"Er ... that"s the term is it, abandonment? Well, yes, abandonment then ..."
"Hold please, caller ..."
I wait until a tired voice comes on the line.
"Special services, how can I help?"
"I"m ringing about getting a policy to insure an event ... I think you call it abandonment?"
"Oh yes? What sort of event?
"Well it"s a party."
"An outdoors event, is it?"
"Well, it"s a ball. Mostly on lawns in tents, but some parts are inside."
"I see ... and you want rain cover. Partial or complete abandonment?"
"No, not rain cover so much as reign cover."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry, no. I mean ... well, it"s to insure against the Queen Mother dying."
The sound of a receiver being banged on the desk followed by a blowing down the earpiece. "Something wrong with the line. Sounded like ... never mind. Could you repeat that please?"
Here in the twenty-first century there are probably only two insurance companies left in the world, called Axxentander or something equally foul, but in 1979 there were dozens. I tried the Royal, Swan, Prudential, Pearl, Norwich Union all those I had heard of and a dozen that I hadn"t. In each case, once I had succeeded in getting the agent to understand what was required, I was asked to call back. I imagine that they needed to consult higher up the chain of command. It might be said that they had abandonment issues.
This kind of insurance is, of course, nothing more nor less than gambling. You bet your stake (which insurance companies call a premium) and should your horse win (house catch fire, car get stolen, royal family member die) you collect your winnings. The relationship between the premium and the amount collected is determined by balancing the value of the insured thing (the indemnity) against the odds and statistical probability of its being threatened. Bookies use the form and stud books together with the market flow of betting to determine their prices; insurance companies use a similar mixture of market trends and their own history and precedent books, which they call actuarial tables. I can understand that. Had I wanted an abandonment policy against snow and ice, they would have looked at the value of the May Ball and seen that they would have to sh.e.l.l out 40,000 if it was cancelled. They would also see that blizzards in early June are incredibly rare, even in Cambridge, so they would probably charge a fraction of a fraction of 1 per cent of the indemnity: 20 would be ungenerous, but then only an idiot would bother to insure against so remote a contingency in the first place. With a rain policy the insurers might decide, after consulting forecasters and local records, that there was, say, a fifty-fifty chance of precipitation in which case the premium would be a whopping 20,000. But then, what kind of an idiot would arrange a summer party in England which was so weather dependent that it would have to be abandoned if the heavens opened? Abandonment policies are not very common, that is the point, but there are nonetheless fairly obvious mechanisms in place for resolving the issue of price when it comes to natural disasters like weather, fire and earthquake. The death of the monarch"s mother, on the other hand ... how could an actuary be expected to calculate the odds of that? She was seventy-nine years old.
I decided that I would give the companies three hours before calling back for a quote.
Did the insurance clerks go into her family history and check out the longevity of the entire Bowes-Lyon clan? Did they call up Clarence House and inquire into the Queen Mother"s health, diet and exercise regime? Did they take into account her reputed fondness for gin and Dubonnet? I can only imagine the discussions they must have had in their offices.
In the case of each firm, when I called back, the actuaries appeared to be very gloomy about the old girl"s hopes of making it through the next few months: 20, 25, 23 per cent chances of her surviving until the middle of June were implied by the gigantic premiums they proposed. The cheapest offer, 20 per cent of the indemnity, was way beyond our reach. I had been given a budget of 50.
"I am afraid," I tell the President of the Committee after returning from the last of the calls, "that we are simply going to have to pray for Her Majesty"s continued good health. If she does die I will undertake to keep the news from the Fellows if I have to steal every newspaper and radio in the college and lock them all in a cellar to do so."
"I may hold you to that," the President said, a worried look furrowing his youthful brow.
I do not suppose that a queen"s life has been prayed for more a.s.siduously since the days of Boudicca. Sadly, the Queen Mother did die, though happily for us, not for another twenty-three years. When she finally left the world in 2002, she was thoughtful enough to do so in March, meaning that the college"s period of mourning would be well over by May Week. It was just such examples of kindness and consideration that endeared her to so many during a long, varied and vigorous life. Some time in the 1990s, sitting next to her at a dinner, I considered thanking her on behalf of the college for so thoughtfully delaying her death, but shyness and good sense got the better of me.
Another feature of the Cambridge Easter term (for so they call the third term of the academic year) is the Footlights May Week Revue. The Footlights Club is one of the university"s best-known inst.i.tutions, having sent generations of comic writers and performers into the world over the course of its 130-year history. Its May Week show at the Arts Theatre was an annual ritual. If you were cool it was an event to disdain. "Apparently the Footlights are c.r.a.p this year," you would say to your companion as you wrinkled your nose at a poster for the event. There has never been a year in which this has not been said. The same phrase would have been heard when Jonathan Miller was running the Footlights, or Peter Cook and David Frost, through Cleese, Chapman and Idle and past Douglas Adams, Clive Anderson and Griff Rhys Jones, Dave Baddiel and Rob Newman, David Mitch.e.l.l and Robert Webb all the way up to the current year. If you were normal, such cynicism did not occur to you, and the May Week Revue was another fun fixture on the Cambridge calendar. I was neither cool nor normal, but simply too busy with is one of the university"s best-known inst.i.tutions, having sent generations of comic writers and performers into the world over the course of its 130-year history. Its May Week show at the Arts Theatre was an annual ritual. If you were cool it was an event to disdain. "Apparently the Footlights are c.r.a.p this year," you would say to your companion as you wrinkled your nose at a poster for the event. There has never been a year in which this has not been said. The same phrase would have been heard when Jonathan Miller was running the Footlights, or Peter Cook and David Frost, through Cleese, Chapman and Idle and past Douglas Adams, Clive Anderson and Griff Rhys Jones, Dave Baddiel and Rob Newman, David Mitch.e.l.l and Robert Webb all the way up to the current year. If you were normal, such cynicism did not occur to you, and the May Week Revue was another fun fixture on the Cambridge calendar. I was neither cool nor normal, but simply too busy with The Tempest The Tempest and other things to be able to attend. and other things to be able to attend.
