix Arts Club to see George Sweeney. If you don’t know who he is, basically, he was an actor in the seventies and the eighties, he was known for being in TV programmes like The Sweeney, Minder, Citizen Smith and he was also in some other TV shows too.

I think I’ve mentioned his name a few times on my blog, I’ve talked about Minder and The Sweeney on my blog too, you know I love to talk about those sorts of things here, I’m such a nerd for TV shows like that. And also because I’m obsessed with The Sweeney and The Professionals and I’m going to include Minder too because it would be unfair not to include it in my TV obsessions, I absolutely love Minder, just great TV.

It was quite a nice venue, I think they usually do cabarets and stuff like that. They had a massive screen so they were showing a few clips from different TV programmes he starred in. A few of them were shows like Public Eye which is really good, he was also in Fair ground which was a kid’s school programme in the seventies and he was in so much stuff, I didn’t even realise he was in so many different films and TV programmes. I remember they showed a clip of his character in The Sweeney beating someone up and chucking him down the stairs, it was really funny.  It was really cool to see George Sweeney in person, we’ve always been big fans of him in my household and family. He was just so lovely and nice and we all got signed autographs and we all took a picture together.  The geezers in front of us were taking a photo with him and he put his hand on one of his necks to look like he was strangling him, it was really funny.I remember his wife was really lovely too. My dad and my brother got signed photos of his character, Tim Cook and I got a signed photo of Wolfie and the gang from the TV show Citizen Smith because it’s like my favourite show ever, it’s so funny, I love his character in the show, I love Speed, I think he’s great. Again, an absolute nutter, a criminal but he’s always had a type cast as an actor, he always got very violent character roles but he told us that he’s not like that. He always played violent characters, they were like ” Right, you’re going to be tough, you’re going to have a massive bleeding shooter” and he was like ” Oh God, just give it a rest” so he’s always played those kinds of characters, he never played the family man in film and TV. He has always been known as the scariest villain to ever live in The Sweeney, he was absolutely terrifying and so unhinged and in real life, he’s like the sweetest person.

I told him that I really loved Pop Pirates and that Pop Pirates was the first film my brother watched growing up. I was going to ask him if he had any memories about filming Pop Pirates but I felt like he wasn’t going to remember any of it since he was forgetting certain things, especially because he’s about 80 now. So we went up to him and I said how much I loved Pop Pirates and he was like ” Oh yeah, Roger Daltrey was that” he was so chuffed that we loved his work on screen. I absolutely love Pop Pirates, it’s amazing, it’s one of my favourite films, I keep going back and watching it over and over again, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen it, it’s fantastic. Great entertainment, great music, a bunch of kids in a band, dodgy stealing involving piracy tapes which was quite a big thing at the time. Pop Pirates is an absolute masterpiece, I just really love it. It’s my absolute favourite Children’s film foundation film right alongside Terry On The Fence, 4 D Special Agents, Black Island, The Man From Nowhere and Go Kart Go. I watched it again recently and it’s just wonderful, it always puts a smile on my face every time I watch it, totally, one of my comfort films for sure. We also told him that I was a writer and he was like ” Do it, go for it” and his wife came along and said hi to us and he was like ” She’s a writer” and then she found out we were all half Greek and she was saying how much she loved the Greek heritage and their culture, they both go to Cyprus every year, she was just getting up and doing Greek dancing, she was so sweet, they were just lovely people, so humble.

There were all just a bunch of nerds who loved these shows, big fans of Minder, The Sweeney, The Professionals, we all had the same interests. Pretty much every single one of them were saying that you just can’t watch stuff nowadays because there’s so much gender politics and I agree. I just can’t watch TV and films nowadays, there’s so much shit in them, that’s clearly why I go to the sixties, seventies and the eighties for great TV and film. They were all so nice too, very easy going and you can talk to them, proper east end. This geezer brought his daughter along, she was about 18, she also really loved Minder and all these programmes, so I was probably the youngest one there. My dad thought that he was somehow related to George Sweeney because he looked an awful lot like him but he wasn’t, he was just a big fan and that interaction alone sort of brought them together and they just talked and talked about programmes from the seventies. I just think it’s really cool to see that the younger generations also like this stuff, considering how it seems so out dated for the kids in today’s age, it’s such a shame, I love this old stuff, I can’t imagine not growing up with these films, TV shows and music, it’s shaped me into the person I am today. I have yet to meet someone who likes the same stuff as me, just so we could vibe and watch Minder, The Sweeney, The Professionals, Dempsey and Make peace, Please Sir! and re act scenes from shows.

He was also a really good storyteller, his stories were so funny, we were all just cracking up with laughter in the audience, really demented stories. I loved his story about Oliver Reed, I loved that, I thought that was great. I also loved his little story when he filmed a scene in For Your Eyes Only where he was a pilot but he didn’t really last long since he got killed in the brief beginning sequence. So he was sitting in his pilot seat and when he got killed and got chucked out of the plane/ helicopter, Roger Moore walked past and said something like ” Not a hair out of place” like he was such a wind up merchant, he was so funny. He was also talking about how he first started out, he went to drama school, then he was a gas fitter. He’s just a really interesting person, I could listen to his stories all day long.

Last night, when we got back home, we watched an episode of Minder that George was in. It’s the one where he was a football referee, I love that one, it’s amazing. Apparently, he was in three episodes of Minder. You could just really see the connection between him and Dennis Water man because in real life, they were really good friends, and sadly Dennis Water man passed away a few years later, we lost an absolute legend.

George Sweeney is just an absolute legend, he’s a great actor, a great guy. In the Q and A, a geezer in the audience said that he’s always felt sorry for his character Tim Cook in The Sweeney, especially at the end where {Spoiler Alert” he gets killed by Carter, he just felt like he should of lived a little bit longer and shouldn’t have died. I actually do agree, I think his character has a very vulnerable side to him that even though he was an absolute nutter, you still felt bad for him. I think if you’ve grown up in those sorts of environments in the seventies, you sort of get where he’s coming from.

He was also talking about where half of the quotes from Only Fools and Horses came from. Apparently, Lovely Jubbly and Monchtu came from him. Because he was working with John Sullivan way before Only Fools and he just walked past him and George was like ” Lovely Jubbly” and John was like ” You what?” and he also said ” Monchtu” and he was like ” I don’t bloody know what you’re on about, mate” and so he went away and John put it in the programme. I think that’s amazing, who’d thought, who knew that those quotes came from George Sweeney? it’s crazy. I love Only Fools so this was shocking to me.

Me my family had a great time at the Phoenix Arts Club yesterday, we met some lovely people, we learned so much about our favourite TV programmes and we met the one and only George Sweeney.  We also found out that George Layton did a talk at the same venue only a little while ago. If you don’t know who George Layton is, basically, he played Des in Minder, he was the mechanic, the con artist and he was also in The Sweeney too. I would have loved to go and see him too, that would have been great. I would definetely go to more of these in my life, I love these sorts of things. These TV programmes will always hold a special place in my heart and I will have to pass these TV shows, films and music over to my future children, let them see the absolute golden Era of art.

That’s all I have for you guys today, I hope you liked my post. There’s so much more to talk about but I don’t want to ramble on or anything, so I just want to keep it nice and short. Thank you so much for reading, love you guys

More work to come on Big Blog Theory