Graham Fellows
Encyclopedia
Graham David Fellows is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 comedy actor and musician, best known for creating the characters of John Shuttleworth
John Shuttleworth (character)
John Shuttleworth is a fictional singer-songwriter and radio presenter, created by English comedy actor and musician, Graham Fellows in 1986. Shuttleworth is in his late 40s and is from Walkley in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He has a quiet manner and slightly nerdish tendencies...

and Jilted John.

Early life

Fellows attended the King Edward VII School
King Edward VII School (Sheffield)
King Edward VII School is a secondary school and language college located in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. KES, named after the reigning monarch, was formed in 1905 when Wesley College was merged with Sheffield Royal Grammar School on the site of the former on Glossop Road...

 in Sheffield (when it had newly become a comprehensive), where he was the first Pupil Governor of the school. He studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is a university in North West England. Its headquarters and central campus is in the city of Manchester, but there are outlying facilities in the county of Cheshire. It is the third largest university in the United Kingdom in terms of student numbers, behind the...

.

Jilted John

Fellows first came to prominence as Jilted John, a character who had a hit single in 1978 that was named after his own alter ego. The single was performed in the aggressive, minimalist style of the then-prevailing punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 genre, but with poppier
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 influences, somewhat akin to the Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Bolton in 1976, led by singer–songwriter–guitarist Pete Shelley.They are regarded as an important influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement, punk rock, power pop, pop punk and indie rock. They achieved commercial...

 and "Up the Junction", a docupop song by Difford
Chris Difford
Chris Difford is a singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer....

 and Tilbrook
Glenn Tilbrook
Glenn Martin Tilbrook is the lead singer and guitarist of the English band Squeeze, a band formed in the mid 1970s who broke through in the new wave era at the decade's end. He generally wrote the melody for Squeeze, while his writing partner, Chris Difford, wrote the lyrics...

 of Squeeze written around the same time. The novelty hit was most memorable for its humorous lyrics, a first-person narrative of a bitter teenager named John whose girlfriend Julie had left him for another man named Gordon, "just 'cause he's better lookin' than me/just 'cause he's cool and trendy". John wails that "Gordon is a moron", a phrase that became briefly famous in Britain, along with "I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chipshop". The character of Gordon on the record sleeve was played by Bernard Kelly, who had met Graham in his drama club. He appears on the record singing the chorus as well appearing as Gordon on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

. Bernard also wrote the chorus to the B side "Going Steady" which was originally released as the A side on Rabid Records.

Produced by Martin Hannett
Martin Hannett
Martin Hannett , sometimes credited as Martin Zero, was a record producer and an original partner in Factory Records with Tony Wilson...

 for his Rabid Records label, the song was first played on national radio by John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

 who commented that if the single was promoted by a major record label he could see its being a huge hit. This proved to be the case when it was picked up by EMI International. The song was introduced by David Jensen
David Jensen
David "Kid" Jensen , is a Danish Canadian-born, British radio DJ.-Early career:Born in a Danish family residing Victoria, British Columbia, Jensen began his career in his home country at the age of sixteen playing jazz and classical music. He then joined Radio Luxembourg at the age of eighteen in...

 on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

as "one of the most bizarre singles of the decade", and the song reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

.

Two follow-up singles were released the same year under the guise of 'Gordon the Moron'. A pseudo-concept album also produced by Hannett followed, entitled True Love Stories, charting John's love-life - and two further singles, neither of which were hits. No other recordings followed these, making Jilted John a one-hit wonder
One-hit wonder
A one-hit wonder is a person or act known mainly for only a single success. The term is most often used to describe music performers with only one hit single.-Characteristics:...

. However a cash-in single by Julie and Gordon sold moderately well as did lapel badges bearing the legends "Gordon is a moron" and "Gordon is not a moron". The phrase has also been used politically, referring to ex-Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

 Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

.

Fellows revived the Jilted John character at the 2008 Big Chill
The Big Chill (music festival)
The Big Chill is an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August...

 festival, along with Bernard Kelly, premiering a new song about Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...

's ultra-thin figure.

