The Full Monty: Steve Huison met pigeon fancier after Facebook call
They say never work with children or animals -unless they happen to be a pigeon, according to The Full Monty star Steve Huison.
The Coronation Street actor, 60, is among the original cast, including Mark Addy and Lesley Sharp, reprising their roles for the much-anticipated TV reboot of the beloved 1997 film.
While the movie followed Robert Carlyle’s Gaz rip-off The Chippendales and organise a strip tease at a local Sheffield venue to raise money for child support, the Disney Plus story picks up on the characters’ lives 25 years later.
Much like its predecessor, The Full Monty doesn’t shy away from politics, brilliantly juxtaposing the friends’ thrumming humanity with the government’s inhumanity, stretching from funding cuts to austerity.
There is, of course, mayhem and hair-brained schemes, most notably when Steve’s character Lomper decides to purchase an expensive pigeon in the hope in breeds offspring in a bid to save his cafe.
But, having one of your most prominent co-stars as a, er, pigeon was apparently not the recipe for disaster you would imagine, with Steve telling Metro.co.uk ahead of the series’ release ‘they were great.’
The Dinnerladies actor also revealed he took his preparation for the sequel very seriously – even contacting pigeon fanciers to get the low down.
Steve explained: ‘Oh, the pigeons were great. They’re very well trained. They’re not like your feral pigeons. You can it sit down and say, “Stay there” and it stays. Or you can release it and it goes straight back into its basket. They were they were great. I got quite attached to them.
I spent a bit of time beforehand, I put out on Facebook locally on my local Facebook page: “Are there any pigeon fanciers around that I can spend some time with?”
Bursting into laughter, Mark, who plays Dave and also spoke to Metro.co.uk, asked: ‘What kind of response did you get?’
Steve joked: ‘I don’t have a telly so I have to fill the time somehow.’
He continued: ‘This chap in Whitby says, “Yeah, come down to my loft.” And I went and spent time with him we talked pigeons.
‘They’re quite a special breed – not the pigeons – the fanciers. You know that their lives are devoted to these things, and they love them like anybody else loves their pet.
‘And so, you know, I just transferred that and watched him and watched all the other pigeon fanciers how they are with them and transferred that [onto my performance]. You know that he cares about them and, and there was so easy to work with really.’
The Full Monty movie was released to critical acclaim, winning an Oscar for best original musical or comedy score and nominated for three others, including best picture and best director.
For a time it was the highest-grossing film in the UK despite a budget of just £2.8million, until it was later outsold by Titanic.
The Full Monty premieres on Disney Plus on Wednesday.
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