One of Alan Coren"s favourite academic stories was one of mine too. It concerns a don, often identified as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, that great moustachioed Edwardian doyen of letters, author of children"s adventure stories and responsible as "Q" for the great edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford Book of English Verse. Apparently he was welcoming a new Fellow to the Senior Combination Room at Jesus, the Cambridge College where he roosted for the last thirty years of his life. Apparently he was welcoming a new Fellow to the Senior Combination Room at Jesus, the Cambridge College where he roosted for the last thirty years of his life.
"We"re delighted to have you here," he said, putting an arm round the young man"s shoulder, "but a word of advice. Don"t try to be clever. We"re all clever here. Only try to be kind, a little kind."
Like most university stories, this one is variously attributed and it probably never even happened but, as the Italians say, se non e vero, e ben trovato se non e vero, e ben trovato even if it isn"t true, it"s well founded. even if it isn"t true, it"s well founded.
I wrote a weekly Listener Listener column for another year. The column for another year. The Tatler Tatler smelling duties lasted only a few months before Boxer and I parted by mutual consent: the puns were threatening my sanity. I continued meanwhile to tap away at the keyboard for other publications as often as I was asked to. I seemed to be in almost limitless demand and, so long as I didn"t have to breach my peculiar rules on reviewing, all was well. smelling duties lasted only a few months before Boxer and I parted by mutual consent: the puns were threatening my sanity. I continued meanwhile to tap away at the keyboard for other publications as often as I was asked to. I seemed to be in almost limitless demand and, so long as I didn"t have to breach my peculiar rules on reviewing, all was well.
Confirmed Celibate How did it all begin? Why did editors fasten upon me in the first place? What motivated Mark Boxer to be in touch? Why did Russell Twisk make an approach? Well, it is possible that I owed my journalistic career, such as it was, to a man called Jonathan Meades. If you watch good television you will know who I mean. He wears charcoal suits and sungla.s.ses and talks about architecture, food and culture high and low as brilliantly as any man alive. For many years he was The Times The Times"s restaurant critic, and there are many who might think that, pace pace Giles Coren and his generation, he has never been surpa.s.sed in that field. In the mid-eighties he had some kind of position on the Giles Coren and his generation, he has never been surpa.s.sed in that field. In the mid-eighties he had some kind of position on the Tatler Tatler, "features editor" is I think the proper description. He got hold of my telephone number somehow, perhaps from Don Boyd, who knew everybody.
"Forgive me for calling out of the blue," he said. "My name is Jonathan Meades and I work for the Tatler Tatler magazine. I got your number perhaps from Don Boyd, who knows everybody." magazine. I got your number perhaps from Don Boyd, who knows everybody."
"h.e.l.lo. How can I help?"
"I am putting together an article in which people write about something they don"t don"t do. Gavin Stamp, for example, is telling us why he doesn"t drive, and Brian Sewell is giving us a piece about never going on holiday. I wondered if you might be able to weigh in?" do. Gavin Stamp, for example, is telling us why he doesn"t drive, and Brian Sewell is giving us a piece about never going on holiday. I wondered if you might be able to weigh in?"
"Gosh! Er ..."
"So. Is there anything you don"t do?"
"Hm," I scrabbled frantically around in the recesses of my mind. "I"m afraid I can"t really think of anything. Well I don"t strangle kittens or rape nuns, but I"m a.s.suming this is about things we ..."
"... about things we don"t do which most of humanity does, exactly. Nothing?"
"Oh!" A thought suddenly struck me. "I don"t do s.e.x s.e.x. Would that count, do you think?"
A pause followed that made me wonder if the line had gone dead.
"h.e.l.lo? ... Jonathan?"
"Four hundred words by Friday afternoon. Can"t offer more than two hundred pounds. Deal?"
I cannot entirely understand, to this day, why I withheld my body from s.e.xual congress with another for as long as I did. Kim and I had been partners in a complete and proper sense at Cambridge and for a month or so afterwards. Since then I had become less and less interested in s.e.x while Kim had pursued a more conventional and fulfilled erotic career and had by now found himself a new partner, a handsome Greek-American called Steve. Kim and I still adored each other and still shared the Chelsea flat. He had Steve and I had ... I had my work.
If I have a theory to explain the celibacy that began in 1982 and was not to end until 1996 it is that during that period work took the place of everything else in my life. Whatever effect multiple school expulsions, social and academic failures and the final degradation of imprisonment may have had on me, I think it true that my last-gasp escape into Cambridge and the discovery that there was work I could do and be valued for doing galvanized me into an orgy of concentrated labour from which I could not and would not be diverted, not even by the prospect of s.e.xual or romantic fulfilment. Perhaps career, concentration, commitment and creation had become my new drugs of choice. I have a theory to explain the celibacy that began in 1982 and was not to end until 1996 it is that during that period work took the place of everything else in my life. Whatever effect multiple school expulsions, social and academic failures and the final degradation of imprisonment may have had on me, I think it true that my last-gasp escape into Cambridge and the discovery that there was work I could do and be valued for doing galvanized me into an orgy of concentrated labour from which I could not and would not be diverted, not even by the prospect of s.e.xual or romantic fulfilment. Perhaps career, concentration, commitment and creation had become my new drugs of choice.
Work can be an addiction like any other. Love of it can be a home-wrecker, an obsession that bores, upsets, insults and worries those close to you. We all know that drugs, alcohol and tobacco are Bad, but work, we are brought up to believe, is Good. As a result the world is full of families who are angry at being abandoned and breadwinners who are even more angry because their hours of labour are not sufficiently appreciated. "I do it for you!" they cry. While it may be true that work puts meat on the table, everyone around them knows that hard workers do it for themselves. Most children of workaholics would rather see less money and more of their parent.
Within a year of leaving Cambridge, friends and family were already referring to my apparent inability to use the word "no". I soon began to hear myself described as a workaholic. Kim preferred the word "ergomaniac" partly because he was a cla.s.sical scholar and partly I suspect because the "maniac" part better expressed the absurd frenzy with which I was starting to throw myself into every offer that came my way. To this day I am often reminded by those about me that I don"t have to say yes to everything and that there are such things as holidays. I don"t believe them, of course, no matter how many times they a.s.sure me it is true.