Singles

  • "Going Steady/Jilted John" (July 1978) Rabid TOSH 105, reissued (August 1978) with A and B sides flipped EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

     International (EMI 567) (UK #4)
  • "True Love/I Was A Pre Pubescent" (January 1979) EMI International (EMI 577)
  • "The Birthday Kiss/Baz's Party" (April 1979) EMI International (EMI 587)

Related singles, not by Graham Fellows:
  • "Do De Dough Don't Be Dough" (September 1978) Rabid (Gordon the Moron)(unverified)
  • "Fit For Nothing/Sold On You" (December 1978) Rabid TOSH 111 (Gordon the Moron)
  • "Gordon's Not A Moron" on the Pogo label by 'Gordon and Julie'
  • "J-J-Julie (Yippee Yula)" on the Pogo label by 'Gordon and Julie'

John Shuttleworth

In 1986 Fellows created John Shuttleworth
John Shuttleworth (character)
John Shuttleworth is a fictional singer-songwriter and radio presenter, created by English comedy actor and musician, Graham Fellows in 1986. Shuttleworth is in his late 40s and is from Walkley in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He has a quiet manner and slightly nerdish tendencies...

, an aspiring singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 from Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, with a quiet manner and slightly nerdish tendencies. His musical talents are usually expressed through his Yamaha PSS portable keyboard, and include such greats as "Pigeons in Flight" – a song which Shuttleworth attempted to have selected for the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

.

Newer characters

Two more recent Fellows creations followed, firstly Brian Appleton, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer from a college of further education in the Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme is a market town in Staffordshire, England, and is the principal town of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is part of The Potteries Urban Area and North Staffordshire. In the 2001 census the town had a population of 73,944...

 area although originally he hails from Selly Oak
Selly Oak
Selly Oak is a residential suburban district in south-west Birmingham, England. The suburb is bordered by Bournbrook and Selly Park to the north-east, Edgbaston and Harborne to the north, Weoley Castle and Weoley Hill to the west, and Bournville to the south...

 in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. His girlfriend Wendy is an aromatherapist, but unfortunately upon qualifying she became allergic to the essential oils she uses. He is convinced that he has been instrumental in helping many rock acts to achieve megastardom and yet received no credit for his efforts, such as being the cause for the gap in "Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)" by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel are an English rock band from the early 1970s. Their music covers a range of styles from pop to progressive rock. Over the years they have had five albums in the UK Albums Chart and twelve singles in the UK Singles Chart.-Career:...

, inadvertently launching the vocal career of Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

 at a failed audition for the lead singer of Genesis after the departure of Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

 and giving Howard Jones
Howard Jones (musician)
Howard Jones is a musician, singer and songwriter. According to the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums, "Jones is an accomplished singer-songwriter who was a regular chart visitor in the mid 1980s with his brand of synthpop. Jones, who was equally popular in the U.S., appeared at Live...

 the idea for using a mime artist in the hit "New Song" while working opposite him at a Clingfilm factory in High Wycombe
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...

. Brian also claimed to have a significant bearing on the career of the Thompson Twins
Thompson Twins
The Thompson Twins were a British pop group that were formed in April 1977 and disbanded in May 1993. They achieved considerable popularity in the mid 1980s, scoring a string of hits in the United Kingdom, the United States and around the globe. The band was named after the two bumbling detectives...

 (for example he inspired the hit 'Love On Your Side' while directing Alannah Currie
Alannah Currie
Alannah Currie is a musician and artist, best known as a former member of the UK pop group, Thompson Twins.-Career:...

 towards her hat which he accidentally knocked off her head).

His newest character is Dave Tordoff, a builder from Goole
Goole
Goole is a town, civil parish and port located approximately inland on the confluence of the rivers Don and Ouse in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England...

 specialising in 'laser screed' concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

 flooring. He has ambitions to become a popular after dinner speaker having seen how easy it was for Kevin Keegan. The topic he enjoys discussing the most is his accumulated wealth, followed by life on his ranch-style property with wife Mandy and daughter Courtney. Hobbies earmarked for 2007 included falconry.

Other work

Graham Fellows released one more album in 1985 under his own name titled Love at the Hacienda. It was well received but was not a commercial success. It does, however, have a cult following in Japan.

Fellows appeared as Alan Stephens, a St John Ambulance man in Time Gentlemen Please
Time Gentlemen Please
Time Gentlemen Please is a British sitcom. Commissioned by Sky One, it was primarily written by Richard Herring and Al Murray and ran for two series between 2000 and 2002.- Premise and characters :...



