Part 10 (1/2)

Richard looked down at his notes 'Three days'

'Bli not to look too disappointed 'It isn't ht thousand a day Well, if you feel '

Thousand! I sed drily, pushi+nginto causeinto cause me to choke Twenty-five thousand pounds Twenty-five thousand pounds For three days' work

'No, no!' I faltered 'I hly of Paul Weiland Good experience for you Starts shooting in Shepperton on Monday They'll want you at Ber toency'

I tottered about London for the rest of thatin a drea I owed them and I would still be rich Rich beyond the dreams of avarice Well, not that, obviously The dreao well beyond twenty-five odd thousand pounds minus 15 per cent commission, minus tax and VAT, h for me

You would have just cause to hate me now, reader, when I tell you that from that day to this I have never had what one could seriously call money troubles Not money troubles of the kind that cause so hastly feeling likeinto their sto debt and the apparent i their finances in order That tremble of panic and dread that so many feel in relation to s but I know that many in the world would trade much for the kind of cushi+on of cash that has enveloped me for thirty years I did not know, as I went about London -shopping that day, that in two and a half years' ti in

The three days of the shoot in Shepperton Studios passed in a sweat of worry, e took so long, what I was doing, who everyone was or what the coet to knoo years later when I joined the cast of Blackadder II Blackadder II, had been cast as a lute-wielding minstrel of some kind The character of Abdul was played by an actor called Tony Cos I, init today on YouTube (try searching for Whitbread Best Bitter 1982 Ad or similar) the film still appears to make very little sense, and I am sure that even now my discomfort in the role of Count Ivan transmits across the decades I think I was cast on account of my pointy chin rather than because of any discernible skill or talent

Paul Weiland was char My h Hudson on the set of Chariots of Fire Chariots of Fire had preparedonly from assistants, and this was exactly hoas I spentcups of tea while birds twitted and shi+tted in the gantry far above There are generations of pigeon, sparrow and chaffinch that have lived out their lives in the roof spaces of the great sound stages of Pinewood and Shepperton They have dus on some of the is have interrupted dialogue froer Moore and a thousand others Mostly, however, they have overseen the less glamorous business of commercial and pop video shoots that make up the bread-and-butter business for studio staff, film crews and happily overpaid actors I know that I a work and feel that it is either beneathret Orson Welles always said with high-handed disdain, 'If it was good enough for Toulouse-Lautrec and John Everett Millais, then it is good enough for reat figures from the past, I just find it fun had preparedonly from assistants, and this was exactly hoas I spentcups of tea while birds twitted and shi+tted in the gantry far above There are generations of pigeon, sparrow and chaffinch that have lived out their lives in the roof spaces of the great sound stages of Pinewood and Shepperton They have dus on some of the is have interrupted dialogue froer Moore and a thousand others Mostly, however, they have overseen the less glamorous business of commercial and pop video shoots that make up the bread-and-butter business for studio staff, film crews and happily overpaid actors I know that I a work and feel that it is either beneathret Orson Welles always said with high-handed disdain, 'If it was good enough for Toulouse-Lautrec and John Everett Millais, then it is good enough for reat figures from the past, I just find it fun

Create!

We were back in Manchester by October fil to Worry About There's Nothing to Worry About, was to be broadcast nationally Ben had created for us a fictional world which he called The Pretend Pub The concept ht kindly be described as playful meta-textual post-modernisard it as incoent twaddle, which I suppose is how most playful htened versions of ourselves in an obviously unreal studio pub I was Stezzer, Hugh was Huzzer, Robbie Bobzer, Ben Bezzer, Emma Ezzer and Siobhan shi+zzer We still often call each other by those nah Ben, for reasons lost in ti

