Post by Dan on Feb 1, 2010 22:11:13 GMT -5
Never heard about any of this before this article, but writer, Roy Wilkinson, in an interview by Mojo Magazine May 2008 entitled 'The Genius of Jethro Tull' asked where Ian got his "warped sense of performance."
"Danger Man," says Anderson, referring to the 1960's ITV series in which Patrick McGoohan plays NATO secret agent John Drake during the Cold War.
"Kind of parallels James Bond but it was darker. Patrick McGoohan was very menacing as this slightly odd figure with a weird accent-a bit of Irish, but also this blurred transatlantic sound. I modelled myself on his character-in having this nebulous, slurred accent somewhere between Scotland and Lancashire, adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. It's all incredibly embarrassing, but that's the way I spoke onstage."
But what accounts for Anderson's contorted, bug-eyed stage tics? Did he draw on anyone?
"I'm not sure," he says. 'Maybe a hint of Max Wall? Or here's a thought-Sladden."
Sladden turns out to be a character in the 1958 BBC science-fiction drama Quatermass And The Pit. He's a machine-operator brought in to open a mysterious capsule found at an archaeologist dig. The capsule is variously connected to the devil, the Third Reich and malevolent aliens. Once opened, its black secrets send Sladden round the bend.
"He gets sents doolally, lurching away," laughs Anderson.
"In Blackpool Grammar School the next morning we were all doing it. The physicality of that sort of thing does leave an inpression."
"Danger Man," says Anderson, referring to the 1960's ITV series in which Patrick McGoohan plays NATO secret agent John Drake during the Cold War.
"Kind of parallels James Bond but it was darker. Patrick McGoohan was very menacing as this slightly odd figure with a weird accent-a bit of Irish, but also this blurred transatlantic sound. I modelled myself on his character-in having this nebulous, slurred accent somewhere between Scotland and Lancashire, adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. It's all incredibly embarrassing, but that's the way I spoke onstage."
But what accounts for Anderson's contorted, bug-eyed stage tics? Did he draw on anyone?
"I'm not sure," he says. 'Maybe a hint of Max Wall? Or here's a thought-Sladden."
Sladden turns out to be a character in the 1958 BBC science-fiction drama Quatermass And The Pit. He's a machine-operator brought in to open a mysterious capsule found at an archaeologist dig. The capsule is variously connected to the devil, the Third Reich and malevolent aliens. Once opened, its black secrets send Sladden round the bend.
"He gets sents doolally, lurching away," laughs Anderson.
"In Blackpool Grammar School the next morning we were all doing it. The physicality of that sort of thing does leave an inpression."
