Exploring Peter and The Wolf with Brian

11:58pm Monday 31st March 2008

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EVERYTHING about him is big - his stature, his lust for life and even his trademark bushy beard.

So it is almost reasurring to speak to Brian Blessed and find that big booming voice is not just reserved for the stage.

"I am sorry if I sound a bit wild at the moment," he booms at me, "I have just got back from Borneo."

Then there's his gigantic sense of humour. Every other sentence is punctuated by a vast and infectious guffawing laugh.

"Bloody terrible weather, it rained non stop and it was bloody tough going I can tell you," he continues, " it was like continuously have six buckets of water poured on your head."

This was no holiday for the 71 year old veteran actor - he was a guest of the Malaysian government with the aim of highlighting the destruction of the rainforest when he scaled the region's highest mountain.

It was yet another of the expeditions that have made him almost as well known as his screen and stage roles.

Everyone has their favourite Blessed incarnation, whether it's the barking mad King Richard IV in Blackadder, frog-faced Boss Nass, the Gungan leader, in Star Wars: Episode 1-The Phantom Menace or space warrior Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon.

Others remember him for his impressive Emperor Augustus in the classic BBC series I, Claudius, in which he gasped through one of the longest death scene close-ups on TV or for his 16 years as firm but fair PC Fancy Smith in Z Cars in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet he has also made three attempts to reach the summit of Mount Everest, although never quite getting there but becoming - at the age of 65 - the oldest man to reach the dizzy altitude of 28,000ft without oxygen.

"I have never been the same since I went up Everest for the first time," Brian says, " it changed every single cell of my body. You don't go up Everest to die, you go up Everest to live."

"I have absolutely no fear," he insists. "The only time I did baulk at anything was when they kept asking me to be Pavarotti on Stars in their Eyes.

"I refused five times, so they said Brian-for the first time you're frightened!'. Nothing's impossible in life. But verging on the impossible is impersonating Pavarotti's voice.

So I rang the maestro, and he told me, Only sing the vowels. English and German tenors sing the consonants too much and it closes the throat.' So I followed his advice and bloody won!

"When I was at drama school, someone from Welsh Opera said that I could go straight to La Scala in Milan, and within two years would be a leading tenor in Covent Garden. But much as I love opera, and must act, I have to have my adventures!" Brian says.

So what his advice if you are planning your own adventure or expedition?

"Whatever you are climbing take it step by step," he says " even if you are climbing a staircase take small steps never take big steps. Very small steps may take longer but it will get you there."

Intrigued by Brian's expeditions to Everest Russian scientists have tested him with a view to sending him into space.

They told him he had the physique and constitution of a man 30 years younger. He doesn't seem surprised.

"I have colossal lungs you see" he laughs by way of explanation. "I run seven miles a day and I do two-and-a-half hours of weights, and I'm 71."

The project is a dream boyhood dream come true for the actor, and he has already had three months training in a Moscow space programme."My biggest love in life is space, " he declares, "and I need to get out there."

"The moon will save the earth," he insists, " up there you have Helium three. One tonne of it could provide 250 years of pollution free fuel, no oil or gas needed."

It is a love that has extended to some of his greatest loved roles not least, Vultan, in the 1980 film Flash Gordon. Unprompted he booms "Gordon's Alive" at me, his immortal line from the film.

He has certainly embraced the cult status conferred on him by the role.

He recalls a sci-fi conference in America where: "They would fill the auditorium, I would go in and say, Gordon's alive!' three times and they just screamed and took photos. Then they would fill the auditorium again. I did that for seven hours," he chortles.

But before he heads off into the galaxy - "hopefully later this year or next", he says, - Brian will be seen a little closer to home this Tuesday (April1) as the narrator of a touring theatrical production of Peter and the Wolf, at the Cliffs Pavilion Westcliff.

Performed by the Philharmonic Orchestra and featuring the work of award winning choreographer Didy Veldman, the story , based on writer Sergei Prokofiev's own childhood memories, tells the tale of Peter who disobeys his grandfather and tries with the help of his friends the bird, the duck and the cat to catch a vicious wolf.

Anne Geenen's new version of the 1936 classic children's story includes a new prologue, which introduces Prokofiev's characters and contains an ecological subtext that appealed to the former president of the Council for National Parks.

"We all need to get into the wilderness," Brian declares. "In our cities, our hearing, our eyesight diminishes. After four weeks in the wilderness, you start to see and hear better."

Brian himself won't entertain the idea of slowing down either.

"I'll always be active," he says, " My dad died at 99 - he was very active until he went.

Acting's a must, good, bad or indifferent. But my biggest love in life is exploration."