Alfresco, series 2: The Pretend Pub

In the first episode, I enter, covered in polystyrene flakes of stage snow, greeting Robbie with the words, 'My word, Pretend Landlord Bobzer, there's a hell of a theatrical effect going on out there ' We performed these sketches in front of a mostly silent and beht that ere ahead of our tireat deal of the problem came from self-consciousness Ben knew very well (partly because he was directly involved) what his conte in the field of alternative coh and I were painfully and acutely aware of what our tradition had done in the field of sketch coh to Python and Not the Nine O'Clock News Not the Nine O'Clock News As a result ere guilty, it is clear looking back, of over-co perceived as iinal We ruled out parodies and 'Ah, come in, Perkins, shut the door, do sit down,' sketches because Python and Not Not had done these Surreality and anarchic weirdness were out too because Rik, Ade and Alexei had cornered that uiltily and confusedly without the confidence to do e did best Audiences, I now realize (and frankly it should always have been blindingly obvious), do not think along such lines Novelty and originality do not coenres or new modalities They come from the had done these Surreality and anarchic weirdness were out too because Rik, Ade and Alexei had cornered that uiltily and confusedly without the confidence to do e did best Audiences, I now realize (and frankly it should always have been blindingly obvious), do not think along such lines Novelty and originality do not coenres or new modalities They come from the ho and the and the ho, not fro out, furtheret anywhere unless they do what they do best, and everyone, in their secret, secret heart, knohat they do best

An Alfresco Alfresco sketch that a merciful providence has erased from my memory sketch that a merciful providence has erased from my memory

Meanwhile Steve Morrison, our Scottish executive producer, pleaded with us to stop bellyaching 'Go out and create, man!' he yelled atmore than usually pedantically or sceptically or in souaranteed to annoy He stood and pointed at the door 'I want Ayckbourn with edge,' he screae!' Well, quite

It was h up in Granada a proble had been identified In the case of Ben it ht have been over-productivity and a lack of self-censorshi+p; in the case of Hugh andconstipation and a kind of apologetic, high-toned e For one excruciating e all had to undergo a kind of co masterclass with Bernie Sahlins, one of the producers of the Second City revue group and television show Bernie, brother of the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, was from a tradition of improvisation that he helped create back in the days of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, a tradition that had burst into television and ht Live Saturday Night Live generation of Aykroyd, Chase, Murray, Belushi+ and Radner Ben wrote alone and wasn't faintly interested in the styles and techniques of Chicago ih and I were pretty appalled too at the idea of 'building a scene' through iue in the approved Aether we sometimes did improvise, inas before co it to paper I suspect that if we had been accused of i ould have frozen in horror midway and would never have been able to continue The cultural gulf between our way and Bernie Sahlins's way must have perplexed and even offended hieable one and he left Manchester after five days without having made a dent in us He did teach us that if we had been born American ould never ever have ht him that the British people are stubborn, shy and entirely dole predominant emotion, affect, vice, characteristic, diseasewhatever oneout script after script in his way, and we carried on not pouring out anything eneration of Aykroyd, Chase, Murray, Belushi+ and Radner Ben wrote alone and wasn't faintly interested in the styles and techniques of Chicago ih and I were pretty appalled too at the idea of 'building a scene' through iue in the approved Aether we sometimes did improvise, inas before co it to paper I suspect that if we had been accused of i ould have frozen in horror midway and would never have been able to continue The cultural gulf between our way and Bernie Sahlins's way must have perplexed and even offended hieable one and he left Manchester after five days without having made a dent in us He did teach us that if we had been born American ould never ever have ht him that the British people are stubborn, shy and entirely dole predominant emotion, affect, vice, characteristic, diseasewhatever oneout script after script in his way, and we carried on not pouring out anything much in ours

As well as Steve Morrison, Sandy Ross, Robbie and Siobhan,had a fifth Scot on board in the shape of a producer called John G Teh revealed that Teetting into costus I was on

'No drugs,' Hugh had said 'That's just how Stephen is'

When he relayed this exchange to me I had been profoundly shocked What was it about er to leap to the instant conclusion that I h explained to e that it was possibly s I had always been loud and verbally exuberant from the earliest hours, but it had never occurred to h to present the appearance of drug abuse Everyone else was used to erated elation and bounce, but they were evidently weird enough to a newcomer like John to excite the wildest speculation

