I'm With Stupid by Danny Peak
Paul Henshall plays Paul Ball
"Paul is quite manipulative and he uses the other residents to get what he can out of them but I think he does it with charm!"
Paul Henshall defends his character Paul, who is constantly
trying to turn each situation to his own advantage. He wants Jean the
warden to think he's the golden boy.
But for all his scheming, Henshall
argues that his character is without malice. "He's just partly having a bit of fun and partly trying to make a few quid sometimes. I hope he's a loveable rogue and not too nasty.
"All of the residents have ambitions to be big shots
but they're not quite clever enough. They're just too good-hearted to be
manipulative. Deep down Paul's got a good heart and he just can't quite
lie to the other residents."
Henshall maintains that underneath his character's tetchy temperament, Paul is actually quite warm.
"I think comic characters have to be, otherwise, it's difficult
to laugh. Characters like Basil Fawlty and Arkwright in Open All Hours
are mean-spirited but they've got a good heart underneath and you always
know that there is something else which they're battling with.
"But they've
all got a charm, and I hope Paul's the same."
Henshall's real-life girlfriend Anna Scutt appears in I'm With Stupid, but his character is attracted to the local policewoman, PC Sarah Madden.
"He's very keen on Sarah but he's not very good at attracting
the opposite sex. He doesn't know how to talk to women and, of course, he's
always got Sheldon getting in the way and trying to be helpful but putting
his two big feet in it!"
Paul Henshall is well known to viewers of Holby City as the student doctor Dean West. "It'll be great to go back to Holby City, it's nice to do straight drama. Making comedy shows takes more energy.
"You have to be very on the ball to make sure that you're
delivering your line at the right time. In comedy, I tend to think
more about the timing and the rhythm of the script. It's almost like
a music score in that sense.
"In straight drama I'm more concerned with
the way the character is feeling. Although every line, be it comedy
or drama, has a rhythm and if you deviate from the rhythm then you've
shot yourself in the foot because it doesn't work."
Paul
started out in the theatre, having trained at the Manchester Metropolitan School
of Theatre. He appeared in a production of Lorca's Blood Wedding and then, shortly
after leaving university, he got his first TV role in Playing the Field, a
series about a women's football team.
Paul is also known for his role in the BBC drama A Thing Called Love, when he
played Michael Scant, alongside Cherylee Houston, who plays Dorothy in I'm With
Stupid.
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