Kevin McNally: Recreating classic sitcom performances

Actor Kevin McNally has had the unusual experience of recreating the performances of not one but two famous comedy actors, having played Tony Hancock on radio in The Missing Hancocks (Radio 4, 2014-2020), and on television for the Lost Sitcoms entry ‘The New Neighbour’ (BBC, 2016), in addition to essaying Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes (Gold, 2019). Speaking to the author on 18 May 2021, he discussed the challenges not only of playing a character made famous by another performer, but of making his performance faithful to the original without it becoming, to use the actor’s words, a ‘slavish imitation’. The resulting interview has been edited for publication with the kind permission of Mr McNally.