Dirty job but Douglas did it

AS Dirty Den toppled into the murky waters of a London canal, the victim of a hitman's bullet, Pavel Douglas looked on dispassionately.
As EastEnders gangster Gregory Mantel, the Edinburgh-educated actor had just featured in what would become an iconic moment of British TV, a memory from 1989 which informs his 2008 Fringe show, I Shot Dirty Den, at the Underbelly.

But then, Douglas is trading in memories right now, not least because the venue he finds himself playing is one that, in many ways, he was first discovered way back in 1968, while still at pupil at Boroughmuir High School.

"Those were exciting days," he smiles. "I did a bit of everything then, building sets and stage managing at the Traverse when it was in St James' Court. It was the 60s and we were desperate to get involved with 'the scene', which at that time seemed to be in London alone."

However, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Douglas first realised he had a calling for the arts at the age of 15, when he was cast in a BBC series called The Highland Jaunt.

"That was my first job. It would have been 1966 and I played a stable lad. I remember the headmaster, Mr Romanis, calling my mother in and saying, 'Well, we don't mind giving him a wee bit of time off to do this, but make sure it doesn't happen again'."

Laughing, he adds, "Little did he know that my career would turn into that of a full-time actor."

It was two year later that Douglas became instrumental in transforming one of Edinburgh's unloved and unused spaces into an arts centre for the emerging talent of the time.

"That was just at the point where I was leaving school. I'd just done my Highers and didn't want to go back to school. By then my mother had gone to live in Orkney and had put me into a flat in Dublin Street with my mentor, a chap called Daniel Morgan, who was a bit of a mover and shaker in Edinburgh in those days.

"We got together with the Council and said, 'We need to set up an Arts Lab in Edinburgh.' The Arts Lab in London was really full-on and seemed to be swinging, but Edinburgh had been left out despite the fact that we had a Festival, a Fringe and the Traverse.

"The Council agreed that if we could find a building, they would give us it on a peppercorn rent basis if we did all the work. We scouted around and found what is, today, the Underbelly."

And so, still just 17, Douglas and his friends got to work. "We dug it out with wheelbarrows and pickaxes. In fact, I still have two artifacts that I dug out from that time. One was a old stone whisky bottle, the other a little green glass Jacobean tumbler.

"Anyway we dug it out, whitewashed it, turned one corner into a wee bar and restaurant and another corner into a cinema. Another little archway area we made into a mini-theatre."

Four decades later, Douglas is back. "It's bizarre because 40 years on, the place has changed beyond all recognition, but every so often I'll turn a corner and get this complete frisson of memory of going around that corner all those years ago."

I Shot Dirty Den charts some of the more bizarre moments in Douglas' varied life and career – he was once Sooty's dresser. It also touches on that EastEnders connection.

"In 1989 I was hired, originally, for one episode. I made my very first appearance on TV with a laptop computer. Nobody had seen a laptop in those days. In fact, it was so expensive that they sent a security guard with it who stood just out of shot. I had a scene in the Dagmar with James Willmott-Brown and I thought that was going to be it.

"The next thing my agent calls, 'They like you and want you in the show'. So, nine months later, I meta-morphosed from this under-world bookkeeper into Mr Big, ordering hits on people.

"I had Dennis Watts beaten, banged up in jail, beaten up in jail and then, at my command, he was done away.

"Fourteen years later the bugger comes walking back into Albert Square as if nothing happened, whereas my character just dissolved and everybody forgot I'd even been in the show.

"That's the loose premise of the beginning of the show, however. It interweaves the story of my life as a boy in Poland."

The Krakow-born performer explains, "My mother was born in Edinburgh but went to Poland after the war to help rebuild the country. She met my dad, Stanislaw Zaczyk, an up-and-coming actor who quickly became a major star and in so doing played the field and had all sorts of affairs. So she kidnapped me and took me out of the country. I never saw my dad again."

A few months before his fifth birthday Douglas found himself on the move, first to London, then Brighton, then France, arriving in Edinburgh at the age of 13, which he considers home.

"If ever there was a hometown from my youth, it has to be here," he says. "This is where all my major experiences happened. I went to school, this is where I lost my virginity, and this is where I started my theatrical career."

So how does Douglas feel being back in that same venue he started Edinburgh all those years ago?

"It is amazing how the Edinburgh Fringe has changed over the years and The Underbelly has become a major player. It's very exciting.

"But I am really looking forward to spending time in my old home town, watching some great theatre and performing a very special show. Who could ask for more?"

• I Shot Dirty Den, Underbelly, Cowgate, until August 24, 3.15pm, £6-£10.50, 0844-545 8252