First Love – Stephen Mangan

If you attended the 2011 Cambridge Folk Festival you may have spotted actor Stephen Mangan taking to the stage with folk legend Richard Thompson.

His appearance is part of a Sky Arts programme called First Love where famous faces from music, television and politics rekindle their relationship with their first passion in life. In the second episode ofthe series Stephen Mangan, famous for his role in The Green Wing, makes an emotional return to Cambridge, the city where he was a student – to rediscover his musical “first love”. The guitar-playing star  considered becoming a professional musician before making it big on TV. He started playing acoustic guitar as an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius College, but abandoned it when his acting career took off.

As he approaches 40, Stephen is getting his guitar out of storage to reclaim part of his old self.  Under the eye of award winning guitarist Martin Simpson, Stephen retrains to play Sandy Denny’s iconic “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” alongside his guitar hero, Grammy nominated Richard Thompson, in front of a sold out Cambridge Folk Festival.  But as the song starts to take on a very personal meaning, Stephen realises he and his old self are two very different people.

The show is on Sky Arts 1 HD at 8pm on Tuesday 31 January. View a clip of the show here.