The question that most troublingly refuses to go away is whether my productivity, ubiquity and well ... career harlotry ... have stopped me from realizing what, in the world of fathers, teachers and grown-ups in general, might be called My Full Potential. Hugh and Emma, to name the two most obvious of my contemporaries, have never been as recklessly carefree, prodigal and improvident with their talents as I have. I want to say that they have always had reason to believe in their talents more than I have in mine. But then I also want to say that I have had more fun than they have and that: For when the One Great Scorer comes To write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, But how you played the Game.
Which is all very well, but while I may want to say all kinds of things, I am not sure that they would necessarily be true. I will not go so far as to claim that, when falling asleep every night, I mourn lost opportunities. "Every night" would be an exaggeration. There is a vision that comes to me often though.
I picture myself at the surface of an ocean: the course of my life is played out as a descent to the sea bed. As I drop down I clutch at and try to reach blurred but alluring images representing the vocation of writer, actor, comedian, film director, politician or academic, but they all writhe and ripple flirtatiously out of reach, or rather it would be truer to say that I am afraid to leap forward and hug one of them to me. By being afraid to commit to one I commit to none and arrive at the bottom empty and unfulfilled. This is a self-aggrandizing, pitiful and absurd fantasy of regret, I know, but it is a frequent one. I close whatever book I have been reading in bed, and that same film plays out again and again in my mind before I sleep. I know that I have a reputation for cleverness and articulacy, but I also know that people must wonder why I haven"t quite done better with my life and talents. A jack of so many trades and manifestly a master of none. In my perkier moods I am entirely pleased with this outcome, for I refuse to stand on a carpet in a headmaster"s study and endure wise shakings of the head and heavy school-report p.r.o.nouncements about my shortcomings. Such att.i.tudes are grotesque, impudent and irrelevant. "Could do better" is a meaningless conclusion. "Could be happier" is the only one that counts. I have had five times the opportunities and experiences accorded to most, and if the result is a disappointment to posterity, well prosperity can eat it. In less perky moods, of course, I entirely concur with the judgements of the head-shakers and school-report p.r.o.nouncers. What a waste. What a fatuous, selfish, air-headed, indolent and insulting waste my life has been.
While it is not exactly counterintuitive it may perhaps be less than immediately obvious to point out that it is a great deal more conceited of me to bemoan my life as a waste than for me to be more or less satisfied at the way it has turned out. Any regret at my lack of achievement suggests that I really believe that I had in me the ability, should I have concentrated on any one thing, to have written a great great novel or to have been a novel or to have been a great great actor, director, playwright, poet or statesman or whatever else I might delude myself I had the potential for. Whether or not I have the ability to be any of those things, I do know that I lack the ambition, concentration, focus and above all actor, director, playwright, poet or statesman or whatever else I might delude myself I had the potential for. Whether or not I have the ability to be any of those things, I do know that I lack the ambition, concentration, focus and above all will will without which such talents are as useless as an engine without fuel. Which is not to say that I am lazy or unambitious in the short term. You might say I am good at tactics but hopeless at strategy, happy to slog away at whatever is in front of me but unable to take a long view, plan ahead or imagine the future. A good golfer, they say, has to picture his swing before he addresses the ball in order to drive. My whole life has been an adventure in hit and hope. without which such talents are as useless as an engine without fuel. Which is not to say that I am lazy or unambitious in the short term. You might say I am good at tactics but hopeless at strategy, happy to slog away at whatever is in front of me but unable to take a long view, plan ahead or imagine the future. A good golfer, they say, has to picture his swing before he addresses the ball in order to drive. My whole life has been an adventure in hit and hope.
But s.e.x. Yes, we have to return, I fear, to s.e.x. We were discussing that commission for the Tatler. Tatler. I wrote the article for Jonathan Meades, outlining my distaste for being cursed by nature with an urgent instinct to rummage about in the "damp, dark, foul-smelling and revoltingly tufted areas of the human body that const.i.tute the main dishes in the banquet of love" and my sense that the whole business was humiliating, disgusting and irksome. I suggested that a life without s.e.x and without the presence of a partner offered numerous benefits. The celibate life allowed productivity, independence and ease free from the pressures of placating and accommodating the will and desires of another: released from the degrading imperatives of erotic congress, a new and better kind of life could be lived. s.e.x was an overrated bore. "Besides," I confessed as I ended the article, "I"m scared that I may not be very good at it." I wrote the article for Jonathan Meades, outlining my distaste for being cursed by nature with an urgent instinct to rummage about in the "damp, dark, foul-smelling and revoltingly tufted areas of the human body that const.i.tute the main dishes in the banquet of love" and my sense that the whole business was humiliating, disgusting and irksome. I suggested that a life without s.e.x and without the presence of a partner offered numerous benefits. The celibate life allowed productivity, independence and ease free from the pressures of placating and accommodating the will and desires of another: released from the degrading imperatives of erotic congress, a new and better kind of life could be lived. s.e.x was an overrated bore. "Besides," I confessed as I ended the article, "I"m scared that I may not be very good at it."
The piece was quoted and reproduced in whole or in part in several newspapers, and for the next twelve years it was rare for this particular C-word not to be attached to me much as macrobiotic is attached to Gwyneth Paltrow and tantric to Sting. I joined Cliff Richard and Morrissey as one of celibacy"s peculiar poster children. Profilers, chat show hosts and interviewers in the years to come would regularly ask if I was still keeping it up, ho-ho, whether I would recommend s.e.xual abstinence as a way of life and how I coped with the loneliness of the single state. I had created a rod for my own back with this article but have never regretted writing it. It was, more or less, inasmuch as these things ever are, true. I did did find the business of eros a nuisance and an embarra.s.sment. I find the business of eros a nuisance and an embarra.s.sment. I did did enjoy the independence and freedom afforded me by being unattached and I enjoy the independence and freedom afforded me by being unattached and I was was afraid that I might not be very good at s.e.x. Am I going to deny my terror of rejection, or my low sense of my own physical worth? afraid that I might not be very good at s.e.x. Am I going to deny my terror of rejection, or my low sense of my own physical worth?