I heard that someone was putting together a production of Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex for Edinburgh and decided that I might as well go and audition. I boomed and strutted and gestured and declaimed in front of the director, Peter Rumney, and left thinking that perhaps I had rather overdone it. The next day I found in my pigeonhole a note from Peter asking me to play Oedipus. I was bound for the Festival Fringe, and my excitement was almost impossible to contain. For the rest of the term I bounced and buzzed about Cambridge like a bee in a bottle. for Edinburgh and decided that I might as well go and audition. I boomed and strutted and gestured and declaimed in front of the director, Peter Rumney, and left thinking that perhaps I had rather overdone it. The next day I found in my pigeonhole a note from Peter asking me to play Oedipus. I was bound for the Festival Fringe, and my excitement was almost impossible to contain. For the rest of the term I bounced and buzzed about Cambridge like a bee in a bottle.
At some point I believe I must have sat some exams. Prelims, I think they were called. I remember precisely nothing about them. Not where they took place, nor what kinds of questions we were given to answer. I suppose I must have pa.s.sed them, for no trouble arose and no stern interviews were sought. My Cambridge proceeded pleasantly enough without the intrusion of academic study: a university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, something quite different. A real education takes place, not in the lecture hall or library, but in the rooms of friends, with earnest frolic and happy disputation. Wine can be a wiser teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books. That was my theory at least, and I was living by it. Such serene and lofty views of education as against vocational training were beginning to madden the new political leadership. Thatcher was an industrial chemist and a lawyer, after all, both disciplines that need Gradgrindery and training and require no education whatsoever as she demonstrated. Our kind of loose learning, as they would regard it, this cleaving to the elitist tradition of the Liberal Arts, this arrogant Athenian self-indulgence was an enemy, a noxious weed that required summary eradication. Its days were numbered.
The 1979 Queens" May Ball took place. I donned the tailcoat that I had rented for the week, all ready to ... well, to have myself a ball. We happy, flushed, proud and excited members of the committee met for champagne half an hour before the kick-off. Ten minutes later I was in an ambulance on my way to Addenbrooke"s Hospital, an oxygen mask over my face, fighting for every breath. b.l.o.o.d.y asthma. It would be another two years before I fully understood what had brought it on. I often succ.u.mbed to attacks at weddings, fetes, Hunt b.a.l.l.s or events of that kind. On such occasions there were usually flowers and summer pollen about, so it had never occurred to me that the cause of my face going blue and my lungs closing for business was actually champagne. A ridiculous allergy, but one doesn"t choose them.
At Addenbrooke"s an injection of adrenaline had such an immediately restorative effect that I was out of the hospital, in a cab and on the way back to Queens" by ten, two fresh inhalers for emergencies spoiling the sweep and cut of my dress trousers. I was determined not to miss another minute.
May b.a.l.l.s traditionally end with a breakfast, and many party-goers like to welcome the dawn on the Cam. Even at that young age I was a sentimental and slushy fool, maudlin (p.r.o.nounced Magdalene) to a dreadful fault. I am none the less so now and shall never find the sight of young men in degage evening wear punting their loved ones along the river on a summer"s morning anything other than agonizingly romantic, piercingly lovely and heart-stoppingly adorable.
Caledonia 1 After the term ended, I took myself off as usual to North Yorkshire to teach a little Latin, umpire Cundall Manor"s Second Eleven, prepare the games fields for Sports Day and, in such spare time as I had, learn the role of Oedipus as well as lines for my various parts in a production of Charles Marowitz"s Artaud at Rodez Artaud at Rodez which the Cambridge Mummers were presenting and in which I had also, perhaps foolishly, agreed to appear. Foolishly because, each day for a fortnight, the moment the curtain went down on which the Cambridge Mummers were presenting and in which I had also, perhaps foolishly, agreed to appear. Foolishly because, each day for a fortnight, the moment the curtain went down on Artaud Artaud I was going to have to hare off to the venue where I was going to have to hare off to the venue where Oedipus Oedipus would be due to start half an hour later. Old Edinburgh hands said I would be cutting it fine, especially if I had complicated costume to doff and don or heavy make-up to remove and apply, but cutting it fine was one of the things I liked to do. would be due to start half an hour later. Old Edinburgh hands said I would be cutting it fine, especially if I had complicated costume to doff and don or heavy make-up to remove and apply, but cutting it fine was one of the things I liked to do.
For three weeks in late summer Edinburgh is the world centre of student drama. I was to perform at the Fringe every year for the next five years at least. Most who go cannot fail to fall instantly in love with the city as much as with the event. Within a couple of days the muscles on your shins ache from the unaccustomed steep ascents and descents of the town, the numberless stone steps and narrow wynds surprise your muscles if you were used to the easy, level streets of East Anglian towns and a sedentary life it did more than surprise them, it shocked and outraged them. The ancient towering grimness of Edinburgh"s old tenements with their stone staircases and minatory blank gabling made me feel that at any moment Burke and Hare, Deacon Brodie or Mr Hyde were about to rise snarling from the steps of the Gra.s.smarket. What did arise were, of course, nothing more terrifying than young drunks bearing polystyrene trays of Spudulike with cheese. In those days baked potato take-aways provided the cheapest form of filling nutrition a student could require. Scotland really was another country. The diet was different: aside from Spudulike the chicken carry-out shops offered the delicate specialite du pays specialite du pays deep-fried Mars Bars, Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlys. Scottish banknotes were different, the language, the weather, the light, even the Kensitas cigarettes were unfamiliar. A pint of heavy was the preferred drink, heavy being bitter or at least a ga.s.sy something that gestured towards the idea of it. deep-fried Mars Bars, Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlys. Scottish banknotes were different, the language, the weather, the light, even the Kensitas cigarettes were unfamiliar. A pint of heavy was the preferred drink, heavy being bitter or at least a ga.s.sy something that gestured towards the idea of it.
