A FORMER Lymm High School pupil is rocking the West End in the Olivier Award-winning musical, Sunny Afternoon.

Tom Whitelock is playing Pete Quaife in a story which retells The Kinks' rise to fame at London's Harold Pinter Theatre.

"It’s my first West End job so it was a big deal for me," said Tom, who grew up in Parry Drive, Thelwall.

"It’s literally a dream come true. It’s something I dreamt about when I was a teenager doing youth theatre in Warrington.

"It was really surreal. I couldn’t quite process it until it happened. Then it was amazing to think: ‘This is my life for the next year’.

"One of the great things about the show is that we see how much the audience enjoys hearing these songs that they know from moments in their life."

One of Tom's highlights was getting to meet Ray Davies, The Kinks frontman who started the Ivor Novello-winning band more than 50 years ago.

"He came to the opening night and I chatted to him then," added the 28-year-old.

"He gave me an amazing compliment because he said I was ‘very close to the real Pete’.

"He’s really cool like that. He comes to see the show quite a lot. Sometimes we’ll know he’s in and other times we’ll suddenly spot him in the finale

"It’s his passion project, it’s his story and in some ways it might be strange seeing it played out by other people but he just enjoys what’s come out of it and the ability to share it with all these other people.

"We had an amazing thing a few weeks ago where Ray showed up as he wanted to pay tribute to David Bowie as they were close friends.

"After the show we played a version of Waterloo Sunset with him as he performed that with him.

"That was quite a moving experience as he came on stage and told this incredibly personal story of the last time he saw David."

As well as all the acting parts, Tom had to learn about 15 Kinks songs on the bass guitar.

He said: "It was a lot of work but we were lucky as the four of us had three weeks with the musical director.

"They also sorted out some bass lessons with an amazing teacher while I was doing rehearsals as well so I got to improve my technique as we went along."

But Tom's real challenge was trying to find his own take on Pete Quaife with all the musician's fans watching on. Pete died in June 2010 from kidney failure.

Former Thelwall Junior School pupil Tom added: "Pete earned the nickname ‘the ambassador’ because he was the one who was always stuck in the middle between Ray and Dave and Mick who were always fighting.

"He was the one who would try and make things work and keep everyone on friendly terms. As a result he got the worst of it sometimes.

"I didn’t want to imitate the real Pete Quaife. I found some interview footage and watched a lot of their performances and things like that but that was more for reference really.

"It was more about looking into the script and what the dynamic between the four guys was.

"Obviously there’s a very strong, tempestuous relationship between the brothers, Ray and Dave, but Ray and Pete were also best friends.

"So that provides a really interesting dynamic and I’ve read a number of biographies about their relationship from kids to when they were adults."

Tom was inspired to become a performer through his parents who were involved with The Playmakers, an amateur dramatic society in Warrington.

He added: "I must have been about five or six and they were doing The Roses of Eyam and they basically roped me and my sister Amy into being in it.

"That is the first time I can remember being on stage

"I remember there was a scene where my sister had 'died' and I had to be bribed with chocolate not to fidget."

The next play Tom appeared in was Arthur Miller's All My Sons and then he got the bug, taking part in as many school plays and music classes as he could.

- Sunny Afternoon is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until April 16.

DAVID MORGAN