Episode 32 – Stuart St. Paul Interview

The Minder Podcast

In this episode we feature an exclusive interview with Stuart St Paul who appeared in the classic Whose Wife Is It Anyway? from Series 2 of Minder. It was a small part but I could not resist speaking with Stuart as not only did he appear in one of – if not the – best of episodes, but he was also later the stuntman for Dennis Waterman in Stay Lucky.

In fact Stuart started out as a stuntman which was helped greatly by his background in martial arts. He was also assistant to both Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds on radio and eventually took over the Steve Wright show as Steve moved to Radio 1.

Later he would play the Queen Alien for James Cameron. He did three Bond films, and was in the original Batman, Superman, and Robin Hood.

He became a screenwriter and was a producer on The Krays as well as his own projects. His first screenplay sold straight into Hollywood and he eventually won the title of Best Director in the USA as well as awards around the globe.

He stayed on as action advisor on many hit shows. The continuing ITV drama Emmerdale used him to help design the plane crash in 1993 and then retained him for another 26 years. Whilst at Emmerdale he worked with Alun Lewis and knew he had been in something with him before. How could Alun forget his old mate from the gay bar?

We talk about the location and set up of the gay club in Whose Wife as well as some great insights into working on the show. Stuart has some great stories, not least of which is the tale about meeting with casting director Weston Drury Jr who saw something very unexpected during their meeting.

We also get into a DJ voiceover part Stuart provided for another episode of Minder and speculate upon just which episode this may have been.

This is a fun conversation about a classic episode and a wealth of other interesting material.