Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

It was a delight this week to meet Will Wollen, Director of Public Engagement in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent. Will is an actor, and teaches actors, and wasn’t planning on being an academic. Will was born in Kent and grew up in Dorset, though his parents spent many years living in Kenya, where his older sisters were born. At University, Will studied French and Philosophy and we learn how he got into acting through the Theatre Society at the University of Leeds. We also discuss the perils of what happens when an actor falls ill. We find out what Will’s earliest memories were, which include having his toe being nibbled by a duck, and how in later years he discovered that the boys prep school he went to was run by a paedophile. We also talk about why people go to the theatre in order to see people lose and how comedy happens when people fall over. Will’s first record buying experience was at age 10 and we learn why, in the mid-1980s, he followed a different path to that of his pee