Everywhere about the city, on every wall, window, lamp-post or doorway, were posters for plays, comedies and idiosyncratic entertainments that combined everything from circus, music hall, surrealist balloon manipulation and ballet to street percussion, Maoist limbo-dancing, gender-bending operetta and chainsaw juggling. Members of the casts of these shows would dress up and run down the streets showering the good-naturedly reluctant pa.s.sers-by with leaflets and complimentary tickets. On the opening day a parade of floats moved slowly east along Princes Street. There was somewhere in the city, or so we were told, a proper and official Festival being held: professional theatre companies and international orchestras performed plays and concerts for grown-ups in smart concert halls and theatres, but we saw or knew nothing of these, we were the Fringe, a vast fungus-like organism that spread its filaments throughout the fabric of Edinburgh, into the dossiest accommodations, weirdest sheds, huts, warehouses and wharves, and into every church hall and functional s.p.a.ce large enough to house a punk magician and a few chairs.
Half-way along the Royal Mile, which runs down from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, stood the Fringe Office, where festival-goers queued up for tickets. There were two shows I knew that I simply had to see. One was the Footlights Revue which due to The Tempest The Tempest I had missed in Cambridge, and the other was a one-man comedy performance which was being put on at the Wireworks, a converted factory just behind the Fringe Office. I had been told so many times that this performer, an Oxford graduate called Rowan Atkinson, was not to be missed that I felt justified in lining up to plank down some cash on tickets for me and the I had missed in Cambridge, and the other was a one-man comedy performance which was being put on at the Wireworks, a converted factory just behind the Fringe Office. I had been told so many times that this performer, an Oxford graduate called Rowan Atkinson, was not to be missed that I felt justified in lining up to plank down some cash on tickets for me and the Oedipus Oedipus cast. cast.
There was bad news when I got to the front of the queue.
"Ooh, that one"s sold out, my darling."
"Oh, really?"
""Fraid so ... what else do you hang on."
She picked up the phone and as she listened to the other end a smile lit up her face and she flashed me a happy look. She was a very pretty young Scot and wonderfully cheerful given her hard, non-computerized workload. I can still picture her face exactly.
"Well, well. That was the Rowan Atkinson people just now to say that due to popular demand they are doing an extra late-night performance on Sat.u.r.day night. Can you make it?"
I bought five tickets and one for the Cambridge Footlights and stumbled happily away.
We presented our Oedipus Oedipus every evening for two weeks at the Adam House in Chambers Street. The production design was "inspired" by science fiction films and the princ.i.p.als and chorus had to wear strange costumes constructed from cut-up sheets of coloured lighting gel which were a devil to get on in time given my tight gap between performances. Peter Rumney had chosen W. B. Yeats"s translation of the Sophocles original, and I spoke the language well, in a mellifluously rhetorical kind of way, but was unable to ascend the heights of tragedy and despair that the play demanded. In fact I didn"t even reach the foothills. Oedipus Rex"s journey from commanding greatness to whimpering ruin called, in Edinburgh terms, for a Royal Mile that swooped from the elegant squares of the New Town into the sinister slums of the old. I gave them a flat Cambridge street with some pleasant window shopping but about as much pity and terror as a banana milkshake. Nor did our production do well in the turbulent compet.i.tion for Fringe audiences. The every evening for two weeks at the Adam House in Chambers Street. The production design was "inspired" by science fiction films and the princ.i.p.als and chorus had to wear strange costumes constructed from cut-up sheets of coloured lighting gel which were a devil to get on in time given my tight gap between performances. Peter Rumney had chosen W. B. Yeats"s translation of the Sophocles original, and I spoke the language well, in a mellifluously rhetorical kind of way, but was unable to ascend the heights of tragedy and despair that the play demanded. In fact I didn"t even reach the foothills. Oedipus Rex"s journey from commanding greatness to whimpering ruin called, in Edinburgh terms, for a Royal Mile that swooped from the elegant squares of the New Town into the sinister slums of the old. I gave them a flat Cambridge street with some pleasant window shopping but about as much pity and terror as a banana milkshake. Nor did our production do well in the turbulent compet.i.tion for Fringe audiences. The Scotsman Scotsman reviewer described me as the figurehead of the ship, which sounded good until she went on to explain that she meant I was imposing and wooden. Oh well. None of this worried me: I was having the time of my life. In the Mummers" afternoon show, reviewer described me as the figurehead of the ship, which sounded good until she went on to explain that she meant I was imposing and wooden. Oh well. None of this worried me: I was having the time of my life. In the Mummers" afternoon show, Artaud at Rodez Artaud at Rodez, amongst other characters I played the great French actor Jean-Louis Barrault. It was directed by the dynamic and intense Pip Broughton, who had cast Jonathan Tafler (son of the film actor Sidney) in the lead role of Artaud. He was superb and dominated the stage and the production despite having to spend most of it in a straitjacket.
On my fifth evening, as soon as Oedipus Oedipus came down I decellophaned myself and hurried away to join an impatient full-house queue that was shuffling its way into the theatre where the Cambridge Footlights were giving their revue, came down I decellophaned myself and hurried away to join an impatient full-house queue that was shuffling its way into the theatre where the Cambridge Footlights were giving their revue, Nightcap. Nightcap.