With the pa.s.sing of each year the odds against me ever forging a full relationship lengthened as I felt myself less and less practised in the arts of love and less and less confident about how I would ever go about finding a partner, even supposing that I wanted one. There was just so much to do do. I was rehearsing in London prior to going down to Chichester to start Forty Years On Forty Years On, I was working on Me and My Girl Me and My Girl, chugging out journalism and taking enthusiastic steps in another medium: radio.
The Tatler celibacy article. Photo Tim Platt/ celibacy article. Photo Tim Platt/Tatler Conde Naste Publications Ltd. Words Stephen Fry/ Conde Naste Publications Ltd. Words Stephen Fry/Tatler Conde Naste Publications Ltd. Conde Naste Publications Ltd.
Characters and the Corporation Ever since I can remember I have loved radio, especially the kind of talk radio that only the BBC Home Service, later Radio 4, provides. Throughout my insomniac youth I listened through the day right up to the national anthem, when I would retune to the BBC World Service. "England made me," Anthony Farrant says to himself in the Graham Greene novel of that t.i.tle. England made me too, but it was an England broadcast on 1500 metres Long Wave.
I wrote this as the opening of an article on the World Service for Arena Arena magazine. magazine.
BBC World Service. The News, read by Roger Collinge ... The warm brown tones trickle out of Bush House like honey from a jar: rich and resonant on the Long and Medium Waves for domestic listeners or bright and sibilant on the Short Wave for a hundred million Anglophone citizens of the world for whose benefit the precious signal is bounced off the atmosphere from relay station to relay station, through ionospheric storms and the rude jostling traffic of a hundred thousand intrusive foreign transmissions, to arrive fresh and crackling on the veranda table. Oh, to be in England, now that England"s gone. This World Service, this little Bakelite gateway into the world of Sidney Box, Charters and Caldicott, Mazawattee tea, Kennedy"s Latin Primer and dark, glistening streets. An England that never was, conjured into the air by nothing more than accents, March tunes and a meiotic, self-deprecating style that in its dishonesty is bra.s.sier and brasher than Disneyland. A Mary Poppins service, glamorous in its drab severity, merry in its stern routine and inexhaustible resource: a twinkling authoritarian that fulfils our deepest fantasy by simply staying, even though the wind changed long ago. Ooh, I love it ...
I"m sure I knew what I meant at the time by the World Service"s "dishonesty", but the truth is I still adored and valued radio above television. Radio 4"s mix of comedy, news, doc.u.mentary, drama, magazine, panel game and quirky discussion is unique and was central to the fashioning of my outlook and manner. I grew up to the sound of warmly a.s.sured and calmly authoritative BBC voices vibrating the fabric speaker covers of valve wireless sets manufactured by Bush, Ferguson, Roberts and Pye. One of my first-ever memories is sitting under my mother"s chair in our house in Chesham while she tapped away on her typewriter with characters from The The Archers Archers arguing about dairy cattle in the background. arguing about dairy cattle in the background. My Music My Music, My Word! My Word!, A Word in Edgeways A Word in Edgeways, Stop the Week Stop the Week, Start the Week Start the Week, Any Answers Any Answers, Any Questions Any Questions, Twenty Questions Twenty Questions, Many a Slip Many a Slip, Does the Team Think? Does the Team Think?, Brain of Britain Brain of Britain, From Our Own Correspondent From Our Own Correspondent, The Petticoat Line The Petticoat Line, File on Four File on Four, Down Your Way Down Your Way, The World at One, Today The World at One, Today, PM PM, You and Yours You and Yours, Woman"s Hour Woman"s Hour, Letter from America Letter from America, Jack de Manio Precisely Jack de Manio Precisely, The Men from the Ministry The Men from the Ministry, Gardener"s Question Time Gardener"s Question Time, The Burkiss Way The Burkiss Way, The Jason Explanation The Jason Explanation, Round Britain Quiz Round Britain Quiz, Just a Minute Just a Minute, I"m Sorry I Haven"t a Clue I"m Sorry I Haven"t a Clue, Desert Island Discs Desert Island Discs and a hundred other dramas, comedies, quizzes and features have amused, amazed, enriched, enraged, informed and inflamed me from the earliest age. My voice, I think, owes more to the BBC microphone and the dusty, slow-to-warm-up Mullard valve than to the accents and tones of my family, friends and school fellows. Just as there are the lazily sucked bones of Wodehouse, Wilde and Waugh in my writing style, if style is the right word for it, so the intonations of John Ebden, Robert Robinson, Franklin "Jingle" Engelmann, Richard "Stinker" Murdoch, Derek Guyler, Margaret Howard, David Jacobs, Kenneth Robinson, Richard Baker, Anthony Quinton, John Julius Norwich, Alistair Cooke, David Jason, Brian Johnston, John Timpson, Jack de Manio, Steve Race, Frank Muir, Dennis Norden, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo, Peter Jones, Nelson Gabriel, Derek Cooper, Clive Jacobs, Martin Muncaster and Brian Perkins have penetrated my brain and being to the extent that much as heavy-metal pollutants get into the hair and skin and nails and tissue they have become a physical as well as an emotional and intellectual part of me. We are all the sum of countless influences. I like to believe that Shakespeare, Keats, d.i.c.kens, Austen, Joyce, Eliot, Auden and the great and n.o.ble grandees of literature have had their effect on me, but the truth is they were distant uncles and aunts, good for a fiver at Christmas and a book token on birthdays, while Radio 4 and the BBC World Service were my mother and father, a daily presence and constant example. and a hundred other dramas, comedies, quizzes and features have amused, amazed, enriched, enraged, informed and inflamed me from the earliest age. My voice, I think, owes more to the BBC microphone and the dusty, slow-to-warm-up Mullard valve than to the accents and tones of my family, friends and school fellows. Just as there are the lazily sucked bones of Wodehouse, Wilde and Waugh in my writing style, if style is the right word for it, so the intonations of John Ebden, Robert Robinson, Franklin "Jingle" Engelmann, Richard "Stinker" Murdoch, Derek Guyler, Margaret Howard, David Jacobs, Kenneth Robinson, Richard Baker, Anthony Quinton, John Julius Norwich, Alistair Cooke, David Jason, Brian Johnston, John Timpson, Jack de Manio, Steve Race, Frank Muir, Dennis Norden, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo, Peter Jones, Nelson Gabriel, Derek Cooper, Clive Jacobs, Martin Muncaster and Brian Perkins have penetrated my brain and being to the extent that much as heavy-metal pollutants get into the hair and skin and nails and tissue they have become a physical as well as an emotional and intellectual part of me. We are all the sum of countless influences. I like to believe that Shakespeare, Keats, d.i.c.kens, Austen, Joyce, Eliot, Auden and the great and n.o.ble grandees of literature have had their effect on me, but the truth is they were distant uncles and aunts, good for a fiver at Christmas and a book token on birthdays, while Radio 4 and the BBC World Service were my mother and father, a daily presence and constant example.
