Globe columnist Peter Grant talks to star of stage and screen Barrie Rutter on his farewell tour with Northern Broadsides - ahead of their Playhouse visit.

EVERYONE refers to him simply as 'Rutter.' 

It sounds direct and assertive.

And that sums up this fine, versatile Yorkshireman Barrie Rutter.

I once sat next to him at an awards ceremony.

Unbeknown to him I was one of the judges and his company Northern Broadsides had won the best touring award.

During the night he regaled me with wonderful tales of his theatrical life.

He clearly lives and breathes the stage.

Rutter (as I shall call him) maintained he started Northern Broadsides in 1992 with just one idea – Richard the Third.

"I wanted to bring audiences non-velvet Shakespeare" he famously said at the time.

Rutter's TV career saw him in the 2005 series of Fat Friends and he starred in the film version of Porridge.

But his star has shone as artistic director and leading man of Halifax-based Northern Broadsides.

One of his greatest triumphs in 25 years at the helm of NB was casting Lenny Henry in Othello in 2009, winning awards and much critical and public applause.

Last year he was the subject on Radio 2's Desert Island Discs where he spoke of his love of Elvis and Frank Sinatra and the poems of Toy Harrison.

So it will be the end of an era when he says takes his bow on his last Broadsides tour.

He said: "I am very proud of what we have achieved. We always had a great time playing Merseyside.

"We did some pioneering work at the Everyman and I love going back to the city. But we are at the Playhouse now.

"We are all looking forward to it very much because the audiences there know what we were and are about." 

Rutter adds in his distinctive accent: "You could never say it's a pompous company.

"But we do more than Shakespeare wit a Northern voice, you know." 

Now, at 71, he is off to pastures new and is awaiting what his agent will come up with after a stint at London's Globe next March.

Rutter goes freelance on April 1, 2018.

It's his decision and one clearly taken with a heavy heart. 

He continued: "I said if I didn’t get more funding from The Arts Council then I would leave. We didn't. So I am.

"I thought what more do we have to actually do?" 

But that is now history. He is moving on.

And in true Rutter fashion he is keen to talk about the play in hand arriving at the Playhouse on November 21.

It NB's take on a 300-year-old very funny French story - Lesage's Turcaret adapted by Blake Morrison.

He is always enthusiastic just as he is in his Broadsides programme notes which are more like letters to the audience.

"This is a daft comedy - all about human folly - and a love triangle. 

"I play a banker called Fuller and it is set in 1928 ten years after the end of the First World War.

"It's the jazz decade before the 'Great Crash' changed everything." 

It has already been hailed as Rutter's superb swan song.

Modest as ever he says he was surprised when he was made an OBE for services to drama.

"I remember picking up some mail at home and I had my boot on one letter which I thought was junk mail and I nearly threw it away.

"It said OHMS on it.

"I thought it was an April Fool's joke at first. But no, it wasn't.

"I enjoyed going to Buckingham Palace and seeing all those great paintings." 

Rutter is also a Doctor of Letters from the University of Bradford – that came out of the blue, too.

As for Northern Broadsides he says he will not interfere when he goes - he goes.

He mused: "I know I hand it over to a great, robust creative team."

Will it always be in your blood, Rutter? I ask.

"Yes ... it will," he says with that perfectly-pitched emotion and timing that we have all come to know and love.

For Love or Money is at Liverpool Playhouse until November 25.

Tickets from the box office on 0151 709 4776.