"Apparently it"s c.r.a.p this year," I heard from someone behind me as I sat down.
"Yeah, Nightc.r.a.p Nightc.r.a.p," t.i.ttered his companion.
It was not c.r.a.p. It was astonishingly good, and the sceptical pair behind me were the first to their feet whistling and stamping approval when the curtain call came.
There were two first-years in the show, my friend Emma Thompson and a tall young man with big blue eyes, triangular red flush marks on his cheeks and an apologetic presence that was at once appallingly funny and quite inexplicably magnetic. His name, according to a programme that included helpful photographs of the cast, was Hugh Laurie. Another tall man with lighter but equally blue eyes, curly hair and a charmingly 1940s manner was the current President of the Footlights, Robert Bathurst. Martin Bergman, the previous year"s President, was in the show too, performing a clever kind of moon-faced epicene MC role. Also in the cast was an astoundingly nimble, twinkly and clownishly gifted comic actor called Simon McBurney, whom I knew because he was, as it happened, Emma"s boyfriend. This was to my shocked mind as perfect a comedy show as I had ever seen. It had never occurred to me that the Footlights would be this good. So good indeed that I instantly abandoned any dream I might have had of next year dipping my own toe in the waters of sketch comedy. I knew that I could not for a second hold my own with these people. Cool as I wasn"t, I had nonetheless absorbed the predominant cool person"s view that the Footlights Club was peopled with self-obsessed, semi-professional show-bizzy show-offs. What was so extraordinary about Nightcap Nightcap was how technically perfect in delivery, writing, timing, style and confidence it was, while managing to project a wholly likeable awareness of the absurdity of the whole business of student comedy. It was grown-up and polished yet at the same time bashful and friendly; it was sophisticated and intelligent but never pretentious or pleased with itself; it had authority, finish and quality without any hint of self-regard, vanity or slickness. It was, in short, just what I believed comedy of this kind ought to be. For all that I had by now been in at least fifteen plays, some of which had been comic in some form or other, I did not believe that I would ever have the confidence to knock on the door of a Footlights Club that boasted such a.s.sured talents. was how technically perfect in delivery, writing, timing, style and confidence it was, while managing to project a wholly likeable awareness of the absurdity of the whole business of student comedy. It was grown-up and polished yet at the same time bashful and friendly; it was sophisticated and intelligent but never pretentious or pleased with itself; it had authority, finish and quality without any hint of self-regard, vanity or slickness. It was, in short, just what I believed comedy of this kind ought to be. For all that I had by now been in at least fifteen plays, some of which had been comic in some form or other, I did not believe that I would ever have the confidence to knock on the door of a Footlights Club that boasted such a.s.sured talents.
Heigh ho. At least I might be able to sneer at this Rowan Atkinson fellow. After all, what had Oxford ever done for comedy? Well, Terry Jones and Michael Palin obviously, but apart from them, what had Oxford ever done for comedy? Dudley Moore. Well, yes, apart from Palin, Jones and Moore what had ...? Alan Bennett. All right. Granted. But apart from Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Dudley Moore and Alan Benn ... Evelyn Waugh? Oscar Wilde? Oh all right then, d.a.m.n you, maybe Oxford weren"t such duds after all. Still I went to the Wireworks not expecting that a one-man show could compete with the skill and style of Nightcap Nightcap. I staggered out two hours later almost unable to walk. My sides and lungs had taken a h.e.l.l of a beating. They had never been put to such paroxysmal use in their lives. You have probably seen Rowan Atkinson. If you are lucky you might have seen him on stage. If you are very, very lucky, then you might have had the experience of seeing him on stage before you had ever seen him anywhere else. That is the kind of joy that can never be reconstructed, to encounter an astounding talent for the first time with no preconceptions and no especial expectations. I had never watched Rowan Atkinson on television and I really knew nothing about him other than that his show was a hot ticket. It was called a "one-man show" but actually there were two other performers: Richard Curtis, the writer of most of the material, who took the role of a kind of straight man, and Howard Goodall, who played music from an electric piano and sang a witty song of his own.
I had noticed from the programme that the staging was the work of Christopher Richardson, whom I had known when I was a schoolboy and he a master at Uppingham School. I had a brief word with him afterwards, and he told me that the show had previewed at Uppingham. I had a brief word with him afterwards, and he told me that the show had previewed at Uppingham.
"The theatre has become quite a regular stop on the way between university and Edinburgh," he said. "You must bring some of your Cambridge people."
"Oh I don"t, I"m not ... we wouldn"t ..."
The drama I was doing at Cambridge suddenly seemed ordinary, worthy and desperately unexciting. I dismissed such unnecessarily negative thoughts from my mind. What was there to complain of?
Cherubs, Coming Out, Continent The accelerando accelerando that had begun in the second term continued on my return. More drama, less academic study. that had begun in the second term continued on my return. More drama, less academic study.
I now had the option of living out of college in digs or staying in and sharing with a fellow second-year. Kim and I chose to share, and we were rewarded with a stunning set of rooms in Walnut Tree Court. The ceiling had dark Elizabethan beams, and the walls were panelled in wood. Some of the panels were cut to reveal recessed cupboards and, in one place, an area of medieval painted plaster. There were bookshelves, a good gyp-room, window-seats, leaded panes of warped gla.s.s of great antiquity and far from contemptible furniture. With our books, records, gla.s.sware and china, my bust of Shakespeare, Kim"s bust of Wagner, Jaques chess set and Bang and Olufsen record player we were as well set up as any students in the university.