I believed from the earliest age that I would be quite content to work in radio all my life. If I could just be a continuity announcer or regular broadcaster of some kind, how happy I would be. My dislike of my facial features and physical form contributed to this ambition. I had, as the tired old joke goes, a good face for radio. Announcers and broadcasters have no need of make-up or costume. For one who believed that any attempt at prettification on my part would only draw attention to my cursed deficiencies, a life in front of the microphone seemed like the perfect career. How much more realistic for me a national radio station than irrational venustation.
My first visits to Broadcasting House, the home of BBC Radio in Portland Place, had been as early as 1982, when I played a fictional news reporter for a Radio 1 programme called, I think think, B15 B15. The bas.e.m.e.nt studios in Broadcasting House were all Bx, and I honestly cannot remember the value of the x x which gave this programme its name. In its short run which gave this programme its name. In its short run B14 B14 or or B12 B12 or whatever it may have called itself was presented by David "Kid" Jensen, an amiable Canadian disc jockey best known, according to a friend of mine who is very keen on this kind of thing, for being the least objectionable presenter of or whatever it may have called itself was presented by David "Kid" Jensen, an amiable Canadian disc jockey best known, according to a friend of mine who is very keen on this kind of thing, for being the least objectionable presenter of Top of the Pops Top of the Pops in all its long history. My character on in all its long history. My character on Bwhatever Bwhatever, Bevis Marchant, had his own little slot called Beatnews Beatnews, a rather obvious parody of Radio 1"s ludicrously urgent, trivial and self-important Newsbeat Newsbeat. Within two weeks of me contributing to this programme Margaret Thatcher had dispatched a task force to recapture the Falkland Islands, and a week later I was taken off the air. My parody of Brian Hanrahan and others was deemed insensitive. I shouted over an electric egg beater in a bucket to recreate the sound of reporting live from a helicopter. I was in fact mocking the grandiose, faux-butch reporting style, not making light of the danger that the military were in, but that has always been too complicated a distinction for stupid people to understand. There was a war on, I was trying to be funny, therefore I had contempt for the sacrifice and bravery of the troops. My levity was tantamount to treason and must be stopped. I think I am angrier about that now than I ever was at the time. Pomposity and indignation grow in old age, like nostril hairs and earlobes.
Not long after Beatnews Beatnews a BBC producer called Ian Gardhouse was in touch with me about contributing to a Radio 4 programme of his called a BBC producer called Ian Gardhouse was in touch with me about contributing to a Radio 4 programme of his called Late Night Sherrin Late Night Sherrin. Ned Sherrin was a well-known broadcaster who had started life as a television producer, first at Val Parnell"s ATV and then at the BBC. His most famous achievement in that phase of his life had been That Was The Week That Was That Was The Week That Was, usually referred to as TW3 TW3, the live comedy show that had launched the satire boom and David Frost. Since then Nedwin, as I liked to call him, had given the world Up Pompeii! Up Pompeii!, Side by Side by Sondheim Side by Side by Sondheim and a slew of collaborations with Caryl Brahms and others. Trained as a lawyer, he was known for his love of Tin Pan Alley, rich gossip and comely young men. He received his education at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read law, but before that he had been a boy at the most excellently named educational establishment in the history of the world s.e.xey"s School in Somerset. and a slew of collaborations with Caryl Brahms and others. Trained as a lawyer, he was known for his love of Tin Pan Alley, rich gossip and comely young men. He received his education at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read law, but before that he had been a boy at the most excellently named educational establishment in the history of the world s.e.xey"s School in Somerset.
I took to Ned straight away. He was like a stern aunt who twinkled and giggled after a little too much gin. The idea behind Late Night Sherrin Late Night Sherrin was to have a hero or heroine guest of the week who would be twitted and teased by Ned and an a.s.sortment of young witty types of which I was to be one. Ned called us his "young turks". was to have a hero or heroine guest of the week who would be twitted and teased by Ned and an a.s.sortment of young witty types of which I was to be one. Ned called us his "young turks". Late Night Sherrin Late Night Sherrin morphed, for reasons neither I nor Ian Gardhouse can remember, into morphed, for reasons neither I nor Ian Gardhouse can remember, into And So to Ned And So to Ned. They were both live, late-night shows. The routine was for us all to meet for supper high up in the St George"s Hotel just by Broadcasting House. The motive behind this, according to Ian, was so that he and Ned could keep an eye on the guests of the week and make sure they stayed relatively sober, a stratagem that failed riotously in the cases of Daniel Farson and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
After And So to Ned And So to Ned"s short life came Extra Dry Sherrin Extra Dry Sherrin, whose format I cannot remember as being any different from the others: possibly it had live music or no live music or three guests instead of two. Extra Dry Sherrin Extra Dry Sherrin lasted one series before Ian welcomed me into a new Sherrin-free, live 100-minute programme called lasted one series before Ian welcomed me into a new Sherrin-free, live 100-minute programme called The Colour Supplement The Colour Supplement as the name suggests this was a Sunday "magazine" show comprising a variety of features, one of which would be a section I could create and shape for myself in any way I chose. Each week I performed a kind of monologue as a different character: an estate agent, an architect, a journalist I cannot remember the whole gallery. Their surnames usually came from Norfolk villages, so I do recall a Simon Mulbarton, a Sandy Crimplesham and a Gerald Clenchwarton. as the name suggests this was a Sunday "magazine" show comprising a variety of features, one of which would be a section I could create and shape for myself in any way I chose. Each week I performed a kind of monologue as a different character: an estate agent, an architect, a journalist I cannot remember the whole gallery. Their surnames usually came from Norfolk villages, so I do recall a Simon Mulbarton, a Sandy Crimplesham and a Gerald Clenchwarton.
