Dead Ringers star reveals new impressions together with one folks ‘preserve asking for’
Jon Culshaw has become one of Britain’s best impressionists, being able to replicate a slew of the UK’s most famous faces — and now, he is hitting the road once again
Jon Culshaw is back on the road once again listening to fan demands(Image: UK Press via Getty Images)
He is widely considered Britain’s best impressionist. From former PMs Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, to King Charles, Ozzy Osbourne, and Les Dawson, Jon Culshaw has mastered them all. “You get them all in the end,” he admits, “although some are easier to master than others. David Cameron took me a long while because he is so bland.
“You have to give them a character if they don’t really have one,” the legendary impressionist and mimic said of the more magnolia people he had to cover throughout his decades-long career. “That’s why Kenneth Baker was a snail in Spitting Image.”
After three decades at the top Jon, 57, is about to hit the road once again. Dead Ringers, Radio 4’s multi award-winning topical satire, has just resumed its 25th anniversary tour with 20 new dates across the UK.
It will feature the long-standing cast of Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, and Duncan Wisbey. At home in his native Lancashire, Jon has been busy practising some of his new characters — including money expert Martin Lewis, US President Donald Trump and his deputy JD Vance, and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.
Jon says: “Trump is the one most people ask me to do at the moment.” Swapping voices again, he continues: “Martin Lewis is also a good one because he has this weird intensity that you can exaggerate until he becomes totally eccentric.”
Slipping into yet another character, Jon continues: “Clive Myrie from the BBC is another new one for the tour as he brings a quiet sense of calm and authority to the chaos.” Jon says audiences enjoy the comfort of hearing the soothing voices of the likes of Myrie and certain national treasures like David Attenborough and King Charles, who he says “has an even more velvety voice as he has got older”.
The King is a huge Radio 4 comedy fan and Jon has met him several times. “I was in a line-up once and Camilla was a couple of people ahead of Charles,” he reveals.
“Like a mischievous aunt, when she saw me she said, ‘Do him, do him’, pointing back to Charles, and was laughing away. Charles doesn’t mind though because, ‘one has had it all one’s life’.”
The Dead Ringers live show promises a hilarious journey through a quarter of a century of classic sketches, uncanny impressions and the cutting-edge political and cultural satire that has defined the series. It will also be a tribute to Dead Ringers’ creator and producer Bill Dare, who died last March after a road accident.
Jon says: “I was just about to go back on stage when I saw a call from Bill’s sister flash up. I knew he had been in an accident and that it wasn’t going to be good news.
“But I had had the knock on the dressing room door and had to go on, so I didn’t take the call. I felt it was what Bill would have done.”
Away from Dead Ringers, Spitting Image and The Impressions Show, Jon has performed a variety of acting roles, including playing Tony Blair in the 2004 film Churchill: The Hollywood Years, and The Final Take: Bowie in the Studio. Last year he was praised for his performance in Les Dawson: Flying High. And he is just completing another sell-out tour of show Imposter Syndrome.
Meanwhile, Dead Ringers returns to Radio 4 this June and Jon plans another new tour, Me, Myself And Others. Dead Ringers 25th Anniversary Tour runs until March 26. Tickets and information are available here.
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