Prior to creating Shuttleworth, Fellows appeared in Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

as Les Charlton, a young biker chasing the affections of married Gail Platt
Gail Platt
Gail McIntyre is a long-standing fictional character in the UK television ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. Portrayed by actress Helen Worth, the character first appeared on screen on 12 July 1974...

 (then Tilsley). During his fame as Jilted John, Fellows had first appeared on Coronation Street in a very brief cameo role in which he meets Gail, single at the time, on the street in Manchester. In 2007 he appeared in an episode of ITV's Heartbeat.

He presented a programme of his favourite poetry and prose on Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

's With Great Pleasure in January 2007.

In July 2009, he read Radio 4's Book of the Week
Book of the Week
Book of the Week is a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast daily on week days. Each week the selected book, always a non-fiction work, is read in five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning and repeated overnight . The Act of Worship replaces the morning broadcast on...

, You're Coming With Me Lad by Mike Pannett
Mike Pannett
Mike Pannett is the author of 4 books that recount his experience as a rural beat officer in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire.-Novels:*Now Then Lad...: Tales of a country bobby*Not On My Patch, Lad: More Tales of a Yorkshire Bobby...

, a Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

 officer's semi-autobiographical account of his experiences in the North Yorkshire town of Malton
Malton, North Yorkshire
Malton is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The town is the location of the offices of Ryedale District Council and has a population of around 4,000 people....

.

A one-off UK 7" single was released in 1980 under the band name Going Red - "Some Boys"/"Tune Kevin's Strings" - with a picture sleeve depicting Graham in the shower, fully clothed. The band consisted of Graham Fellows (vocals/guitar, as "Mervin Cloud"), Russell Giant (percussion) and Francis Charlton (bass guitar). Chris Sievey was also involved, possibly pseudonymously as one of the aforementioned names. The A-side was an up-tempo new wave-style rocker, whilst the humorous B-side features fake crowd noises and predictable heavy metal riffing.

Appeared as Dr Persil in Ideal (TV series)
Ideal (TV series)
Ideal is a British comedy-drama, or dark comedy originally broadcast on digital channel BBC Three, created by Graham Duff and produced by BBC Comedy North and Baby Cow Productions. It stars Johnny Vegas as small-time cannabis dealer Moz....

 (2010) and as Eric Sykes in Hattie (Drama, BBC4)
Hattie (television film)
Hattie is a television film on the life of the British comic actress Hattie Jacques, played by Ruth Jones, her marriage to John Le Mesurier and her affair with their lodger John Schofield...

 (2010)

He owns a disused church on the Orkney island of Rousay
Rousay
Rousay is a small, hilly island about north of Orkney's Mainland, off the north coast of Scotland, and has been nicknamed "the Egypt of the north", due to its tremendous archaeological diversity and importance....

, which he intends to turn into an "artists refuge".

Personal life

Fellows has four children. He lived in Louth
Louth, Lincolnshire
Louth is a market town and civil parish within the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.-Geography:Known as the "capital of the Lincolnshire Wolds", it is situated where the ancient trackway Barton Street crosses the River Lud, and has a total resident population of 15,930.The Greenwich...

, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

 for 15 years.

Selected TV, film and radio

  • The Shuttleworths (Four series as of 2004) - BBC Radio 4
    BBC Radio 4
    BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

  • Shuttleworth's Showtime (1994) - BBC Radio 1
    BBC Radio 1
    BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

  • 500 Bus Stops (TV series)
  • Europigeon (TV mockumentary
    Mockumentary
    A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

     about the Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest
    The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

    )
  • John Shuttleworth's "Open Mind" (2006) BBC Radio 4
  • It's Nice Up North
    It's Nice Up North
    It's Nice Up North is a 2006 comedy documentary made by comedian Graham Fellows as his alter ego John Shuttleworth.It was filmed by photographer Martin Parr and edited by Fellows on his laptop on a very low budget....

    (2006)
  • Southern Softies (2009)
  • Hattie
    Hattie (television film)
    Hattie is a television film on the life of the British comic actress Hattie Jacques, played by Ruth Jones, her marriage to John Le Mesurier and her affair with their lodger John Schofield...

    - as Eric Sykes
    Eric Sykes
    Eric Sykes, CBE is an English radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career has spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and/or performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter...

    (2010)

External links

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