Larry Lamb Embraces Mortality Through Poetry and Reflection

Larry Lamb has revealed turning to poetry helped him confront his own mortality after he made the decision to 'semi-retire' from acting. 

The actor, 78, is famed for his roles in shows such as and Gavin & Stacey but has decided to slow down in recent years and focus on his first love, poetry. 

Speaking to Daily Mail, Larry revealed he returned to writing poems after a 40-year break and that it has helped him verbalise his thoughts about death. 

He mused: 'I'm writing about all different things, about getting to be an old man and facing the fact that death is not so far away anymore, it's getting closer all the time.

'It helps me to be realistic about mortality and having said goodbye to immortality.

'I've got two jobs on this year so it's not like I'm stopping acting, I'm just really enjoying being a semi-retired actor who's writing poetry.

'The stuff that I've written comes right from my soul. There's no need to be trying to be anybody else.'

Larry continued: 'I've spent 50 years being an actor.  I'm here as Larry Lamb, not as Archie Mitchell, not as Mitch Shipman, not as the 500 other people I've played over the years.

'So doing poetry for people is like laying your heart out on the line, it's fabulous. You're not saying anybody else's script. This is me representing me.' 

Reflecting on his career, Larry continued: I've had the most extraordinary life, so there are highlights in every corner of my life. 

'Then all of a sudden, right when I'm pushing the wrong side of the wrong side of 70, if you want to look at it that way, I get this amazing burst of good fortune with Gavin & Stacey erupting into people's lives.

'Of all the bad guys I've played, and the heavies, and gangsters and nasty businessmen, I finished up playing dear old Mick Shipman, who half the population of this country would like to have as their dad!' 

Yet while Gavin & Stacey remains a highlight, Larry has ruled out a return to the series. 

The Christmas finale in 2024 was billed as the final episode, but fans had held out hope that a spin-off could revive the series. 

Larry poured cold water on the hopes, however, as he said: 'I think if there was going to be a spin off it would have happened already.

'They don't wait around for spin-offs, it comes off something that's live. So it's a bit late. 

'But the actors who were in it, we were always the last ones to know. There'd be all this going on and then all of a sudden you get a phone call saying, l"ook, are you gonna be free?"

'So  the people to ask those questions are the two geniuses that created it [James Corden and Ruth Jones] and they've both got such big lives now, I don't think they'd have time.

'it would take them a year or two to get it written, get it approved, get it set up, and then the next big thing you've got to sort out is getting everybody together. So I think it's a bit late for a spin-off'.

Larry has also ruled out a stint on I'm A Celebrity: South Africa. 

The actor appeared in the Jungle in 2016 but wouldn't want to take on any more Bushtucker Trials, as he quipped: 'Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

'I got out of that one really well! I absolutely loved it but it's not one I'd go and do again.'

There's also no chance of getting him back in the Strictly ballroom after he competed in the Christmas special in 2022. 

'That's enough of that!' he laughed. 'I had one dance and I had three weeks to learn one dance. You've got to know your limitations.

'And I was fortunate in that Nadiya [Bychkova] was training me, and Nadiya could teach a tree to dance beautifully! I was very lucky.'