My Arts: Neil Caple, actor and director

Neil Caple is best known to keen Brookside viewers for playing Marty Murray in the Croxteth soap for four years. Now the RSC actor, also known for theatre work like On the Ledge and Flint Street Nativity, is returning to Liverpool 11, this time as the director of a special community production of Romeo and Juliet at Croxteth Fire Station. Organised by Liverpool's Reader Organisation, the Merseyside Community Theatre project has been running in the Alt Valley. It's free and takes place at station in Storrington Ave next Thursday to Saturday 26th – 28th August.

What are your top three albums of all time?
Tom Waits, Asylum Years
Bruce Springsteen, The Wild, The Innocent and the E.St Shuffle.
The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper.

What was the first record that you bought?
Ziggy Stardust.

What was the first live gig that you went to?
Steppenwolf at Mountford Hall.around 1973.

And the last?
Dirty Pretty Things, MEN Arena.

Did you pay to get in? And if not, why not?
Yes

What tune is running around your head at the moment.
Starcrossed by Ash

Does music help you to think when you are working?
At the moment music is work.

What newspapers/magazines do you read?
All, but via the net. For a train journey I’ll buy the Guardian.

What word do you most like the sound of? Not your favourite word, but the word that you find the most evocative to hear or read
Everton.

Which websites do you visit most often?
Shakespeare, Football and Facebook.

Who or what do you listen to on the radio?
Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 plays, 5live, rarely music, if so Radio3.

What was the best television programme ever made?
Boys From The Blackstuff – no contest.

Top film ever?
Shawshank Redemption/It’s a Wonderful Life/Jean De Florette – too difficult to choose.

What is your favourite piece of architecture?
The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

Least favourite?
I don’t like the tin-clad flat blocks that are shooting up all over town. They will look dated very quickly.

What book in childhood made the biggest impression on you?
To Kill A Mockingbird

What's your current book at bedtime?
A very overwritten biography of Alec Guinness

Do you go to the theatre and what did you last see?
I am rarely out of the theatre. The last thing I actually got to see was Our Day Out.

Who or what makes you laugh?
My wife and children, Laurel & Hardy, Marx Bros, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

What single work of art do you find the most moving?
Since I was a child I have loved ‘Lorenzo and Isabella’ by Millais. It’s one of the treasures of the Walker, but in terms of being moved Anthony Gormley’s Another Place is breath taking.

Which public figure do you most admire?
Nelson Mandela, David Moyes, Sam Mendes.

Know any good jokes?
A Conservative /Liberal Alliance.