John Thomson, 57, is an English comedian and actor, best known for Cold Feet and The Fast Show. He grew up on the outskirts of Manchester and Preston, bonded with Steve Coogan at Manchester Polytechnic over a shared love of impressions, and jointly winning the Perrier Comedy Award at Edinburgh in 1992. His television roles have included Skins, Waterloo Road, Cold Feetand Coronation Street. He has two daughters, Olivia and Sophie, with his ex-wife, and lives in London.
Here, he looks back at the moments that made him.
I know very little about my biological father, but I’m really not bothered. I was adopted as a baby from the Catholic Rescue Society in Didsbury in 1969. My adoptive mum and dad, Andrew and Marita, and my younger brother Ben are all I’ve known. My birth mother was Irish. My childhood was wholesome. I grew up in the small village of New Longton, 25 minutes from Preston. There was a derelict train line behind our house, where we’d build dens, light camp fires and bomb about on our bike.
Shorts
I had a reading age of 18 when I was seven. My parents took me to a child developmental psychologist for Mensa-style IQ tests, and my scores were through the roof. But it made school boring and frustrating, so I became quite recalcitrant and loved playing the class clown. It was a strict Catholic school, so you’d still get whacked with a ruler, and pulled by your hair. Years later, I went back with a film crew, and one of my old teachers said: “Ah – John Thomson. The naughtiest boy in the school.”