The three terms of that second year have blended and blurred in my mind. I do know that it was then that I was asked to join the Cherubs, hurrah! The initiation ceremony required the draining down of heroically repulsive and impossibly combined flagons of spirit, wine and beer. One also had to recite the meaning of the Cherubs" emerald, navy and salmon necktie: "Green for Queens" College, blue for the empyrean and pink for the cherub"s botty." Another duty was to declare what one would do to advance the cause of the Cherubs and Cherubism. I cannot remember what I said, something arrogant about wearing the tie on television at every opportunity when I was a famous actor, I think. Another initiate, Michael Foale, announced that he would be the first Cherub to join all the other cherubs in heaven. When pushed for an explanation he said that he intended to be the first Cherub in s.p.a.ce. It was a preposterous claim to make. s.p.a.ce travellers were either American astronauts or Soviet cosmonauts. At some later, slightly less incoherently drunken Cherubs party I discovered that he had been perfectly serious. He had dual UK/US nationality, his mother being American. He was already fluent in Russian, which he had taught himself, reasoning that the future of s.p.a.ce exploration would depend on full cooperation and collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union. He was into his third year of a doctorate in astrophysics and a member of the RAF"s Air Training Corps, able to fly just about anything that had wings or rotors. I had never encountered such focus and determination in anyone. Seven years later he was accepted by NASA as an astronaut. He flew his first s.p.a.ce Shuttle mission five years after that and retired having spent over a year of his life away from earth. Until 2008 he held the American record for time spent in s.p.a.ce 374 days, 11 hours and 19 minutes which is still, needless to say, a British record. I would like to say that his resolve, dedication and commitment were a life-changing example to me. Instead I thought he was potty and blush to think how I humoured him.
The Cherubs. I know we look like w.a.n.kers, but really we weren"t. Honestly.
Mike Foale invited me to attend the launch of his mission to repair the Hubble s.p.a.ce Telescope in 1999, but I couldn"t go. He invited me again to his final launch in 2003, for which he was appointed Commander of the International s.p.a.ce Station. Again I had to plead other commitments. What was I thinking of? Surely I could have postponed whatever it was I was doing and travelled to the launch site to watch a remarkable man doing one of the most remarkable things any human can do? I regret missing the chance deeply. I hope today"s Cherubs at Queens" have incorporated a toast into their rituals which recognizes the most ill.u.s.trious and intrepid of their heavenly host ever to don the green, blue and pink.
I soon made sure that Kim was initiated into the Cherubs too, and perhaps as a kind of thank you, or more likely because he was such a generous soul anyway, Kim offered to have a dinner jacket made for me at a grand tailoring shop on the corner of Silver and Trumpington Streets. Ede and Ravenscroft, besides being fine fashioners of a gentleman"s dress suiting, were also makers of elaborate and distinguished academic, legal, ecclesiastic and ceremonial costume of all kinds from graduate gowns to royal robes. The double-breasted dinner jacket of heavy wool they made for me was a thing of rare beauty. The facings of the lapels were of black silk as were the stripes down the side of the trouser legs. Kim felt I should have a proper shirt with separate collar to go with it as well as a good silk black bow-tie. And how could any of this be worn without proper shoes? Kim was generous with his money, but he never used it to show off. Not once did he make me feel that I was a lucky recipient of his largesse, or put me in the position of being embarra.s.sed or overwhelmed by it. The kindness was as much in the manner of his generosity as in the quant.i.ty of it, although the latter did keep our rooms in enviable luxury. Kim"s mother often sent large hampers from Harrods, cases of wine and quant.i.ties of cashmere socks for her beloved only child. His father worked in the advertising business, something to do with the sites on which posters were put up, and it was clearly a concern that flourished. My own family"s relatively modest prosperity did not, like Kim"s, run to truffles, pate and vintage port, but my mother was able to exhibit more often than was comfortable for a sceptic like me a most uncanny ability to know exactly when and by how much my funds were depleted. A bill from Heffer"s, the Cambridge bookshop, might arrive in my pigeonhole and loom over me and deprive me of sleep that night, and the following morning there would be a letter from Mother with a cheque and little note saying that she hoped that this might come in useful. The sum seemed nearly always to cover the bill and leave a happy amount over for wine and cakes.
My sister Jo came to stay. She adored Kim and made friends with everyone, most of whom thought she was an undergraduate, although she was only fifteen. It was in a letter to her when she was back home that I wrote something that my father saw, something that made it clear that I was gay. He got a message through to the porter"s lodge at Queens" asking me to ring. When I called he told me that he had seen my letter to Jo, that he was sorry to have done so, but that as far as the gay thing was concerned he couldn"t be happier ...
"Oh, and your mother would love to speak to you."
"Darling!"
"Oh, Mama. Are you upset?"
"Don"t be silly. I think I"ve always always known ..." known ..."
It was the most marvellous relief to come out in this way.
Papa.
Mama.
My scholarly duty of saying Latin grace in hall for a week came round. I began to write occasional articles and television reviews for a student newspaper called Broadsheet Broadsheet, and more and more parts in more and more plays came my way. I played a disc jockey in Poliakoff"s City Sugar City Sugar, a poet in Bond"s The Narrow Road to the Deep North The Narrow Road to the Deep North and a Cla.s.sics don in a new play by undergraduate Harry Eyre. I played kings and dukes and old counsellors in Shakespeare and killers and husbands and businessmen and blackmailers in plays old, new, neglected and revived. If Kipling"s suggestion that to fill every minute with sixty seconds" worth of distance run is truly, as he a.s.serted, the mark of a man, then I seemed to have become one of the most virile students in Cambridge. and a Cla.s.sics don in a new play by undergraduate Harry Eyre. I played kings and dukes and old counsellors in Shakespeare and killers and husbands and businessmen and blackmailers in plays old, new, neglected and revived. If Kipling"s suggestion that to fill every minute with sixty seconds" worth of distance run is truly, as he a.s.serted, the mark of a man, then I seemed to have become one of the most virile students in Cambridge.