It was unfortunate that the pay packets offered proved that the rest of the world held radio in no real esteem. I had grown up hearing Kenneth Williams and others bemoaning in quavering comic tones the insultingly nugatory fees they had been offered for their services and I soon found out that, compared to her brash younger brother, Television, Dame Wireless did indeed live the most frugal and threadbare existence. This never worried me: I would have done it for free, but it was sometimes hard to persuade Richard Armitage that hours composing broadcast monologues, taking parts in comedies and dramas and guesting on panel games were not a waste of time or beneath as he seemed to think my dignity. Radio is the poor relation of television insofar as monetary considerations go, but a rich one where it matters in terms of depth and intimacy.
The writer Tony Sarchet and producer Paul Mayhew-Archer asked me to play an earnest investigative reporter called David Lander in Delve Special Delve Special, a new comedy series they were creating. It was essentially a parody of Checkpoint Checkpoint, the very popular Radio 4 programme which featured doughty New Zealander Roger Cook inquiring into a different con, scam or swindle each week. The first part of the programme would catalogue the miseries of the unfortunates who had been exploited and ripped off: they might have had their house destroyed by expensive but incompetent pebble-dashing, been duped into buying a non-existent time-share villa, invested their savings in a there were any number of ways that innocent lambs could be fleeced by rascally villains, the door-stepping confrontations with whom formed the second and most compulsively enjoyable part of the programme. Cook was famous for getting chi-iked, insulted, jostled, roughed up and even seriously a.s.saulted by the angry subjects of his exposes. Delve Special Delve Special barely had to exaggerate the stories that barely had to exaggerate the stories that Checkpoint Checkpoint and its successor, John Waite"s and its successor, John Waite"s Face the Facts Face the Facts, already provided. Over the next three years we made four series and then, when Roger Cook jumped to television, we jumped with him, being screened for a run of six programmes on Channel 4 as This Is David Lander This Is David Lander, for which I wore a quite monstrous blond wig. When my workload was simply too heavy to allow me to do a second series, Tony Slattery stepped in, and the show was ret.i.tled This Is David Harper This Is David Harper.
David Lander, earnest investigative reporter in a badly behaved blond wig.
One of the pleasures of making Delve Delve for radio, aside from not having to wear a wig or care how I looked at all, was working with the guest performers who came along to play the victims and perpetrators. Brenda Blethyn, Harry Enfield, Dawn French, Andrew Sachs, Felicity Montagu, Jack Klaff, Janine Duvitski and many others came into the studio and gave of their brilliant best. Actually, "into the studio" is not quite accurate. In order to achieve aural verisimilitude Paul Mayhew-Archer would often place us in the street, on the roof of Broadcasting House, in broom cupboards, catering areas, offices, corridors and hallways so that he and his engineer could capture the authentic tone and atmosphere of the scene. Location radio drama is not common, and the "Sir, sir! It"s a lovely day, can we have our lessons outside?" sort of mood that it engendered made the recordings about as larky as such sessions can ever be. for radio, aside from not having to wear a wig or care how I looked at all, was working with the guest performers who came along to play the victims and perpetrators. Brenda Blethyn, Harry Enfield, Dawn French, Andrew Sachs, Felicity Montagu, Jack Klaff, Janine Duvitski and many others came into the studio and gave of their brilliant best. Actually, "into the studio" is not quite accurate. In order to achieve aural verisimilitude Paul Mayhew-Archer would often place us in the street, on the roof of Broadcasting House, in broom cupboards, catering areas, offices, corridors and hallways so that he and his engineer could capture the authentic tone and atmosphere of the scene. Location radio drama is not common, and the "Sir, sir! It"s a lovely day, can we have our lessons outside?" sort of mood that it engendered made the recordings about as larky as such sessions can ever be.
Meanwhile, still with radio, The Colour Supplement The Colour Supplement soon folded. Ian invited me to partic.i.p.ate in yet another piece of Sherrinry, this time a live Sat.u.r.day-morning show called soon folded. Ian invited me to partic.i.p.ate in yet another piece of Sherrinry, this time a live Sat.u.r.day-morning show called Loose Ends Loose Ends, or "Loose Neds" as the regular contributors preferred to call it. Over the years these included Victoria Mather, Carol Thatcher, Emma Freud, Graham Norton, Arthur Smith, Brian Sewell, Robert Elms and Victor Lewis-Smith. The format was always the same. Around the table, whose top was laid with green baize cloth, sat the regular contributors and a couple of guest authors, actors or musicians who had some new release to plug. Ned would open with a monologue in which the week"s news was jokily reviewed. He was always very good at crediting the monologue"s author; in the early years this was usually Neil Shand or Alistair Beaton, his collaborator on a pair of satirical Gilbert and Sullivan adaptations, The Ratepayer"s Iolanthe The Ratepayer"s Iolanthe and and The Metropolitan Mikado The Metropolitan Mikado, romping satires on the Ken LivingstoneMargaret Thatcher face-off which played to great applause in the mid-eighties. After the monologue, Ned introduced some feature which would have been pre-recorded by a regular contributor.
"Carol, I believe you went off to investigate this phenomenon?"
"Well, Ned ..." Carol would say and give a little preamble to her recorded pa.s.sage.
"Emma, you braved the dawn on Beachy Head to get a first-hand view, is that right?"
