Mark Williams takes to the UK Championship stage on Monday night off the back of his acting debut in popular Welsh sitcom ‘The Tuckers’.
The three-time world champion from Wales takes on compatriot Jamie Clarke at the Barbican Centre in York for a place in the last 16.
Williams, 47, has won the UK on two occasions but the last of those was now exactly 20 years ago and there has been just one final appearance since then – when he was the victim of an incredible John Higgins comeback in 2010.
But the laid-back left-hander with the dead-pan sense of humour recently accepted an invitation to appear with pal Steve Speirs and basically play himself in the much-loved drama.
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For those unfamiliar with the programme ‘The Tuckers’ follows with a degree of warmth the everyday scrapes of a down-on-their-luck and out-of-pocket Welsh family attempting – often with comically disastrous consequences – to make ends meet and make life work.
Williams said: “I had been talking to Steve a bit and he just asked me if I would be interested in doing a little cameo appearance in The Tuckers.
“I am a big fan of the show, which is a Welsh-based comedy with the sort of humour I enjoy. He is a snooker fan, and we were in contact on text and twitter having exchanged numbers a while back.
“We had planned to go out and have a few beers a while back but Covid put paid to a lot of those type of things on meeting up.
“The first series was a couple of years ago, but he filmed the second and third series together – and this was from the third series.
“You never know there might be more down the track. It’s about a family…they are not exactly on the rob, but do a few dodgy things. He’s on a mobility scooter to claiming benefits but there’s nothing wrong with him.
“Just a pretty normal Welsh family! But he’s lovable, nothing nasty or malicious. I suppose it’s a sort of Welsh ‘Only Fools and Horses’.
“Steve has been in Extras and After Life, and has worked a lot with Ricky Gervais.
“I didn’t have to do too much acting, what went out on screen was pretty much my normal self -I think that’s why he wanted me to do it.
“He did say that maybe we should try and do something else, maybe more scenes and something with a few more words – so let’s see.
“I’d do it for Steve, he’s a good laugh. While we were filming it we were pissing ourselves. And he needed more takes than me. I was ‘one-take Willo’, though we had to do it from loads of angles.
“I don’t think the likes of Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen have got much to worry about though. It’s not time to give up the day job.”
After seeing the clip Australian former world champion Neil Robertson was sufficiently inspired to push himself forward for a clearly long dreamed-of role in a Viking drama.
He said: “Yeah, I saw it [laughing], but I don’t think he was acting. He was just being him! It would be good to see him doing something else, with maybe a few more lines.
“There haven’t been too many snooker players that have done that. I’d like to be in a Vikings kind of movie – hit the gym for six months, and be like someone rampaging around with a massive spear.
“That would be really cool. I’m into my Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, all that fantasy stuff so to do something like that, I would be well up for – that would be awesome.”
But four-time world champion Mark Selby’s critical review was less glowing.
He said: “I saw the clip of Mark doing his acting bit, it was on Twitter. It was quite funny…typical Mark Williams really, you could sort of predict what he was going to be like in an episode.
“And that is exactly what it was. I’m not sure about him getting a BAFTA…a Bifta, maybe.”
