There’s only one Neil Baldwin – the life and extraordinary adventures of Mr Marvellous
Simon Jarrett reviews the stunning BAFTA award-winning part film, part documentary charting the life of Neil Baldwin – professional circus clown, football club kit-man, lay preacher and honorary university welfare officer. Oh, and there’s one more thing, he has a learning disability
too.
Imagine the scene. You are sitting in a person-centred planning meeting with the usual array of support professionals. The person at the centre of the meeting is asked the key question. ‘So what would you like to do Neil?’ ‘Well,’ he replies, ‘I’d like to join a circus and perform as a clown called Nello. After that I’d like to be the kit-man for Stoke City football club. I’d also like, in my spare time, to be a lay preacher and a welfare officer for the students at Keele University.’
There are a number of ways in which the meeting might develop from here. The most likely is that there would be a gentle process of persuasion directed at Neil. Perhaps something a bit more… realistic? Something where you wouldn’t be laughed at, feel vulnerable? What about the cruel banter you might suffer from those wild circus performers and loutish footballers? What about stacking shelves at Tesco instead?
Working the vicar network
Fortunately for the legendary Neil Baldwin, as is clear in this joyful, moving, life-enhancing film, (winner of two major BAFTA awards in May 2015), there weren’t many people around in his life telling him to be realistic. His mother tried, but he just went on being Neil Baldwin, pursuing his own person-centred plan. To her credit, she never stopped him. As he said in his tribute to her at her funeral: “There aren’t many mums who’d let their sons run off and join the circus. She worried about my weight and tried to make me eat salad. But she meant well”.
It seems he never attended a person-centred planning meeting. He did indeed become Nello the Clown, for three seasons with Sir Robert Fossett’s circus, and to this day is a member of the World Clown Association. One day the circus upped sticks without telling him, and left him alone in a caravan in a Scottish field. Undaunted, he found the local vicar and persuaded him to give him, and his caravan, a lift to the English border. There, he was picked up by his long-suffering vicar from Newcastle under Lyme, who drove him home. “He sees the church”, the vicar explained, “as a sort of ecclesiastical AA service”.
Looking around for work, he turned to his beloved Stoke City football club where he was a well-known regular in the stands. They had just appointed a new manager, Lou Macari, the revered former Manchester United and Scotland player. ‘Nello’ was in the crowd that greeted his arrival. He took the opportunity to ask for a job. Macari looked at him, asked him a couple of questions and told him to report for duty the following Monday morning. He had decided to appoint him as club kit-man.
He took on the role with relish and performed it with aplomb. One player tried to pick on him as a ‘mong’. The next day the players returned to the dressing room after training to find that all their underpants had disappeared. Nello appeared, wearing all fifteen pairs. The silk ones belonging to his abuser were the ones he wore next to his skin. He became a hero to the dressing room. At one game the away fans began to chant ‘you fat bastard’ as he walked towards the dugout. He simply turned to them and bowed, to the roars of the home fans, who chanted his name.
Neil Baldwin wasn’t vulnerable in the banter-ridden, obscenity-strewn world of the football fan; it was the world he lived and breathed. He could handle it far better than most. His mother went to see Lou Macari, incredulous that he had been given the job. “It’s not a problem”, she asked, “that he’s … not quick on the uptake?” “Not quick on the uptake?” Macari replied. “We’re talking footballers Mrs Baldwin. It’s not exactly University Challenge out there”.
Unique character
The film is part biopic, part documentary. A community choir from his local church, Neil Baldwin included, sings a musical background to his life story. His part is played by the brilliant Toby Jones, who is understated and unsentimental, in a fitting representation of a unique character.
At times during the film Jones sits next to the real Neil Baldwin, and asks him what is true and what is fantasy. Did Lou Macari really register him as a player so that he could make a five-minute cameo appearance as a substitute for Stoke City in a testimonial game? “Yes”. Did he really score a goal? “Of course I bloody didn’t”. It was, in fact, remarked Macari, one of the worst attempts on goal he had ever seen.
At times it all seems to be going wrong. Baldwin’s mother dies and his independence is threatened. But his own deep commitment and involvement in his community has earned him a network of supporters who do not allow him to fail. He carries on, reconnects with life. He continues to attend Keele University, dressed as a vicar, offering a friendly word for new students feeling lonely or disoriented. He becomes a well-known, almost mythical figure amongst the student population and the university eventually give him an honorary degree. He decides to start a student football club, Neil Baldwin FC. Things don’t start off too well but pick up considerably when he recruits Gary Lineker to be the president and the Premier League’s Uriah Renny to referee a game.
Risk-free lives?
This is an unforgettable film but what does it tell us? Neil Baldwin is a man who has taken many risks to achieve his dreams. He has constantly gone against the grain, undermining received wisdom about what is ‘right’ for people with learning disabilities.
What did Lou Macari see in him that many ‘professionals’ would miss? He described him, quite seriously, as ‘the best signing I ever made in my life,’ a critical boost to team morale. Macari added, “He is a man without an angle and there aren’t many of them in football”. Would most professional decision-makers say, or even see, such a thing?
Marvellous, directed by Julian Farino, BBC 2014 (available on DVD, Dazzler Media, 88 minutes).