"Well, Ned ..."
I christened Emma, Carol and Victoria the WellNeds, and they stayed with the programme for as long as anyone.
For my first few contributions to Loose Ends Loose Ends I presented a range of characters much as I had on I presented a range of characters much as I had on The Colour Supplement The Colour Supplement. One week there was a news story about an academic who had been made to watch hours and hours of television in order to compile a report on whether or not the programming was injurious to the British public, especially its youth. There was much talk in those days about the evils of scenes of violence in cop shows and their deleterious influence on the impressionable minds of the young. For reasons which now seem difficult to reconstruct imaginatively, Starsky and Hutch Starsky and Hutch of all programmes was singled out as a major culprit, a symbol of all that was wrong. "The Nice Mr Gardhouse", as Ned called Ian, suggested that I do a piece as an academic forced to watch television, so I tapped away that Friday afternoon and came in the next day with a piece written in the persona of a Professor Donald Trefusis, extraordinary Fellow of St Matthew"s College, Cambridge, philologist and holder of the Regius Chair of Comparative Linguistics. Trefusis, it turned out, was indeed horrified at the violence of British television. The violence done to his sensibilities and the sensibilities of a young and vulnerable generation by Noel Edmonds and Terry Wogan and others made him shudder and shake. Thank goodness, he concluded, for the jolly car-chases and fight scenes where actors dressed as policemen pretend to shoot each other without innocent merriment of that kind television would be insupportably damaging to the young. of all programmes was singled out as a major culprit, a symbol of all that was wrong. "The Nice Mr Gardhouse", as Ned called Ian, suggested that I do a piece as an academic forced to watch television, so I tapped away that Friday afternoon and came in the next day with a piece written in the persona of a Professor Donald Trefusis, extraordinary Fellow of St Matthew"s College, Cambridge, philologist and holder of the Regius Chair of Comparative Linguistics. Trefusis, it turned out, was indeed horrified at the violence of British television. The violence done to his sensibilities and the sensibilities of a young and vulnerable generation by Noel Edmonds and Terry Wogan and others made him shudder and shake. Thank goodness, he concluded, for the jolly car-chases and fight scenes where actors dressed as policemen pretend to shoot each other without innocent merriment of that kind television would be insupportably damaging to the young.
Heavy steamroller irony, I suppose, but issuing from the querulous mouth of a gabbling tweedy don too old to care whom he might offend, it seemed to work well, well enough at any rate to encourage me to keep the character and try something similar the following week. Soon Trefusis became my sole weekly contributor. A paragraph of introduction would suggest the fiction that I, Stephen Fry, had gone round to his rooms at St Matthew"s to interview him. The Professor started to get a trickle of fan mail. One piece, in which he savagely tore into the fad for Parent Power in education, turned the trickle into a flood of hundreds of letters, most of them asking for a transcript of the talk, or "wireless essay" as he preferred to call them. Trefusis"s age and perceived wisdom and authority allowed me to be ruder and more savagely satirical than I could ever have been in my own vocal persona. The British are like that, especially the middle-cla.s.s Radio 4 audience: a young snappy, angry person annoys them, and they shout at the radio for him to show some respect and get the spiritual and intellectual equivalent of a haircut. But let the same sentiments exactly, word for word, be uttered in high academic tones, as if by a compound of G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and Anthony Quinton, and they will roll on to their tummies and purr.
For the next four or five years I fed Loose Ends Loose Ends on an almost exclusive diet of Trefusis. Just occasionally I might appear in the guise of another character. Ned"s favourite alternative to the Professor was Rosina, Lady Madding, a kind of crazed old Diana Cooper figure. Her voice was a compound of Edith Evans and my prep-school elocution teacher: on an almost exclusive diet of Trefusis. Just occasionally I might appear in the guise of another character. Ned"s favourite alternative to the Professor was Rosina, Lady Madding, a kind of crazed old Diana Cooper figure. Her voice was a compound of Edith Evans and my prep-school elocution teacher: I hope you don"t mind sitting in here, at my age you get rather fond of draughts. I know you young people feel the cold terribly, but I"m afraid I rather like it. That"s right. Yes, it is is nice, isn"t it? Though I wouldn"t really call it a cushion, Pekinese is a more common name for them. No, well never mind, he was very old just throw him on the fire would you? nice, isn"t it? Though I wouldn"t really call it a cushion, Pekinese is a more common name for them. No, well never mind, he was very old just throw him on the fire would you?
Colonel and Mrs Chichester In April 1984 I drove down to Suss.e.x to start my summer of Forty Years On Forty Years On. I"ll run through the cast list.
Paul Eddington had been promoted to the part that he had watched John Geilgud play nearly sixteen years earlier, that of the headmaster. Eddington was, of course, a big star of television situation comedy, well known and loved as Penelope Keith"s hara.s.sed husband in The Good Life The Good Life and more recently as Jim Hacker, the hopeless and hapless Minister for Administrative Affairs in the immensely popular and more recently as Jim Hacker, the hopeless and hapless Minister for Administrative Affairs in the immensely popular Yes, Minister. Yes, Minister. He had been very friendly during the rehearsals in London, but I couldn"t help being slightly in awe of him. I had never worked in daily proximity with someone quite so famous before. He had been very friendly during the rehearsals in London, but I couldn"t help being slightly in awe of him. I had never worked in daily proximity with someone quite so famous before.
John Fortune took the role of Franklin that Paul had played in the original production. John was one of the greats of Cambridge comedy with John Bird, Eleanor Bron and Timothy Birdsall back in the late fifties. He had created with Eleanor Bron the legendary (and wiped) series Where Was Spring? Where Was Spring? His partnership with John Bird was to achieve great prominence again in the late nineties and beyond with their wildly intelligent and prescient satirical contributions to His partnership with John Bird was to achieve great prominence again in the late nineties and beyond with their wildly intelligent and prescient satirical contributions to Bremner, Bird and Fortune Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
Annette Crosby played the school matron. She is now best known as Victor Meldrew"s wife in One Foot in the Grave One Foot in the Grave, but I remembered her as a fiercely glamorous Queen Victoria in Edward VII Edward VII and an almost impossibly perky and delicious Fairy G.o.dmother in the and an almost impossibly perky and delicious Fairy G.o.dmother in the The Slipper and the Rose. The Slipper and the Rose. Doris Hare appeared as the old grandmother. She was seventy-nine and a magisterial trouper of the old school, much loved for her years of playing Reg Varney"s mother in Doris Hare appeared as the old grandmother. She was seventy-nine and a magisterial trouper of the old school, much loved for her years of playing Reg Varney"s mother in On the Buses On the Buses. A fine young actor called Stephen Rashbrook took the part of the head prefect, while the rest of the school were played by local West Suss.e.x boys.
