What was your first fee paying acting job?
I played Presuming Ed in the world stage premier of Withnail & I.
So where does the stage name ‘Sidney Sloane’ come from then?
I wanted an Equity card and when I filled out the application for Equity, they asked me to put three different names on there. So if someone has your name already you have to choose another, someone like Michael J Fox, for example, the J is probably in there because there’s already a Michael Fox. So I thought, “This is great, I can choose different names.” My legal name, as you know, is Gary Gibson. dinner, my family and friends and I sort of said, “Why don’t we go around the table and everyone talk about what they would do if they could be anything they wanted to be?” And it came round to me and I said, “Oh, right, yes, me? I think I’d be an actor.” I thought, “Yeah, I’d like to be an actor, that’s probably what it is. I’ve seen Al Pacino, I’ve seen Robert De Niro, I think I can do that. I understand what they’re doing; I reckon I could do that. I’m relating to that.” So I was like, “Well, I quite like Gary Gibson, I really want to keep that name but if I have to choose one, who would I be?” And I started thinking about favourite actors and the first one that came to my mind was Sidney Poitier. I have a lot of admiration for the way he handles himself as a human being as well as a performer. So I thought, “Well, I’ve got to be Sidney.” I then tried to make an anagram of his surname but it just wasn’t working. So I thought, “What’s been really lucky for me?” And prior to all of this, when I was a youngster, we’d end up going to Sloane Square and to Kings Cross and Lower Sloane Street. So I was like, “Okay, what memory is really holding for me here is Sloane Street.” So I put Sidney Sloane. And I thought, “Sidney Sloane – Sly Stallone. I kind of like this. Yeah.” So I put Sidney Sloane. I liked it so much I forgot that they asked for three alternative names and I just sent the application off with that one alternative. So about a month later this thing came in the post and I looked at it and it said Sidney Sloane and I didn’t open it. I was just looking at it, I was thinking, “I can’t believe it, someone’s using this address. Who is this Sidney Sloane person who’s using my address to do whatever dodgy deal he’s doing. Oh, it’s me. I’ve just remembered it’s me.” So when I got my Equity card I was so pleased. A year into drama school I had my Equity card. So that’s how the name came about.
The Beeb came back to my agent who said, “Look, they want to see you tomorrow afternoon. It’s some project but they can’t tell you anything about it because it’s secret but it’s to do with children. They saw your tape and would you be interested?” So I was like, “Yeah, okay.”
And you were one of five, original presenters on CBeebies?
No, there were four, two boys and two girls, and… yes, I was the least experienced because all other three had some form of television experience, Sue was a puppeteer, one as a skin performer, Pui, she was one of the Teletubbies, and Chris Jarvis, who’d been a presenter for probably about eight years before he started on CBeebies. So he was a known a face. Sue Monroe, the lovely Sue, my TV wife, she had been a puppeteer in the Shiny Show, so she hadn’t done any in-vision stuff but she’d done a lot of puppeteering. So it was a good, this whole new channel that they were launching and it was exciting, everyone was starting at the same time on this journey.
Was that the light bulb moment?
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