Top writer, actor, comedian and TV performer William Caulfield will be bringing it all back home when he performs ‘Our Jimmy’ – a memorable tribute to the great comedian, James Young – in the Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen on April 13.

James was a famous Belfast comedian whose monologues on the province were both melancholy and merry, and drew huge audiences before he passed away in 1974.

The iconic Enniskillen venue is where William – a Lurgan, County Armagh native – made his debut in the early 1990s under the nurturing eye of his mentor, Eamon Bradley.

Since then, he has toured the world with his one-man show and was previously a warmup act for both BBC and UTV in a dizzying amount of shows, including ‘The Kelly Show’, ‘Get It Right Next Time’, ‘Town Challenge’, ‘The Daniel O’Donnell Show’, ‘Give My Head Peace’, ‘Saints and Scholars’, ‘Irish Evenings’ and the ‘11 Plus Show’.

In more recent times, he has been concentrating on ‘An Evening with James Young’, and is currently touring the world as a headline act on cruise ships.

When asked by The Impartial Reporter how he got into showbusiness, William said: “I was driving home from work as a car salesman down in Fermanagh and Tyrone in the early 90s. I worked and lived in Clabby outside Tempo.

“I heard that 3,000 people had been killed in The Troubles, and I thought that if James Young was alive today, he would have written one of his poignant monologues [about this].

“So, I went home and wrote one in the style of James, and I read it out on the George Jones Show on BBC, and I did not reference James.

“When I finished, George asked me if I had written it myself, and when I said I did, he said, ‘Well, James Young would be proud of you’.

“They asked me if I could write more, and I went on write more than 250 monologues, mainly comedies, for BBC Radio Ulster.”

Meanwhile, George called William ‘the Bard of Tyrone’ as he was working in Newtownstewart at the time.

William continued: “That is how it started, and the first paid gig I got was Lisnaskea Chamber of Commerce!

“They asked me to do after-dinner speaking, and I had never done it in my life, but I went anyway, and it was successful.”

Meanwhile, he did his first solo show in the Ardhowen Theatre in Enniskillen in 1995, and that was called, ‘A Quare Night’s Craic with a Tribute to James Young’.

A few years previously, William went into the Ardhowen looking for an acting role, and Eamon Bradley gave him a role in a musical, ‘Oaklahama’.

William started as a background actor and the following year Eamon gave him a lead role in ‘My Fair Lady’.

He also played in ‘The Christmas Carol’, ‘Annie Get Your Gun’, and he also did quite a bit of summer theatre with Eamon.

William said: “Someone said, ‘You should do your own show’, so I booked the Ardhowen Theatre and did the tribute to James Young, and it sold out in 1995.”

He added: “I always refer to the Ardhowen as ‘my home theatre’, because that is where I started, and any new shows I ever did, I always brought them down to the Ardhowen, because I love the venue and I knew a lot of the people [there].

“I haven’t been to the Ardhowen since 2019, so I am hoping the people of Fermanagh haven’t forgotten about me,” he quipped.

When he spoke to this paper, William was just about to fly out to South Africa, and was due to come back to Ireland on April 11, just ahead of doing his show on April 13.

Just two days later, he will be flying back to New Zealand.

William said: “I am international act, but I love to come home. Eamon Bradley of Enniskillen Drama Group was brilliant to me, and I always look back on him as being my mentor.

“I did not go to drama college, but I was like a sponge, and I sucked up everything at rehearsals, and Eamon was a great teacher.

“It worked, as I transitioned in 12 months from being a background actor to doing a lead.”

William added that he grew up listening to James Young as a child. “It was amazing how he was able to make people laugh one minute, and then reduce them to tears with his poignant monologues.

“He could also play women, and it totally mesmerised me. When I started writing the sketch, it was for the George Jones Show.

“They were recording a Christmas Special in the Group Theatre in Belfast, and George said to me that if I wrote a monologue, he would read it out.

“I was telling Eamon about this, and unknown to me Eamon rang George Jones and told him that I was a performer, and that I had been working on our [Group] stage.

“As a result of Eamon’s phone call, I had to walk out on to the stage of the Group Theatre, and I remember standing there thinking that, ‘This was where James Young was standing when I first heard all the recordings’.

“That was around 1991-92 and I remember being on the stage in Enniskillen and thinking that this was where I was meant to be.

“I enjoyed being on stage, entertaining people, and especially in making them laugh. I found Eamon Bradley to be very talented, welcoming and very supportive.

“But for Eamon and the Ardhowen Theatre and George Jones, I probably would not be in this business, and all the stars aligned for me,” added William.

Tickets for 'Our Jimmy' at The Ardhowen Theatre on Saturday, April 13 are available from www.ardhowen.com, or phone 028 6632 5440.