A BRUSH WITH GENIUS
By Jane Cameron

Playing Vincent Van Gogh stretched actor Linus Roache to the limit, a
role that he found "gruelling, but also wonderful"

Nowadays his works sell for millions, but when Vincent Van Gogh died
100 years ago, he had sold just one painting. Interpreting such a
gifted man was a daunting prospect for 26-year-old Linus Roache who
plays the artist in the Omnibus dramatisation of Van Gogh's life.

"Trying to reinhabit his life and do it justice is such an enormous
responsibility", says Roache. "And there was a problem in my mind about
playing him as a 37-year-old (Van Gogh's age when he died). That seemed
such a long way from me. Then I realised it wasn't that different and
the important thing was to tell of his journey as a man."

Director Ana Benson Gyles - whose previous work includes 'Journey into
the Shadows', a portrait of the artist Gwen John (with Anna Massey),
and 'Stanley' a Screen Two play about artist Stanley Spencer - was very
impressed by Roache.

"So much has been written about Van Gogh that trying to find the man
among the myths was quite a task for Linus," she says. A task that can
hardly have been eased by the fact that the story wasn't shot in 
chronological order. Roache had to dip into Van Gogh's complex character
almost at random. "I did find it very gruelling," admits Roache, "but
also wonderful."

The story is told in an impressionistic way and plays with time, weaving
between Van Gogh's childhood in Holland, and his last days in Provence
and Auvers. "Like showing pieces of a canvas," says Benson Gyles, "and
eventually revealing the whole painting." It also interweaves with
Roache's own life, as the painter's mother is played by Anna Cropper,
Roache's real mother (his father is William Roache, 'Coronation Street's'
Ken Barlow).

Roache is currently playing Edgar in 'King Lear' and the title role in
'The Last Days of Don Juan' at Stratford. Next month he can be seen in
a BBC2 'ScreenPlay' as a severely handicapped young man in 'Keeping Tom
Nice'. He would have liked to have spent longer on Van Gogh. "I read his 
letters - he wrote three huge volumes to his brother Theo. I could have
gone on studying him for years."