Ex-Coronation Street Terry Duckworth actor Nigel Pivaro on his return to the stage in Yorkshire with The Commitments

“Jim asked me when I was returning to acting and it whet my appetite,” says Manchester-born Pivaro.

“I’d been a journalist for 15 years and he said that there was no reason why I couldn't do both.”

He did some plays on BBC Radio 4. “It was a great re-introduction to acting. There was no pressure because it wasn’t in front of the camera or live audience. I started to believe in myself again as an actor.”

When he was approached to play Da, the father of aspiring fledgling music manager Jimmy Rabitte in The Commitments, he couldn't refuse even though it was many years since he last trod the boards.

Based on Roddy Doyle’s 1987 bestselling novel and Alan Parker’s popular 1991 film, The Commitments is the story of Jimmy, a young working-class music fan, who shapes an unlikely bunch of amateur musicians into “Dublin’s finest-ever soul band”. His efforts are not exactly taken seriously by his father.

“Who could turn down the chance to be in The Commitments,” says Pivaro. “Why would anyone refuse such an iconic part in an iconic piece with such wonderful music. I loved it when the film came out”

He was first approached before Covid and so the tour has been delayed some two years, but Pivaro says it was worth the wait.

“I was apprehensive but going into radio before going back into the theatre was the best thing I could have done. I am still apprehensive but that’s not a bad thing.”

It seems acting is like riding a bike, and Pivaro says he is loving being back on stage.

He is classically trained having attended The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from 1979 – 1981. He made his professional acting debut in Short of Mutiny at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Stratford, London in February 1983.

Later that year Pivaro made his TV debut in Coronation Street as Terry Duckworth, the wayward son of Jack and Vera.

“It was great to get the part at such a young age with 15 to 20 million people regularly watching it,” he recalls. “In some ways I wish it had come later in my career when I wouldn’t have minded staying in one place, rather than right at the beginning. It is very difficult being a young person in the spotlight. The media becomes obsessed with you and any indiscretions you might make.”

Despite securing a regular role in the show Nigel left of his own choice in 1987 to pursue a variety of roles in the theatre.

“I wanted to get out and enjoy life. There are times when I miss the security of a regular job like that,” he admits. “But it also takes a lot of stamina. Some people have had to seek help due to the pressures that come with it.”

Pivaro, now 62, has returned to “The Street” no less than 10 times for some of the show's best story lines, eventually clocking up 400 plus episodes, making his last appearance in 2012.

At the age of 39, he made the surprising decision to go to university. “I’d always been intrigued by journalism, and interested in history and politics,” he says. After 20 years as a jobbing actor, he went to Salford University as a mature history student, graduating in 2003, and in 2006 he graduated from the University of Wales with an MSc in Social Science and Economics. After a post-grad NCTJ journalism course, he worked for regional papers - in particular the Manchester Evening News and is now a freelance writer.

“I’d always been fascinated by history and politics and I had never been to university as I’d gone straight to drama school. One day I sat down and worked out that, although I had been lucky in my acting career, over the years the time I had off resting added up to about five years. That’s five years out of 20 not working. Then I saw a sign saying it was never too late to go to university and so I decided that was what I wanted to do.”

After he qualified Pivaro was approached by a national newspaper and asked if he wanted a job.

“I did think about it and I was very flattered, but I decided that I needed to start at the grass roots and learn from the bottom up and so took a job on my local paper. I felt it was important if people were going to take me seriously as a journalist.”

He’s made documentaries for the BBC’s Inside Out series, including Regeneration Game, which challenged housing programmes forcing residents out of gentrified neighbourhoods.

He became fascinated with conflict zones, and spent time in Syria, Turkey and Eastern Ukraine - long before the Russian invasion.

“I was in Ukraine in 2014 and present time in Mariupol. I am still in touch with the interpreter I had and he is still out there.” It is clear there is part of Pivaro who would deeply like to be in Ukraine, reporting on the war with Russia, but he had already committed, rather ironically, to The Commitments.

Eventually opening in Bromley last month, the show tours across the country, including dates in Hull, York, Bradford this month and Leeds next year, before culminating in Brighton in July 2023.

It's an iconic story that resonates across the years, about people who though distant from the music's origins find communion and expression in the Motown style,” says Pivaro.

“A musical genre which was born out of oppression and which the characters embrace as their own. The Motown Sound is as vibrant today as it was when it first burst through in the Sixties.”

And Roddy Doyle added: “I'm delighted that The Commitments are coming back in 2022 & 2023 and I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how Nigel Pivaro tackles the part of Jimmy Rabbitte's Da.”

In 2013 The Commitments musical opened in London’s West End to universal critical acclaim and enjoyed a record-breaking two-year residency at the Palace Theatre. After which, it hit the road for a major tour, invigorating audiences up and down the country throughout 2016 and 2017.

The Commitments showcases more than 20 soul classics performed live on stage, including Night Train, Try A Little Tenderness, River Deep, Mountain High, In The Midnight Hour, Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Save Me, Mustang Sally, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Reach Out, Uptight, Knock On Wood, I Can't Turn You Loose and many more.

Although Pivaro says he leaves most of the singing to younger members of the cast.

“I get to sing a few bars of Elvis rather than the old Motown and Stax classics.That’s probably just as well really.”

The Commitments Yorkshire dates include: Hull New Theatre tonight - Nov 5, York Grand Opera House from November 7– 12, Bradford Alhambra from November 13-19, Leeds Grand Theatre 19 – 24 Jun, 2023

www.thecommitmentsontour.co.uk