In the Christmas vacation that fell between the Michaelmas and Lent terms, I accompanied the European Theatre Group on a tour of the continent, bestowing the blessing of Macbeth Macbeth upon a bewildered population of Dutch, German, Swiss and French theatre-goers, mostly reluctant schoolchildren. The production was directed by Pip Broughton, who had been responsible for upon a bewildered population of Dutch, German, Swiss and French theatre-goers, mostly reluctant schoolchildren. The production was directed by Pip Broughton, who had been responsible for Artaud at Rodez Artaud at Rodez, and she had cast Jonathan Tafler as the murderous thane. Illness prevented him at the last minute, however, which was a great blow to Pip, for she and Jonathan were an enchantingly devoted couple. I played King Duncan a marvellous role for such a tour because he dies very soon in the play, and I could spend my time scoping out whichever town we were quartered in and be back in time for the curtain-call pregnant with information on the best bars and cheapest restaurants. The ETG had been founded by Derek Jacobi, Trevor Nunn and others in 1957, the year of my birth, and had earned a lamentable reputation for its frequent lapses from high seriousness and decorum. There was a rumour that the town of Gren.o.ble had gone so far as to ban all Cambridge drama troupes from ever appearing in their town again after a notoriously drunken exhibition at a mayoral reception some time in the mid-seventies: well, drunken exhibitionism, if the story is to be believed. Our company was not as bad as that, but we did misbehave on stage. There is something about the sight of row upon row of serious Swiss schoolchildren with copies of Shakespeare on their laps studiously following the text line by line that brings out the devil in a British actor. A Word of the Day would be announced before curtain-up and prizes awarded to whichever actor could most often jemmy that word into their role. "There"s no weasel to find the mind"s construction in the weasel," I remember saying one night in Heidelberg. "He was a weasel in whom I placed an absolute weasel." And so on.
A fellow called Mark Knox, who played many parts, including the messenger who comes to tell Lady Macduff that the evil Macbeth is on his way and means her harm, discovered that his speech of warning could be sung to the tune of "Greensleeves", which he did, a finger to his ear, to the great perplexity of a Bernese audience. The three witches" "When shall we three meet again?" was discovered to fit, with only minimal syllabic wrenching, the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".
Somehow throughout all this, Barry Taylor, who had played the squeaking and gibbering Caliban in Ian Softley"s BATS May Week Tempest Tempest and had now been called in at the last minute to replace Jonathan Tafler, contrived to produce a superb Macbeth. If I was back early enough from my reconnoitring of the town I would stand in the wings and watch in admiration as, rising above, or sometimes even joining in, the practical jokes, he managed to convey murderous savagery, self-destructive guilt, boiling fury and terrible pain as well as I had seen. It is of course a truism of amateur acting that the cast always believes they are doing something that would stand comparison with the best professional theatre: it is rarely justified, but sometimes there are amateur performances which a pro would be proud of, and Barry Taylor"s Macbeth was one such. In my memory at least. and had now been called in at the last minute to replace Jonathan Tafler, contrived to produce a superb Macbeth. If I was back early enough from my reconnoitring of the town I would stand in the wings and watch in admiration as, rising above, or sometimes even joining in, the practical jokes, he managed to convey murderous savagery, self-destructive guilt, boiling fury and terrible pain as well as I had seen. It is of course a truism of amateur acting that the cast always believes they are doing something that would stand comparison with the best professional theatre: it is rarely justified, but sometimes there are amateur performances which a pro would be proud of, and Barry Taylor"s Macbeth was one such. In my memory at least.
We spent far more time travelling between European cities in a Wallace Arnold coach than we did on stage. Devising games and time-pa.s.sing occupations became a major obsession. Most of us were reading for the English tripos, and one game we played required us to write down on a slip of paper the major works of literature we had never read. I collected the slips and called out the roster of t.i.tles which included Hamlet Hamlet, Animal Farm Animal Farm, David Copperfield David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby, Waiting for G.o.dot Waiting for G.o.dot ... you name an obligatory must-read masterpiece and there was someone on the bus who had never read it. The wriggles of shame at the depths of our ignorance were as much pleasurable as mortifying. It is something of a relief to know that one is not alone in having a peculiar and inexplicable gap. You will want to know which t.i.tle I submitted. It was D. H. Lawrence"s ... you name an obligatory must-read masterpiece and there was someone on the bus who had never read it. The wriggles of shame at the depths of our ignorance were as much pleasurable as mortifying. It is something of a relief to know that one is not alone in having a peculiar and inexplicable gap. You will want to know which t.i.tle I submitted. It was D. H. Lawrence"s Women in Love Women in Love, which, to my no doubt crippling disadvantage and discredit, I still have not read to this day. Nor have I read Sons and Lovers Sons and Lovers or or The Rainbow The Rainbow. You can add all of Thomas Hardy"s novels to that list except The Mayor of Casterbridge The Mayor of Casterbridge (which I loathed). I pa.s.sionately embrace Lawrence and Hardy as poets, but I find their novels unreadable. There. I feel as if I have emerged from a confessional. I hope you do not feel too let down. (which I loathed). I pa.s.sionately embrace Lawrence and Hardy as poets, but I find their novels unreadable. There. I feel as if I have emerged from a confessional. I hope you do not feel too let down.
