You’ll know actor Kevin Kennedy as Curly Watts from Coronation Street. He played the lovable loser for 20 years on the soap but he’s since swapped the cobbles of Weatherfield for the stage.
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Watch our interview with Kevin Kennedy
This week he’s at An Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin, playing Dennis Dupree, the hard-partying club owner in musical Rock of Ages.
The jukebox musical has been described as the Rocky Horror Picture Show, meets Spinal Tap, with a dash of Romeo and Juliet. It’s set on LA’s Sunset Strip during the eighties heyday of guitar solos, lashings of make-up and hair metal and includes rock anthems like Don’t Stop Believin’, We Built This City, Wanted Dead or Alive, and Here I Go Again.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment about his character, 57-year-old Kennedy said, "Dennis Dupree who owns the Bourbon Room in LA on the strip has taken advantage of the drug culture and the sexual freedom with great enthusiasm and regularity.
"He’s a rock guru who has given every band their start, he’s not a bad guitar player himself and the story of Rock of Ages is based on a club like Bad Bob’s in Dublin in the 1980s, which was a top place, and the powers that be want to close it down.
"I met my family yesterday and we sat around for hours telling stories and laughing and that’s what it’s all about and it’s part of my heritage of which I’m extremely proud."
"It’s a story of how Dennis fights against the locals to keep his club open. There’s lots of great music, silly jokes and lots of fun."
Given Kennedy’s own well documented battles with alcohol, he agrees that are some similarities between himself and the fun-loving character he plays.
"There’s a few, hahaha. Certainly the substance abuse I should imagine and I’ve played with a lot of bands but unlike Dennis, I stopped all that twenty years ago but Dennis is keeping at it to his demise."
Before, and indeed, after his twenty year stint as Curly on Corrie, Kennedy played in bands, including fledgling Manchester act The Paris Valentines, whose line-up included future members of The Smiths Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke.
"When I was a kid I wanted to perform but I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go and in 1976 when I was about 14, 15 it was the punk era and it was a true revolution in that you could get up and do what you wanted," he says
"The arts were blown open and anyone could do it and that was what punk was about. I was a musician and I am a musician but I’m a lot better actor than musician and at the end of Rock of Ages I get to play a guitar solo which is a new thing for me as I was never a solo player. The notes are in the right place but I haven’t got that finesse yet."
Kennedy’s mother is originally from Foley Street in Dublin and he also has family in Artane and Drogheda and he says that his Irish roots have always been very important to him.
"People in Manchester like the Gallaghers and Johnny Marr, those roots, those genes are important because we’ve got our storytelling skills from our Celtic roots because rightly or wrongly the Irish nation are known for telling stories and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
"I met my family yesterday and we sat around for hours telling stories and laughing and that’s what it’s all about and it’s part of my heritage of which I’m extremely proud."
Rock of Ages is at An Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin until Saturday, October 20
