I was driving down the A1 from Lincolnshire and had this awful, selfish reaction: ‘Now I’ll never get to see him play live’.' 'But I do remember where I was when I heard Muddy Waters had died. 'I’m embarrassed to say I don’t recall where I was when I heard that John Lennon had been assassinated. 'If that weren’t bad enough, I’m also an actor: one of those pampered ninnies who can’t find his way through an airport without a babysitter. 'I am a white, middle-class Englishman, openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American south. I’ve never eaten grits, cropped a share, or ridden a boxcar,' he says of his decision to sing the blues.

While taking a break from top-rated show House, he’s just recorded a blues album titled Let Them Talk, which arrives in the stores tomorrow.Ĭue a handful of gigs with his five-piece band in New Orleans, Hamburg, Berlin, London, Paris, Manchester, Cheltenham – and this most intimate of venues in Coventry. 'Can we turn the lights up a bit? I’ll pay if that’s the issue.'Īnd, of course, he could. 'It’s incredibly dark in here,' says the 51 year-old Brit who conquered America, as he screws his eyes up and peers out into the audience at the Warwick Arts Centre Theatre. And in the role of Dr Feelgood, playing blues, rock and roll like he was born to be a singer. Dr Gregory House (aka Hugh Laurie) is, indeed, in the house. So it’s surreal to find him making a house call in a tiny Midland theatre that holds just 500 people.īut here he is. HE is the millionaire medic, the highest paid actor on US television.

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