Perhaps this should have sounded as a warning in my head for me to attend to my states ofeccentricities, nored or laughingly dealt with One is so narls and twists and kinks that life and the caprices of one's mind confer Past forty it is, of course, another story What once hippy and pliable now snaps like dried bone So , unusual, provocative and adical, boring, and ruinous in e A hurt or troubled mind plays out a story very like that of an alcoholic's life A twenty-year-old who drinks heavily is a bit of a rogue; sometimes he may be a little flushed in the face, sometimes too pie-eyed to turn up to this or that appointment on tih and resilient enough to get on with life Quite when the broken veins, spongy nose, hues take full root it is hard to say, but one day everyone notices that their hard-drinking friend is no longer funny and no longer char they have become an embarrassment, a liability and a bore I have seen and experienced the same with little personality wrinkles and dispositions that have been so acceptable and endearing and apparently harony, addiction, degeneration, misery, self-harm and suicide in later years There have beenthis book when I have looked back at nearly all my friends and contemporaries (myself included of course), so ood fortune, and I have found myself forced to believe that all of us have failed in life Or life has failed us In our fifties the physical deterioration which one would naturally expect has been far outstripped by disappointment, bitterness, despair, mental instability and failure

Then I slap myself across the chops and tellAnd yet the episode with the car arded by sorandiosity

Car The sixth Scot in the Alfresco Alfresco line-up was Dave McNiven, our resident musical director and composer Naturally I saw very little of hi, our professional paths were set never to cross again You may wonder how he can have line-up was Dave McNiven, our resident musical director and composer Naturally I saw very little of hi, our professional paths were set never to cross again You , but this just shows the depths of un It is very hard to be in a chorus and tothemselves heard A musical ear can pick up a discord instantly, noand no matter ho and inadvertent the tiny sound that eet the shocked look on Dave's face as he spun round in my direction I had seen it before and I was destined to see it ain It was the particular look of disisters on the countenance of one who only moments before has said with supreme certainty and unruffled confidence, 'Oh, believe , but this just shows the depths of un It is very hard to be in a chorus and tothemselves heard A musical ear can pick up a discord instantly, noand no matter ho and inadvertent the tiny sound that eet the shocked look on Dave's face as he spun round in my direction I had seen it before and I was destined to see it ain It was the particular look of disisters on the countenance of one who only moments before has said with supreme certainty and unruffled confidence, 'Oh, believe !' I exist on this planet precisely to teach such wrong-headed opti!' I exist on this planet precisely to teach such wrong-headed optiiven over tolessons I had taken a fehile teaching at Cundall Manor Back then, as I had bucked and jerked the -school's Austin Metro down the main street of Thirsk I had been told with hard Yorkshi+re disdain, 'Tha gear and clutch control is shi+te, and tha steering is as much use as a chocolate teapot' The Mancunian instructor four years later was much friendlier, as people so often are west of the Pennines, or perhaps it was thatskills had improved in the interval He would hum quietly to himself and look interestedly out of theat the street scenes that flashed by, apparently confident enough inas Ihis favourite route, past the university halls of residence in Rusholsway and into the maze of residential backstreets around Cheadle Hulme One afternoon, quite unexpectedly, he announced that I was ready to takeweek

'If you've no objection?'

Half an hour later I foundhands on a deal I have no idea what rush of blood to the head had propelledabout it I had called up al owner of a second-hand 323i in reen Sunroof, Blaupunkt stereo and 16,000dared tell Hugh that I had done so of providence as to buy a car before I had even passed athered in my room at the Midland Hotel I ordered up wine, beer and crisps and atched a repeat of May's original transhts shoo days later we asseain with even more wine, beer and crisps to watch the launch of the all-new Channel 4, which included in its opening night line-up Comic Strip PresentsFive Go Mad in Dorset Comic Strip PresentsFive Go Mad in Dorset, in which Robbie played two parts This was the first new channel on British television since the arrival of BBC 2 in 1964

I passedtest, raced around insurance offices and returned to the car showroom properly possessed of paperwork that allowed ot aith it If I had failed my test I wonder what I would have done with the car? Simply left it there I suppose

I host a bed party in my room at the Midland Hotel We seee 2 A week later we met for a third time in my hotel room and, surrounded by all the wine, beer and crisps the Midland staff could produce, atched the first episode of The Young Ones, which Ben had co-written and in which he also appeared

