By Jane Best
26.09.2023
Samuel West and the Storytellers
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER: JP MASCLET
Sam West is a very well known and respected Actor. He comes from an illustrious acting family. His parents are Timothy West and Prunella Scales. His list of productions, films, and TV work is long and varied. Most recently he was Siegfried Farnon in Channel 5’s All Creatures Great and Small. At the moment he is starring in a play written by Adrian Edmonson and Nigel Planer with Rufus Hound at The Park Theatre called 'It’s Heading Straight Towards Us'. It's very funny and superbly acted, a hugely enjoyable night. We went and we loved it! The play runs until 21st October.
Do you think the UK is a good place to live?
It could be, but not under this government. Their mantra of ‘promise everything, deliver nothing, blame someone else’ has impoverished many and enriched a tiny few, and quite understandably turned people off party politics. Thirteen years of austerity (or as I prefer to call it, theft from the public purse) has hollowed out much of what the UK could rightly be proud of. I still think there’s a great taste for progressive policies on green energy, migration, inequality and Europe, but to see any movement we need to kick these chancers out at the earliest opportunity.
If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?
Resign.
What was the best thing you did last year?
Taking both daughters to the Women’s Euro finals at Wembley to watch the Lionesses beat Germany. I bought the tickets a year earlier, convinced they would do exactly that.
Who has been the single biggest influence on your life?
My parents. I went into the family business and only afterwards discovered that being an apple that’s not fallen far from the tree is both a comfort and a curse.
If you hadn’t been an actor is there another career you would have had/liked?
Something in music. A DJ, or perhaps a conductor. I’m quite opinionated about music, and I pompously like the idea of affecting people with my taste in it.
Who dead or alive would you have most liked to have been friends with?
Tove Jansson, author of the Moomin books. Her gentle, inclusive acceptance of oddness and difference would have taught me a lot.
What is the most valuable bit of advice you have been given that you have actually followed?
Parenthood is gardening, not carpentry. It’s not easy to follow, but I’m convinced it’s right.
What is your favourite film and song you would pass on to your children?
When I discovered the children, aged six and three, killing themselves laughing at the mirror scene in Duck Soup, I had a rare moment of thinking we’d got parenting right. Our elder daughter has a working knowledge of both Marx Brothers films and the songs of Dory Previn, and that’ll do fine.
Which piece of Stephen Einhorn jewellery would you most like to own?
I used to think I’d need a lot of confidence to wear the Stag Beetle collar, but now I think wearing the Stag Beetle collar would give me a lot of confidence. And probably improve my posture.
