Sometime in 2002/3, this picture was torn from a newspaper and pinned onto our kitchen wall by an amused housemate. I've no idea who the kid is, and have never seen him since. Until a fortnight ago that is. Going through one of my regular 'there must be better jobs than this' routines, I clicked on a careers website and there was a feature on age discrimination. The feature was accompanied by this picture:
Who is this kid?? Who is the old chap with him? The plot thickens... the Google boffins need to pull their fingers out and come up with some handy picture image search thing that would answer these questions for me. Perhaps there's mileage in some sort of Dave Gormanesque show whereby I try and track down not people who share my name, but those who share my slightly Georgian features. I would meet them, shake them by the hand and then have my photo taken alongside them. Perhaps I could ask them who they have been compared to....I'm thinking out loud now...I could draw up some kind of Willis lookalike tree, with me in the middle and the branches leading off to other people. Wonder how many steps you would need to get to Brad Pitt? This is gold dust...I shouldn't be publishing this in the public domain. At the end of the series I could gather everyone in one big room and then someone else, perhaps my parents, could have a giant game of 'Where's Wally?'. Which would be rechristened 'Where's Willis?' for the occasion.
Anyway, believe it or not that was all just an amusing cul-de-sac. As I was saying, the world of lookalikes is a topic close to my heart. Also by chance in the last fortnight, my father's short-lived celebrity career re-entered the spotlight. You might remember Stephen Willis from such roles as Michael Howard in 'The Secret Election', or Michael Howard in 'This Week: Election Special'. A couple of weeks ago, the Independent had a feature on the booming celebrity lookalike industry. To all our surprise, Stevo was pictured in the article (which you can read here if you really want to pay for the privilege). [I took the photo that they printed... I assume a cheque is in the post, Mr Kelner]. For completeness, a response from the man himself can be read here. You can book Stephen here: still available for Christmas parties!
Lookalikes are in demands then. (When the world needs a Joey Rainbow doppelganger, my phone won't stop ringing...). A lookalike Tony Blair will do a speech at your corporate dinner, have his photo taken with you and so on. Musical tributes have of course long been popular too. This hit a surreal peak a few years ago when Oasis tribute act 'Nowaysis' somehow charted with their cover of 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'. I'm not sure why you'd want to spend several quid seeing someone with a moptop wig on playing Beatles covers but I can see they serve a useful purpose. 'Bjorn Again' played our Grad Ball and that was great. However, I think a line has now been crossed with the advent of the comedy tribute act. I recently saw an ad for a Chubby Brown tribute act appearing in my home town of Stalybridge. Normally standing at the front of a pub shouting foul-mouthed 'jokes' would get you an ASBO. Now it seems it can be a handy second income. If Royston Vasey's not your cup of tea (unlikely as that may be) then how about some reheated Peter Kay gags? An hour long set?! Telling someone else's jokes! Man alive. Why not just put a DVD on? It's ridiculous. "Ha! Look! He's skidding on his knees! That's just like Peter Kay! And now he's doing that thing where he sticks two fingers up on the side of his face to look like he's got an itch! Genius!"
A suggestion for anyone looking to book this: save your cash and just play one of Vernon Kay's Radio One shows instead - he's got Kay's high-pitched vocalisms down to a tee and repeats the same jokes.
7 comments:
Two points/questions, if I may:
1) does your dad get embarassed doing that stuff? I always feel embarassed for people, and I think I would be under those circumstances too.
2) You've missed a trick concerning the re-runs of Peter Kay jokes. He does that himself. Yawntastic. Same massive fee Peter? Same jokes? At least it's consistent...
Indeed you may G.
1. I can't really answer this, though I don't think he does. Incidentally, last night I learned that there may be some further Howard work heading his way. Watch this space... He only did it for a short burst of about 2 months and so I think the novelty (and cash) kept it fun.
2. You're bang on here G. Funny though PK undoubtedly is, he's been peddling the same gags (and virtually his entire set, since about 1998.
Continuing the lookalikes theme.. a woman giving a lecture I attended last week told me I looked just like a TV actress, but she couldn't remember their name. Any ideas? (I realise this is only really open to those of you who have met me,but for those who haven't I'm Tom's sister - shorter, longer hair, thinner eyebrows, hopefully prettier - but same Georgian features - you can have a guess too!)A boy at school told me i looked like Sue Pollard once, I was NOT amused (curse you andrew quinn).
you used to get Wednesday Addams when younger so Christina Ricci?
actually, this is pretty unlikely. You don't look anything like her now.
Shite i thought you were the frankie version of emily then. That would have been easy if so - deborah messing (but with far longer eyelashes).
Hey, you should've been at the Retro bar Halloween party last night....dead pop stars galore. Sid Vicious, Jerry Garcia, Klaus Nomi, Freddie Mercury and Karen Carpenter will all in attendance and as far as lookylikeys go they were pretty good (even if Karen was a skinny bloke). I told Gerard to go as Gene Pitney but he was having none of it.
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