From Forty Years On Forty Years On, Chichester, 1984. Self, Doris Hare, Paul Eddington and John Fortune.
The Chichester Festival, begun in the sixties by Leslie Evershed-Martin and Laurence Olivier, presented each year a long summer of plays and musicals in a large, purpose-built, thrust-stage theatre. The 1984 season offered The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice, The Way of the World The Way of the World and and Oh, Kay! Oh, Kay! as well as the as well as the Forty Years On Forty Years On that I had come down for. A tent, since replaced by a fully fledged second house called the Minerva, served as a s.p.a.ce for smaller experimental productions. As a gig, as a booking, Chichester was much prized by old-school actors who liked the relaxed atmosphere of a prosperous south-coast town, a long season in repertory that didn"t make too many demands and the security of guaranteed festival attendance. This regular local audience was known collectively as Colonel and Mrs Chichester on account of their severe and hidebound tastes Rattigan seemed to be the only post-war playwright they were able to stomach. Colonel and Mrs Chichester were not afraid to impart the exciting news that they went to the theatre to be that I had come down for. A tent, since replaced by a fully fledged second house called the Minerva, served as a s.p.a.ce for smaller experimental productions. As a gig, as a booking, Chichester was much prized by old-school actors who liked the relaxed atmosphere of a prosperous south-coast town, a long season in repertory that didn"t make too many demands and the security of guaranteed festival attendance. This regular local audience was known collectively as Colonel and Mrs Chichester on account of their severe and hidebound tastes Rattigan seemed to be the only post-war playwright they were able to stomach. Colonel and Mrs Chichester were not afraid to impart the exciting news that they went to the theatre to be entertained entertained.
Patrick Garland was a delightful director, courteous, intelligent, benign and delicately tactful. In rehearsal, he had an endearing habit of addressing the perplexed boys in the cast as if they were members of an Oxbridge common room. "Forgive my mentioning it, gentlemen, but I do feel myself constrained to observe that the dilatory nature of the communal egress immediately consequent upon Paul"s second act exordium is injurious to the pace and dynamism of the scene. I should be so grateful if this deficiency were remedied. With grateful thanks."
The play"s designer was Peter Rice, whose son Matthew soon became a lifelong friend. When not a.s.sisting his father he dug the garden of the little house he had hired for the season, shot rabbits and pigeons, skinned and plucked same and cooked them into exquisite suppers. He played the piano, sang songs, sketched and painted. His voice was not unlike Princess Margaret"s: high, grand and piercing. Perhaps he had spent too much time in her presence, being a close friend of her son, David Linley, with whom he had been at Bedales.
Unlike Matthew, whose cottage was a charming rural retreat in the Earl of Bessborough"s estate, I had taken a rather dull modern flat a short walk from the Festival Theatre. I devoted my spare time to the script of Me and My Girl Me and My Girl. Once or twice Mike Ockrent came down to work on it with me. Robert Lindsay had been duly cast as Bill, and the part of Sally was to be taken by Leslie Ash, subject to her taking lessons in tap and singing. The major character role of Sir John had been given to Frank Thornton, better known as the Grace Brothers floorwalker Captain Peac.o.c.k in Are You Being Served? Are You Being Served? The show"s opening was all set for autumn in Leicester if I could just deliver a final rehearsal script within the next month. The show"s opening was all set for autumn in Leicester if I could just deliver a final rehearsal script within the next month.
My parents came down to Chichester from Norfolk for Forty Years On Forty Years On"s first night. I proudly introduced them to Alan Bennett and Paul Eddington. Alan in turn introduced us to his friends Alan Bates and Russell Harty.
"I love a play where there are laughs and sobs," said Alan Bates, in a much camper voice than I would have imagined could ever issue from the lips of The Go-Between The Go-Between"s Ted Burgess and Far From the Madding Crowd Far From the Madding Crowd"s Gabriel Oak, two of the manliest men in all of British film. "I mean, you"ve got to have a giggle and a gulp, haven"t you, or what"s the theatre for?"
Russell Harty, with anagrammatic diablerie diablerie, referred to Alan Bates as a.n.a.l Beast, or, in mixed company, Lana Beast.
First-night party for the Forty Years On Forty Years On "transfer", Queen"s Theatre, London, 1984. Katie Kelly (back to us, shiny bun), boys from the cast, self, Hugh Laurie, sister Jo. "transfer", Queen"s Theatre, London, 1984. Katie Kelly (back to us, shiny bun), boys from the cast, self, Hugh Laurie, sister Jo.
I think I was disappointing as Tempest. In my mind I believed that I could play the part and play it with brilliance, but something held me back from being any better than competent. I was OK. Perfectly good. Fine Fine. That last is the worst word in theatre. When friends come backstage and use the word "fine" about a play, a production or your performance you know they hated it. Often they preface it, out of nowhere, with the word "no", which is fantastically revealing.
"No, it was fine fine!"
"No, really, I thought it was ... you know ..."
Why would they open a sentence with "No" when they have not even been asked a question? There can be only one explanation. As they walk along the backstage corridors towards your dressing-room they have said inside their own head, "G.o.d, that stank. Stephen was embarra.s.singly awful. The whole thing was ghastly. ghastly." Then they enter and, as if answering and contradicting themselves, they instantly say, "No, I thought it was great ... no, really, I ... mmm ... I liked it." I know this is right because I so often catch myself doing exactly the same thing without meaning to. "No ... really, it was fine."
