Antiques expert Paul Atterbury talks about touring show based on Antiques Roadshow tales

SIDMOUTH’S Manor Pavilion Theatre is one of the venues for a West Country tour of Have You Had It Long, Madam? next month.

Steve Chilcott meets BBC TV Antiques Roadshow presenter Paul Atterbury, who will appear with fellow expert Hilary Kay, at Sidmouth on Saturday, April 21, at another of the show’s locations, the lovely Forde Abbey.

“It’s only in the last two years that they have started to identify the presenters on the Roadshow by name,” Paul explained over a coffee in the refectory.

“For 32 years we were all anonymous; I think we all actually quite liked that! As I say, the Roadshow’s not about us; it’s about objects and how their stories have touched people’s lives…

“That’s where Have You Had It Long, Madam? is different. It is about us and I think people like it because suddenly they understand a bit more about Hilary and me. Inevitably personal stuff comes out, actually quite deliberately.

“This is a show about a show. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at a TV phenomenon that has endured for 32 years and still attracts a steady audience of six million viewers. It’s lifting that curtain into areas that you hadn’t seen before.

“We open with a sketch that always gets people laughing then we show clips and outtakes from the archive and tell stories and anecdotes about the TV show, some of them very funny – many of the film clips nobody has ever seen before. There’s lots of time for questions and audience involvement. It’s great fun!

“The show is an entertainment and people laugh a lot, which we didn’t expect when we first started doing it six years ago.

“Actually it varies a lot from show to show. One of us says ‘I’m sick of that story, let’s do another one’…

It’s not as if we are doing Shakespeare, when you know what’s going to happen next because it says so in the script!”

There is no script!

Paul says: “I think if we weren’t confident with each other, and confident about not being frightened by walking out onto that stage we couldn’t do it.”

* You can win a pair of tickets for the Sidmouth show, 8pm on Saturday, April 21, if you can name the principal, current Antiques Roadshow presenter.

Answers on a postcard, with name, address, and telephone number, to Roadshow Competition, Sidmouth Herald, Archant SW, Fair Oak Close, Exeter Airport Business Park, Clyst Honiton, Exeter, EX5 2UL. To arrive by Friday, April 13. Or email direct to info@gypsymusicpromotions.co.uk, stating name, address and telephone number.

Tickets for the Sidmouth show are selling fast. Priced �15, they can be booked from info@gypsymusicpromotions.co.uk or by text/telephone 07891 663044. Further dates and information at: www.haveyouhaditlongmadam.com.