Make It So: Sir Patrick Stewart and Oldham

The one that got away, and came back

The news last week that Sir Patrick Stewart had died, aged 86, sent most people straight to Picard and Professor X. My mind went somewhere else entirely - a studio on Cromwell Street in Oldham, and a room full of theatre studies students who could not quite believe who was standing in front of them.

There is a lovely twist to Sir Patrick’s Oldham story. In 1959, as a young actor looking for work, he applied to Oldham Rep and was turned down. Nearly half a century later the town welcomed him back with open arms, and he gave a great deal more to Oldham than a season in rep ever would have.

A chancellor who turned up

Sir Patrick was Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield from 2004 to 2015, and he was never a name-on-the-letterhead sort. When Huddersfield brought higher education to Oldham, it was Sir Patrick who opened University Campus Oldham in 2005, in the old Oldham Business Management School building. In November 2008 he was back again to open the £5.5 million University Studios extension, built for performance, media and digital arts.

He presided over UCO graduations too, leading gowned students in procession from the market place to the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In 2012 he did it alongside Professor Brian Cox, which must be the only time Oldham town centre has been led by a starship captain and a physicist on the same afternoon.

For a lad from Mirfield who left school at 15, his belief in opening doors to higher education was personal. Oldham felt the benefit of that.

A masterclass on Cromwell Street

I have very fond memories of sitting in on Sir Patrick’s workshop masterclass for the UCO theatre studies cohort. One of the great classical actors of his generation, giving his time to a room full of students and treating every one of them as a fellow professional. No grandstanding, no starry distance. Just craft, honesty and a genuine interest in what they had to say.

I grabbed a moment with him afterwards to point out that we shared an affinity in Herbert Chapman - a Huddersfield Town legend, and the man who started everything that became my own beloved Arsenal. He was gracious about it, but had to dash: he needed to get back to LA for an appointment with his dentist. So Hollywood, and yet so tongue in cheek.

I was there because of the partnership Peshkar had with the university. Through it we ran creative industries mentoring and support for UCO students - helping them work out how a talent becomes a living, who to talk to, and how to get a foot in the door of a sector that does not always leave it open. Watching Sir Patrick in that room, you could see the same message landing from the very top: people like you belong here.

The people who kept the lights on

A famous chancellor can open a building. It takes other people to keep it open. UCO gave Oldham genuinely world class facilities - proper studios, proper kit - drawing students from well beyond the borough, and they were run by Meic Watkins and Trey Wilson.

Trey in particular worked tirelessly to keep the site and the course going, often against the odds. That kind of graft rarely makes the headlines, but every student who came through that building owes something to it, and so do we.

What that pathway produced

The proof is in the people. Christopher Keech is one of the most talented creatives to come out of that period. His work on projects such as our FutureDesh installation - a digital arts piece exploring climate change in Bangladesh, staged in a Tommyfield Market shop in Oldham town centre - showed exactly what happens when real talent gets the right training and a real brief.

Nancy Monaghan is another. An Oldhamer exploring a second career, Nancy has thrived. She now leads Wild Things Drama in the Oldham area, alongside her own writing and performing career, and she worked with Peshkar on a project supporting vulnerable young women in Oldham. Proof that a route into the creative industries matters at any age, and that the people who take it often turn round and hold the door open for others.

One last exchange

The last thing we did together before the courses closed was New Innovations, a UK-Balkan creative exchange funded through Erasmus+. In June and July 2022, 28 young people from across the UK and the Balkan region took part in a week-long residency in each country, exploring entrepreneurship and employability in the creative industries.

The UK leg was based in Salford, with much of the week spent in and around Oldham, taking in Oldham Coliseum, Manchester Art Gallery, Band on the Wall, The Met, Bury Art Museum and MediaCity UK. The return leg went to Belgrade, where the group got to grips with the history and politics of Serbia and the wider Balkans. As one participant put it afterwards, “Finding out about how we have more in common across cultures is very powerful.”

It feels fitting to remember it now. The UK is rejoining Erasmus+ and Peshkar is about to re-enter the scheme. New Innovations closed one chapter, and hopefully the next one can start where it left off.

The Next Generation

So this is a lament for two things. For the man, obviously. And for the course, which no longer runs. University Campus Oldham is still going, now in partnership with Oldham College, and it still offers degree-level creative courses close to home - BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Game Art and Illustration, plus an HND in Esports. Credit to everyone keeping that going.

But the theatre studies course, the studios and the opportunities that came with them are gone. There are other routes in, of course - other courses, other towns, other organisations doing brilliant work. What Oldham has lost is its own version: world class facilities on its own doorstep, a cohort that drew people in from well beyond the borough, and the sense that this kind of thing happened here.

The next generation (yes, pun fully intended) of talent like Chris and Nancy will still find their way. Talent usually does. It is just a shame that, for now, fewer of them will find it in Oldham.

If Sir Patrick’s Oldham story teaches us anything, it is that a town which once said no can become a place that says yes. Here’s hoping it gets to say it again.

Rest well, Sir Patrick. Thank you for coming back.