Challenge 1 My first television performance came around this time. It had nothing to do with acting, but sprang from that same annoying anxiety to show off and be admired that one day, perhaps in my dotage, I will succeed in shaking off. The word had gone around the college that Queens" was entering a team for Granada Television"s student quiz show University Challenge University Challenge. I had watched this religiously since I was a child and could hardly have been more desperate to be picked for the team. The captain had been chosen by some process that I never understood, but he fully justified the appointment. He was a brilliant student of Modern and Medieval Languages called Steven Botterill, now a renowned Dante scholar and Professor at Berkeley, California. He had sensibly decided to pick the three other members of his team by compiling a list of questions and holding an open qualification test. I was infinitely more nervous and excited about sitting this little exam than the official tripos. I cannot remember the questions especially well ... one was something to do with Natty b.u.mppo which I was relieved to be able to answer. When a handwritten note from Botterill arrived in my pigeonhole to tell me that I had been picked for the team I was almost as jubilant and irradiated with joy as the day in 1977 that my mother had telephoned Just John"s Delicatique in Norwich to break the news of my scholarship to Queens". The other two undergraduates chosen were a scientist called Barber and a lawyer called Mark Lester no, not the child star of The other two undergraduates chosen were a scientist called Barber and a lawyer called Mark Lester no, not the child star of Oliver! Oliver! but another Mark Lester altogether. We travelled north to Granadaland for the first round. but another Mark Lester altogether. We travelled north to Granadaland for the first round.
It was my first visit to Manchester and my first close-up encounter with a television studio. In Norwich I had once sat in the audience for the taping of a largely forgotten Anglia TV sitcom called Backs to the Land Backs to the Land but that was the extent of my penetration of the broadcasting world. Granada was a much more impressive outfit than dear, sweet, parochial Anglia. Their studios were the home of but that was the extent of my penetration of the broadcasting world. Granada was a much more impressive outfit than dear, sweet, parochial Anglia. Their studios were the home of Coronation Street Coronation Street and and World in Action World in Action. The corridors were lined with photographs of actors, film stars and nationally known television presenters like Brian Trueman and Michael Parkinson. We were shown down a labyrinth of these pa.s.sageways to a large dressing-room, where we were asked to wait. We nibbled at crisps and fruit, sipped fizzy drinks and grew steadily more and more nervous. If we won our first-round match we would have to play another team that same afternoon. If we won that, we would have to return to Manchester at a later date for quarter- and semi-finals matches. If we won those, well a third and final visit would be required. That was a lot of ifs, and suddenly I felt, and perhaps the other three did too, that I knew absolutely nothing. Every single fact I ever knew flew from me like pigeons from the sound of a gun. Humiliation awaited us. I banged the side of my head in a last-minute attempt to rewire the brain.
Universally Challenged.
The quizmaster was, of course, the marvellous Bamber Gascoigne, whose voice and features I knew as well as my parents". He was one of those figures like the Queen and Robert Robinson: I could not remember a time when I wasn"t aware of him. A wise and kindly man, he seemed aware that other teams knew that he was a Cambridge graduate himself and therefore went out of his way to be scrupulously fair, without ever toppling over into self-conscious countercantabrigianism. He always appeared to delight in a correct answer whencesoever it came, and it was firmly believed by all that he set and researched every question himself. He was famous for his gently knowledgeable corrections "Bad luck, you were thinking of Duns Scotus perhaps ..." or "Very close, he was of course a friend friend of Clausewitz ..." an att.i.tude at some remove from the blessed Jeremy Paxman"s scandalized shouts of " of Clausewitz ..." an att.i.tude at some remove from the blessed Jeremy Paxman"s scandalized shouts of "What?" and expression of having bitten into a bad olive whenever an incorrect answer comes his way that offends his sense of what should be known. Autre temps, autres maeurs Autre temps, autres maeurs ... ...
Botterill, Lester, Barber and I walked shyly on to the set, made the usual jokes about how the desks were actually side by side on the studio floor, not one on top of the other as they appeared to be on screen, and took our designated seats. I am afraid to say I cannot recall where the first-round opposition came from. Leeds University pops into my head, but I may be mistaken. No doubt they thought we were ghastly Oxbridge w.a.n.kers. Looking at photographs of our team and its wild trichological variety, geeky earnestness and unhealthy complexions, we cannot be said to have been the prettiest quartet ever to greet a television audience.
"We cannot be said to have been the prettiest quartet ever to greet a television audience." University Challenge. University Challenge.
We need not have been nervous. We were a good side and trounced all the opposition that was ranged against us right up to the final, which in those days was decided by a best-of-three encounter. For that match we found ourselves pitted against Merton, Oxford, my housemaster"s old college. They seemed a decent and bright enough bunch, but we brushed them aside in the first leg with a winning margin of over a hundred. In the second leg they won by ten points, which was maddening but set up one of the tensest finals on record. When the gong sounded for the end of the third and deciding leg the teams were exactly level. A sudden-death tie-break came into operation. Whoever got the next question would win the series. Merton buzzed in with the right answer. We were runners-up. I have rarely been so devastated or felt so cheated. It hurts even now that our team can have answered so many more questions correctly than the opposition and yet have lost. Infantile and pathetic, but even as I type these words thirty years later the blood surges in my ears and my whole being seethes with feelings of disgusted outrage, bitter resentment and maddened disappointment at such shattering injustice. Nothing will ever put it right. Nothing, I tell you, nothing. Oh well.
Corpus Christening Back at Cambridge as the Lent term came to a close I was approached by one Mark McCrum, now a well-known travel writer but in those days a larky, impish undergraduate with a flop of black hair and eyes like glistening currants. His father, Michael, was headmaster of Eton (though shortly to return to Cambridge to take up the mastership of Corpus Christi), and his older brother, Robert, was beginning to make a name for himself in publishing at Faber and Faber. Mark McCrum, with the initiative, enterprise and guileless chutzpah that were trademark characteristics, had taken charge of a small L-shaped s.p.a.ce in St Edward"s Pa.s.sage belonging to Corpus Christi College. He and his friend Caroline Oulton planned to turn it into "The Playroom", a drama venue that would specialize in new writing. I knew Caroline Oulton and adored her. She had been one of the Macbeth Macbeth cast, and I had always tried to sit next to her on the coach. She stirred surprising things in me. cast, and I had always tried to sit next to her on the coach. She stirred surprising things in me.
