Peter Adamson (actor)

After taking part in a community play at the age of 17, Adamson moved to London and attended LAMDA, but left after two months. He returned to the North West, working in repertory theatre for several years, where he met his wife Jean. He also set up his own rep theatre company, producing and performing in plays and summer shows at Weston-super-Mare. He went on to appear in London's West End, and first appeared on television in 1956 in a variety show. He then gained roles in television dramas such as Granada Television's Skyport and Knight Errant Limited before being cast as Len Fairclough in Granada's fledgling series Coronation Street. His character first appeared on screen in January 1961.[4]

In September 1970, Adamson took two months out of Coronation Street to play Mr Fenn in the Emlyn Williams play Someone's Waiting.[5] In 1973 he appeared in Nightfall.[3]

In December 1981, he was celebrated in an episode of This Is Your Life.[6]

Off-screen, Adamson gained a reputation as a hell-raiser, admitting that he had a drink problem, and had become involved in pub brawls. On 7 November 1966, he was fined £30 and banned from driving for a year after being arrested for drunk driving.[7]

He stopped drinking in July 1969 after being suspended from the show unpaid, and spent several weeks in Rossendale Valley hospital drying out.[8][9][4] Adamson was missing from episodes 921 to 935. After discharge, he then attended Alcoholics Anonymous and remained sober for 15 years but started drinking again after his wife's death.

In February 1983, Adamson sold behind the scenes stories about his co-stars to The Sun newspaper journalist Dan Slater. In them he called some street actors "Amateurs". He was given a warning by Bill Podmore and management at Granada that he would be dismissed for breach of contract if it happened again. Adamson was suspended for a six week period without pay which started on 11 April 1983.[10]

On 24 April 1983, a Sunday newspaper reported that Adamson had been arrested the previous day for indecently assaulting two eight-year-old girls at a public swimming pool in Haslingden where he had assisted as a part-time instructor in two separate incidents. The police complaint alleged that Adamson's hands had strayed while giving swimming lessons.[4]

His final ever appearance as Len Fairclough was broadcast on 11 May, but it was recorded in late March, before his arrest and suspension. Adamson asked Granada to write him out of the programme until his court case was over. His trial began on 18 July 1983 and he was represented at his trial by the barrister George Carman QC, who had a prominent career defending celebrities. On 26 July 1983, at Burnley Crown Court, a jury found Adamson not guilty.

After he was charged, Adamson was refused legal aid. Two weeks before the trial began, he approached Granada to see if they would help with what was a potentially large legal bill. As they were preparing to hand over a £10,000 loan cheque, Adamson admitted to Podmore and Granada management that he had signed an unauthorised contract to sell his memoirs to The Sun and News of the World along with the story of his arrest and trial, which had left Adamson with legal bills of £120,000.[11][1] Producer Bill Podmore called this "indefensible" and the cheque was hastily withdrawn. Adamson was sacked by Podmore in a letter sent to his house whilst he was on holiday in Bali on 26 August 1983. The latter stated that Granada would not renew Adamson's contract which expired in November 1983.

At the time of his sacking, Adamson was earning a reported £25,000 a year.[12] In 1974, he was earning £12,000 a year.[13]

Len Fairclough was killed off-screen in a motorway crash on 7 December 1983. To demonise the character, it was revealed that he had been returning home from an affair, cheating on wife Rita (Barbara Knox).[4] Adamson claimed this was motivated by sheer spite on Granada's part, to turn viewers against Len.

Adamson celebrated the character's death by delivering an obituary on TV-am dressed as an undertaker and delivered a bitter parting shot towards both Coronation Street and Granada in a poem he wrote.

On 30 July 1985 Adamson appeared on TV, talking about the trial and the aftermath in a TVS programme called Regrets. Granada refused to air the episode because Adamson criticised Granada over his dismissal. They threatened TVS with legal action for using the Coronation Street theme and photographs from the series.[14]

In early June 1988, still suffering financial and drink problems, Adamson was allegedly persuaded by freelance Sun reporter Dan Slater to change his story following several bottles of whisky. Adamson allegedly told Slater, "I am totally guilty of everything the police said. But what I hope you will print – is there was no sexual intent."[4][15] He withdrew from the play The Railway Children in which he was starring in Birmingham. As a result, Lancashire Police interviewed Adamson at Chorley Police Station, but he categorically denied the confession. No further charges were brought against him.

Adamson's career post-Coronation Street got off to a good start. He starred as Inspector Hubbard[1] in a West End production of Dial M for Murder from November 1983 to March 1984 which also featured Simon Ward and Hayley Mills. In this he earned £1,000 a week, the highest he said he'd been paid weekly. The play was successful. In June 1984, Adamson was in a play in Croydon and in the summer of 1984 he read short stories on BBC Radio 4. He was in a play in Harlow when his wife fell dangerously ill in September 1984 and he had to quit to return north. In February and March 1985, Adamson was based in Cambridge when he had a part in Entertaining Mr Sloane and in the spring and early summer of 1985, he was in Darlington playing Tommy Beamish, the leading role of an actor-manager of a troupe of music hall entertainers on the eve of the First World War in Empires by J.B. Priestley.

In 1986, he was in a touring production of A Taste of Honey. Later that year, Adamson briefly settled in Canada appearing in weekly repertory in Toronto and Vancouver.[16] He appeared in Run for Your Wife, a Ray Cooney farce at the Bayview Playhouse in the former city.[17] He returned to the UK in the spring of 1988 and played Sir Tunbelly Clumsy in a revival of The Relapse at the Mermaid Theatre from September to December that year. Adamson was in Comedians in Belfast from February to April 1989 and had to change his address due to receiving a death threat after getting into an argument in a pub. Perhaps due to the alleged admission he made in The Sun, being typecast as Len Fairclough, and his drinking and reputation, acting roles became increasingly rare after that.[1][4] He was declared bankrupt in July 1991, with debts of £32,000, largely due to the legal fees from the 1983 court case.[16][4]

Adamson retired from acting after being declared bankrupt. In the final decade of his life, he lived on the state pension and benefits in a one-bedroom Housing Association flat in Welton, Lincolnshire. He revealed in an interview with The Sunday People in May 1994 that none of the Coronation Street cast had ever contacted him since his sacking and that he had written twice to Julie Goodyear, who he had been very close to during his time on the show, but she never replied.[18]