Graham Fellows
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Graham Fellows is an English comedy actor and musician, best known for creating the characters of John Shuttleworth and Jilted John.
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[edit] Jilted John
Fellows first came to prominence as "Jilted John", a character who had a hit single in 1978 that was named after his own alter-ego. The single was performed in the aggressive, minimalist style of the then-prevailing punk/New Wave style, but with poppier influences, somewhat akin to Buzzcocks. The novelty hit was most memorable for its biting lyrics, a first-person narrative of a bitter teenager named John whose girlfriend Julie had left him for another guy named Gordon, 'just 'cause he's better lookin' than me/just 'cause he's cool and trendy.' The cries of 'Gordon is a moron' and coda of 'Yeah yeah, it's not fair!', repeated 'ad infinitum' in bratty delivery, make it one of the most memorable singles of British punk/new wave. Produced by Martin Hannett, the song reached number 4 in the UK singles chart. It was memorably introduced on Top of the Pops as 'one of the most bizarre singles of the decade'. A concept album followed, entitled True Love Stories, charting John's love-life - but unlike the single, it was not a hit, and no other recordings followed, making Jilted John a one-hit wonder.
[edit] John Shuttleworth
In the 1980s Fellows created John Shuttleworth, an aspiring singer/songwriter in his late 50s from Sheffield. South Yorkshire, with a quiet manner and slightly nerdish tendencies. His musical talents are usually expressed through his Yamaha PSS portable keyboard, and include such greats as Pigeons in Flight - a song which Shuttleworth attempted to have selected for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Fellows has also created many supporting characters, including John's wife "Mary Shuttleworth", and next-door neighbour and incompetent manager "Ken Worthington". Their various adventures have featured on several radio shows, including The Shuttleworths, Shuttleworth's Showtime and Radio Shuttleworth, with Fellows supplying all the voices and performing on his organ. He also made a 4 part TV series, 500 Bus Stops, about a UK national tour thwarted very early on by the demise of his beloved Austin Ambassador but then continued by public transport. The venues visited were invariably bland and uninspiring, and situations experienced usually demoralising, but were optimistically dealt with as if they were defining moments in his career. There followed a television special, Europigeon, following the success (or otherwise) of "Pigeons In Flight". In 2004, Fellows (as Shuttleworth) made a film with photographer Martin Parr; entitled It's Nice Up North - in which Shuttleworth tests his theory that British people are nicer the further north one ventures, by visiting the Shetland Islands, the most northerly part of the United Kingdom.
Shuttleworth is a very affecting character. Essentially decent and benevolent, but with a painful lack of self-awareness, the unfortunate gap between his actual musical talent and his steadfast belief in the possibility of his eventual pop super-stardom is the main source of the character's tragi-comedy. The apparently disturbed Ken Worthington is more of a hindrance than a help to John's life.
The re-use of the name John leads many to believe that John Shuttleworth is a depiction of the middle-aged Jilted John. While Fellows has neither confirmed or denied this, it seems difficult to imagine that they are the same character.
[edit] Newer characters
Two more recent Fellows creations followed, firstly Brian Appleton, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer from a college of further education in the Newcastle-under-Lyme area although originally he hails from Selly Oak in Birmingham. He is convinced that he has been instrumental in helping many rock acts to achieve megastardom and yet received no credit for his efforts, such as being the cause for the gap in "Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)" by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, inadvertently launching the vocal career of Phil Collins at a failed audition for the lead singer of Genesis after the departure of Peter Gabriel and giving Howard Jones the idea for using a mime artist in the hit "New Song" while working opposite him at a Clingfilm factory in High Wycombe.
His most recent character is Dave Tordoff, a builder from Goole specialising in 'laser screed' concrete flooring, who attempts to be an after dinner speaker but only talks about his accumulated wealth.
[edit] Other work
Graham Fellows released 1 more album in 1985 under his own name titled 'Love at the Hacienda'. It was well received but was not a commercial success. It does however have a cult following in Japan. Prior to creating Shuttleworth, Fellows appeared in Coronation Street as a young man chasing the affections of married Gail Platt (then Tilsley).
He presented a programme of his favourite poetry and prose on Radio 4's With Great Pleasure in January 2007 [1]
[edit] Selected TV, Film & Radio
- The Shuttleworths (Four series as of 2004) - BBC Radio 4
- Shuttleworth Showtime' (Radio 1, 1996)
- 500 Bus Stops (TV series)
- Europigeon (TV mockumentary about the Eurovision Song Contest)
- John Shuttleworth's "Open Mind" (Radio 4 series 2006)
- It's Nice Up North (2006)