The production as a whole was considered a success, however. Colonel and Mrs Chichester enthused, and word soon got out that we were going to "transfer".
"Excellent news," Paul Eddington said to me one evening as we stood waiting to go on. I nearly wrote "as we stood in the wings", but Chichester had an ap.r.o.n stage that thrust out into the auditorium on three sides, so we must have been standing behind the set.
"Ooh!" I said. "What good news?"
"It"s official. We are going to transfer."
"Wow!" I did a little dance. I had no idea what he was talking out.
It took me two days to work out the meaning of "transfer". The boys in the cast seemed to know, the women who served in the cafeteria knew, the tobacconist on the corner and the landlady of my flat knew, everyone knew except me.
"Wonderful news about the transfer," said Doris Hare. "The Queen"s, I believe."
"Er ...?" Did a transfer mean a royal visit? Now I was even more puzzled.
"I"ve played most of the houses on the Avenue, but this will be the first time I"ve played the Queen"s."
The Avenue? I pictured us in some tree-lined boulevard giving an outdoor performance to a bored and affronted monarch. The idea seemed grotesque.
Later, Patrick said to me, "You will have heard the good news about the transfer?"
"Indeed. Yup. Great, isn"t it?"
"This will be your West End debut, I think?"
So that that is what it meant! The production would be is what it meant! The production would be transferred transferred from Chichester to the West End. A transfer. Of course. D"uh. from Chichester to the West End. A transfer. Of course. D"uh.
I finished the Chichester season in a frenzy. Mike Ockrent came to collect my final draft of Me and My Girl Me and My Girl a week before we closed. a week before we closed.
Back in London I decided, since Kim and Steve were so happy together at Draycott Place, that it was time for me to move out of Chelsea and set up on my own. For a hundred pounds a week I found myself the tenant of a furnished one-bedroom flat in Regent Square, Bloomsbury. Just me and the new love of my life.
Computer 2 Early in the year I had called Hugh up excitedly. "I"ve just bought a Macintosh. Cost me a thousand pounds."
"What?"
Hugh enjoyed about a week of relaying the news of my fantastic expenditure on something as absurd and unworthy of outlay as a raincoat before he discovered that this Macintosh was a new type of computer.
I was more insanely in love with this strangely beautiful piece of technology than anything I had ever owned before. It had a cable leading out of it that ended in a device called a "mouse". The screen was white white when you started it all up and loaded the system disk. The text that came up was black on white, like paper, instead of the fuzzily glowing green or orange on black offered by all other computers. An arrow on the screen could be activated by moving the mouse on the desk next to the computer. Images of a floppy disk and a dustbin appeared on screen and all along the top were words which, when clicked on with the mouse, pulled down a kind of graphical roller-blind on which menu options were written. You could double-click on pictures of doc.u.ments and folders and windowpanes would open. I had never seen or imagined anything like it. Nor had anyone. Only Apple"s short-lived Lisa computer had used this way of doing things before and it had never had a place in the consumer or home market. when you started it all up and loaded the system disk. The text that came up was black on white, like paper, instead of the fuzzily glowing green or orange on black offered by all other computers. An arrow on the screen could be activated by moving the mouse on the desk next to the computer. Images of a floppy disk and a dustbin appeared on screen and all along the top were words which, when clicked on with the mouse, pulled down a kind of graphical roller-blind on which menu options were written. You could double-click on pictures of doc.u.ments and folders and windowpanes would open. I had never seen or imagined anything like it. Nor had anyone. Only Apple"s short-lived Lisa computer had used this way of doing things before and it had never had a place in the consumer or home market.
While it was being developed this graphical user interface had been referred to as WIMP, standing for Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing-device. I was instantly a slave to its elegance, ease, usefulness and wit. Most of you reading this will be too young to imagine a time when computers could have been presented in any other fashion, but this was new and revolutionary. Extraordinarily, it didn"t catch on for ages. For years and years after the January 1984 release of the Apple Macintosh the rivals IBM, Microsoft, Apricot, DEC, Amstrad and others all dismissed the mouse, the icon and the graphical desktop as "gimmicky", "childish" and "a pa.s.sing fad". Well, I shall refrain from going too deeply into the subject. I am fully aware of how minority a sport my love of all this dorky wizardry is. All you need know is that I, my 128 kilobyte Macintosh, Imagewriter bitmap printer and small collection of floppy disks were all very, very very happy together. What possible need could I have for s.e.x or human relationships when I had this? happy together. What possible need could I have for s.e.x or human relationships when I had this?
Hugh, Katie and Nick Symons shared a house in Leighton Grove, Kentish Town; I had my Bloomsbury flat; Kim stayed on in Chelsea. We all saw each other as much as possible, but I was about to be busy performing eight times a week on the West End stage.
Richard Armitage had arranged with Patrick and the Forty Years On Forty Years On producers that in November I would be released from the run of the play for a few days, so that I could travel up to Leicester for the opening of producers that in November I would be released from the run of the play for a few days, so that I could travel up to Leicester for the opening of Me and My Girl Me and My Girl: this contractual clause was insisted upon not because Richard kindly believed I should have the treat of attending the first night of a musical to which I had contributed a script, but because he wanted to be sure that I would be on hand should the dress rehearsal and opening demonstrate a need for urgent, unforeseen rewrites.
We had partic.i.p.ated in some strange conversations over the preceding months in which Richard had proved himself capable of changing hats mid-sentence, shuttling between his ident.i.ty as the show"s producer, the heir and manager of the composer"s estate and, not least so far as I was concerned, my agent. "I have had a word with myself," he would say, "and I have agreed to my outrageous demands as to your financial partic.i.p.ation in this project. I wanted to cut you out of any backend, but I absolutely insisted, so much to my annoyance you have points in the show, which pleases me greatly."
Early on in the rehearsal process Leslie Ash had not responded well to her dance and vocal lessons and by mutual agreement she had dropped out of the cast. I sat in Richard"s office one afternoon as he rubbed his chin anxiously. Who on earth could we cast as Sally?