She and Mark had a most unexpected request. They wanted me to write a play to christen the Playroom: not necessarily full length, perhaps it could be part of a double bill? They had asked a clever young undergraduate called Robert Farrar to provide the other half of the evening. What did I think?
I was flattered, excited and alarmed, keen to try, yet scared of failing. Why did they think I might be capable of writing a play play? I had never written anything close to such a thing in my life. Private poetry and the occasional article for Broadsheet Broadsheet were my whole writing career. were my whole writing career.
"Go home for the vac, sit and concentrate. Write about what you know. It"ll be brilliant. But bear in mind it"s a really intimate s.p.a.ce. Anything you can write that makes the audience feel part of things will be perfect."
Term ended, and I returned to Norfolk. "Write about what you know" is the maxim that I had most heard from writers dead and alive. In my William Morris wallpapered room at the top of the house I sat at my desk and wondered what I knew. Inst.i.tutions. I knew schools and I knew prison. That was about it. "Involve the audience." Hm ...
I started to write the opening of a lesson in which a prep school master harangues his Latin cla.s.s, tossing back their exercise books with hyperbolic disdain: "Boys who rub me up the wrong way, Elwyn-Jones, come to a sticky end ..." that sort of thing. The audience are the cla.s.s. There comes a sudden lighting change that alters the time scheme and the dramatic mode, bringing down the fourth wall with a crash. A knock at the door, an older master enters, a story unfolds. I wrote and wrote away, first in longhand on a pad, then typing up each scene on my treasured Hermes 3000 typewriter, a jade-green-keyed and battleship-grey-bodied machine of incomparable solidity and beauty.
I contrived a farcical plot incorporating pederasty, blackmail and romance which was interwoven with other cla.s.sroom scenes involving the audience in such a way, I hoped, as to satisfy the requirements of Mark"s and Caroline"s commission.
I typed out the t.i.tle page: Latin!
or Tobacco and Boys A New Play by Sue Denim Sue Denim being "pseudonym" of course. I cannot quite recall why I decided to present the play under a nom de plume I think perhaps I had some hope that if the audience believed it to have been written by a woman they might forgive the piece its less than radical milieu.
Caroline and Mark seemed pleased with it, and a friend from Queens", Simon Cherry, agreed to direct. A law undergraduate called John Davies played the older master Herbert Brookshaw, and I played Dominic Clarke, the young hero of the play, if hero is quite the word we want.
The production sold out the Playroom for its short run of three days and so, as there seemed to be a demand for more, we performed Latin! Latin! again for a week in the Trinity Hall lecture theatre. again for a week in the Trinity Hall lecture theatre.
I was a playwright! The peculiarly exultant joy that comes over you when you have written a piece of work is like no other. Admiration and acclaim for acting performances, rousing ovations and deafening applause do not come close to the special pride you feel in having made something that was not there before out of no more exotic a material than words.
As a writer, I was approached by Emma Thompson and asked if I might contribute some comedy sketches for a show she was putting on at the ADC theatre with a group of friends. It was to showcase all-female comic talent and would be called Woman"s Hour Woman"s Hour. I swallowed an inclination to suggest that if it bore that t.i.tle and had only women performing in it, then surely it should also be written written exclusively by women. But it was enough of a step that women were at least putting on their own comedy show fifty years earlier they were forbidden to act in plays in Cambridge. Indeed they were only admitted as full members of the university as recently as ten years before I was born. Alongside Emma in exclusively by women. But it was enough of a step that women were at least putting on their own comedy show fifty years earlier they were forbidden to act in plays in Cambridge. Indeed they were only admitted as full members of the university as recently as ten years before I was born. Alongside Emma in Woman"s Hour Woman"s Hour was the Footlights" first-ever female President, Jan Ravens, and a young Danish-born performer called Sandi Toksvig. I wrote a few of the sketches, the only two I can remember being a parody of a book review programme and a monologue for Emma in which she played a tweedy horsey woman at a Pony Club gymkhana bellowing encouragement at her daughter. Ground-breaking, revolutionary material. The show was considered a great success, and certainly the talent of Emma, Jan and Sandi was plain for all to see. was the Footlights" first-ever female President, Jan Ravens, and a young Danish-born performer called Sandi Toksvig. I wrote a few of the sketches, the only two I can remember being a parody of a book review programme and a monologue for Emma in which she played a tweedy horsey woman at a Pony Club gymkhana bellowing encouragement at her daughter. Ground-breaking, revolutionary material. The show was considered a great success, and certainly the talent of Emma, Jan and Sandi was plain for all to see.
A friend of Mark McCrum"s called Ben Blackshaw now came to me with a play he had written called Have You Seen the Yellow Book? Have You Seen the Yellow Book? It doc.u.mented in vivid little scenes the rise and fall of Oscar Wilde. Ben wanted me for the part of Oscar. Ben directed, and we went on in the Playroom. Through this play I received my first review in a national newspaper. The It doc.u.mented in vivid little scenes the rise and fall of Oscar Wilde. Ben wanted me for the part of Oscar. Ben directed, and we went on in the Playroom. Through this play I received my first review in a national newspaper. The Gay News Gay News critic wrote that I "carried the lilt of Irish without the brogue". I kept the tiny sc.r.a.p of paper that formed the entirety of his review in my wallet for years afterwards. critic wrote that I "carried the lilt of Irish without the brogue". I kept the tiny sc.r.a.p of paper that formed the entirety of his review in my wallet for years afterwards.