Onetime Brookside regular Louis Emerick was delighted to return to a modern South African classic play, as he tells Charles Hutchinson.

A LINK forged a quarter of a century ago has led to former Brookside soap star Louis Emerick appearing in the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s revival of Sizwe Banzi Is Dead from this week in Scarborough.

“I’ve known Chris Monks [the SJT’s artistic director] for years; Chris and I go back 25 years. In fact my very first job was at the Contact Theatre in Manchester, in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and Oh! What A Lovely War, and Chris was the musical director on those shows in his ‘other’ life,” recalls Louis.

“We lost contact with each other, but then I got a call four years ago, when Chris was at the New Vic, saying he wanted me to do Sizwe Banzi, and I thought, ‘Chris Monks? I remember that name’.”

Louis duly performed the play at the New Vic, and now he has reunited once more with Chris and actor Seun Shote to revive a work devised by white playwright Athol Fugard and black actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona in 1972 at the height of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The comic and touching story of two men’s dignity, pride and ownership of their own lives is set in a photographic studio in Port Elizabeth, where the proprietor, Styles (played by Emerick) remembers his days working on the Ford assembly line, a time of longing for independence, respect and freedom.

When Robert Zwelinzima visits the studio for a passbook photo, Styles learns of his client’s desperate plight and of the drastic measures needed to survive the apartheid system.

Louis is delighted to be performing this landmark South African work once more. “We turned up on the first day of rehearsals, me and Chris and Seun, and we said, ‘Let’s not say ‘what did we do last time?’, but in fact we couldn’t remember anyway because you’re always moving on to your next role.

“I’ve found that some things have seeped back but it feels like I’m playing it for the first time,” says Louis, who takes on two roles, Styles and Buntu.

“Styles speaks in a more deliberate way so that people understand him as he wants to give people full satisfaction, whereas Buntu is political with a small ‘p’ and knows how to work the system. He’s more urban, more of a street person, so he speaks quicker,” says Louis, explaining his characterisation.

Analysing the message of Fugard’s play, he settles on one word: resilience. “Resilience to rise above adversity; that’s certainly there in my two characters, how they turn things round,” he says. “It’s about showing resilience when, even in the toughest of times, people’s spirits are not broken.”

Such characteristics would apply to John Kani, Winston Ntshona and Athol Fugard in their determination to mount the play in 1972.

“The Afrikaans would never let this play be shown willingly; it was very much cloak and dagger” says Louis. “And because of the theme of resilience, there is something current about it that people will identify with, and you don’t have to be black or African to do that.”

Louis will forever be associated with the role of Mick Johnson in Brookside, but he can recall an earlier time before fame opened doors when his skin colour cropped up in discussion while he was seeking an acting job.

“Back in 1988, I was living in Manchester and my agent said, ‘You’ve got a meeting at Oxford Road, Manchester, to play a policeman in Last Of The Summer Wine,” he says.

On arrival, Louis was greeted with the comment, “You know you’re black”. “I thought, ‘Oh I knew there was something I needed to know when I got up this morning’ and I said, ‘Look, all that matters is: is it funny and can I make people laugh?’.”

He secured the part, appearing in episodes in 1988 and 1989 before Brookside beckoned, keeping him busy in the Liverpool soap for 12 years.

He has since returned to police duty on Last Of The Summer Wine.

“I filmed the first episode of the next series last Monday. There was talk of the show being axed, but we’re still picking up 4.5 million viewers, so the powers-that-be saw the figures and called in Alan J W Bell and said, ‘Let’s film six more’... and hopefully we’ll do another ten next year.”

And so the never-ending BBC show with the most ironic title of all time lives on again.

* Sizwe Banzi Is Dead is running at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until September 26. For tickets, ring 01723 370541 or book online at www.sjt.uk.com