Local writer The Townsman – Alan Dawson, the man behind the #madeinmansfield poetry project featured in the News Journal earlier this year, has started a new series of articles focusing on inspirational townspeople. His first subject is professional actor/ stuntman Craig Canning.

Craig Canning was born in King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton, in 1993 and continued to live in Mansfield until he left to pursue his career in London.

Notwithstanding that coal production under British Coal had all but ended in North Nottinghamshire by the mid-1990s, the area continued to be renowned for its industrial endeavour and private mining companies tapped into the rich coal seams left underground at selective collieries in the area – utilising an effective workforce to their advantage.

Such had been the efforts of Nottinghamshire miners, many local collieries would regularly mine a million tons of coal through determination and graft – and this was the hardworking working-class background that Craig was born into. From a young age he understood that to succeed in life he would have to work hard like his forerunners had done whilst they had grafted at the coalface.

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Craig Canning

Craig aspired to be an actor, despite being aware of the difficult challenges that such a fickle career could present; especially for someone coming from a former mining area such as Mansfield, where the arts are not the most salient of its characteristics.

He studied Performing Arts at Vision West Nottinghamshire College in 2011 and during this time realised that to be successful as an actor he would have to offer Value Added to stand out from others. Through research, Craig discovered that stuntmen generally get more opportunities than actors. Further to this, he comprehended that in continuing to develop his acting skills he would be able to explore even more opportunities as a stuntman/actor.

He determined at this point that he would have to get his name on the British stunt register, contending with the punishing skillsets that this required – his martial arts training, athleticism and free-running skills helped him to achieve his hard-earned goal.

Gaining the well-sought-after qualification allowed Craig to perform stunts featured in movies such as Meet the Guvnors (2014), a British crime film directed by Gabe Turner.

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As well as arduously preparing for the stunt register, Craig also attended the Performing Arts course at Vision West Notts. Further to this he worked at Tesco, stacking shelves on a night shift to make sure he was available for auditions during the day – often catching a 2am coach into London for a 6am start.

Unrelentless as he is, he even added to his commitments by accepting the part of Spider-man with Absolutely Amazing Parties. (2016) He literally threw himself into the Spidey character and gained great acclaim from parents and young people for his acrobatic jumps and flips as well as engaging even the most reluctant of audiences with his humour. It was an experience that he enjoyed and unsurprisingly he found it more rewarding than stacking shelves at Tesco.

Without a doubt, Craig is serious and focused on his work, but he is far from serious about himself – when I first met Craig, he showed both sides of his persona – much to my despair at the time!

I was working in collaboration with Chris Neil, education manager at Mansfield Palace Theatre, and students from Vision West Notts. We were adapting my play, Marshmallow Sky, into a shorter conference piece to be performed at Dawn House School Pupil Participation Conference (2013).

The students who Chris and I were working with were well-focused on the task at hand. They were a talented bunch but a tad serious – but that was all soon to change when one of their number had to drop out a few days before the performance and Craig was asked to step in at short notice. Chris phoned me and I trusted his judgement in selecting a replacement actor.

The evening before the conference, Chris brought the actors along to the school for a final rehearsal – along with Craig who I had not met before. As I went to greet them as they arrived at the school reception, the whole dynamics of the group had altered. They were, for want of better words, Messing About; a larger than life ginger curly-headed lad was amid it all.

My anxiety hit the roof. I thought my reputation would be in tatters – but I had never been so wrong. As soon as the group started warming up for the rehearsal, Craig immediately showed the focus and engagement that would serve him well as he journeys through his career.

The next day the students produced two brilliant performances and the audience loved it all, much due to the professionalism and talent of Craig who had absorbed the script in a short time – in which was a complex ensemble piece.

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I met Craig for the second time in London as we both waited for a coach to take us to Mansfield. He had been down to the capital for an audition that, in his words, was a long-shot, and he was now on his way back home after a long and exhausting day.

I am impressed by Craig’s professionalism and he has natural talent as an actor. He was in the main cast of Legacy of Thorn (2016), a feature film with worldwide distribution, and he is not afraid to push himself to the limit to further his career or life opportunities.

I personally despair of actors who constantly complain that they are not getting the better opportunities or no work at all. Surely no-one goes into acting without realising how hard you must work to gain even the smallest of footholds in an extremely competitive career.

I hold Craig Canning up to be an inspiration for young people looking towards acting as a career… or any career for that matter. His endeavour and graft, instilled in him from the early days living in the former coal mining community of Mansfield, has stood him in good stead for the furtherance his career.

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I interviewed Craig on Zoom in the winter of 2020, which was more of a catch-up during lockdown. At the time he was holed up in a hotel room in London in preparation for a role – for which he could not tell me any details. Talking to Craig is a positive experience; humour and a ready smile are never far away. He has humility and a positive philosophy necessary for an actor/ stuntman striving to be successful. Negativity is not part of his DNA.

Notwithstanding he prefers to push forward with his career with people he likes, he is also prepared to knuckle down as necessary with people who he finds less amenable. I asked him what advice he would give to young people aspiring to be actors:

Do as much as you can – you can’t sit back…. Put yourself out there and work hard.

                                                                                        Craig Canning

Before the interview, Craig has had eight Covid-19 tests to enable him to carry on working – although for most actors like Craig, work had all but dried up at the time. Craig, who is a confessed workaholic, has filled his time positively, working on his own projects, collaborating and networking, and has even taking to filming his own ideas/projects.

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Craig is known for performing stunts for movies such as: Pennyworth, (2020), 1917 (2019). He played Matthew in an episode of the acclaimed TV series Gangs of London (2020) and was known as Ging in an episode of Meet the Guvnors (2014). His filmography is impressive and stretches back more than 10 years to include involvement in: Slasher 2, DCI Banks (TV series), Farming (2018), and IP Man 4: The Finale (2019). Latterly he has been involved with Bridgerton (2020) and The Spanish Princess (2019-20)

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Craig is now established in London – I suppose it saves getting up at 2am for a 6am slot! But he continues to have strong connections with Mansfield. He has close bonds with family and friends in the area and has no intention of living in the South forever.

It is good to see individuals from Mansfield doing well and Craig is a good example of what can be achieved with hard work, resolve and talent. He is an inspiration for the area, and I wish him the best of luck for the rest of his career.