Within a week then, two seis priraphic figure 4 which o seeenerated motion, to usher in a brave neorld, and when Ade Edh the kitchen wall in the opening five h a whole new generation had punched its way into British cultural life and that nothing would ever be the saeneration had punched its way into British cultural life and that nothing would ever be the sa Ones was an instant success in exactly the as an instant success in exactly the way Alfresco Alfresco, whose first series wasn't broadcast until mid-1983, manifestly wasn't Rik Mayall especially soared into stardo of Comedy: the brilliantly childish, Cliff-Richard-obsessed character of Rick in The Young Ones The Young Ones with his exaggerated derhotacizations and uncontrolled giggling snorts sealed a reputation that had grown froinal 20th Century Coyote act with Ade Ederated derhotacizations and uncontrolled giggling snorts sealed a reputation that had grown froinal 20th Century Coyote act with Ade Edhties A Kick Up the Eighties as Kevin Turvey, the Chic Murray of Kidderminster as Kevin Turvey, the Chic Murray of Kidderence I felt between this hot lava stream of new talent and the constipated conventional and constricted tradition from which I derived was extreh Froent and paranoid to harp on about it, but the distinction did at least lead to one fruitful conversation in the bar of the Midland in January 1983 Ben, Rik and Lise had already started work on a second series of The Young Ones The Young Ones, and the thought had struckwatched lines of undergraduates queuing up, as I had three years earlier, for canteen lunches in between rounds of University Challenge University Challenge, that perhaps Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike, being a student foursoht themselves be entered for the quiz, with, as the Radio Tigested this to Ben, who instantly enthused He and the others produced 'Ba University, coe, in the snooty, privileged persons of Hugh, Emma, Ben and me My character was called Lord Snot, an insanely shi+ny toff based on the ested this to Ben, who instantly enthused He and the others produced 'Ba University, coe, in the snooty, privileged persons of Hugh, Emma, Ben and me My character was called Lord Snot, an insanely shi+ny toff based on the Beano Beano's Lord Snooty

Ben enesis of that episode It is one of the known eternal truths of coood idea has a dozen parents while a duff one remains an orphan From wherever or whomever this idea derived the shoas recorded a year or so later with Griff Rhys Jones as Bauard It is still considered, I think, one of theOnes episodes, in part because of an unusually strong and coherent narrative and in part also because the parricidal revenge of the new and radical upon the old and reactionary is played out so literally and satisfyingly Footlights College are routed and hu in fact episodes, in part because of an unusually strong and coherent narrative and in part also because the parricidal revenge of the new and radical upon the old and reactionary is played out so literally and satisfyingly Footlights College are routed and hu in fact

The Young Ones Coh and I to a crippling extent hobbled by self-consciousness and a foolish desire to avoid e considered had been done before But did we have any kind of a theory of comedy, any banner that anted to raise?

It was clear to h had a more complete canteen of comic cutlery in his drawer than the pitiful selection of plastic coffee-stirrers and archaic horn-handled knives that I felt capable of wielding As I have said, I ithout envy, but with a h was a master of three enormously i incompetent He had music He could play any instru He had physical control of his body As a natural athlete he could roll, fall, leap, dance and jig to co face thatsad eyes, a funny chin and a hilarious upper lip And I? I could be verbally adept and I could play poures anderthat was it, really Could I cut it as an actor, or had my commitment to comedy cut that avenue off? In the corind, no new stylistic mode to advance I liked the old-fashi+oned sketch coh the world had little ti to have to be prih it is true that one feels fantastic when one has finished finished a writing task, it istask, it isit You will see therefore that writing, ghastly at the tireat afterwards, is exactly the opposite of sex All that keeps one going is the knowledge that one will feel good when it's all over I knew, as all writers know, that perfor adnized, pampered, praised and told hoonderful they are and what it You will see therefore that writing, ghastly at the tireat afterwards, is exactly the opposite of sex All that keeps one going is the knowledge that one will feel good when it's all over I knew, as all writers know, that perfor adnized, pay energy and and resource resource and and strength strength they have to cope with all that they have to cope with all that pressure pressure Pah They only hile they are in rehearsal, on set or on stage; for the rest of the tie about like lords Writers on the other hand are in a permanent state of school exas above them like sinister rooks; producers, publishers and perfor for rewrites and improvements Any down time looks like evasion and indolence There is no moment at which one cannot, and should not it see

There are compensations You only have to write a play once and then you can sit back and let the ht tih and I riter-performers writer-performers rote the material that we performed I could not decide whether this meant we had the best of both worlds or the worst To this day I cannot be sure It is obvious, however, that in terms of employment it doubles one's opportunities Whatever I lacked in physical attributes as a natural clown I seeh's word It seeh I had produced nothing up until that point except rote the material that we performed I could not decide whether this meant we had the best of both worlds or the worst To this day I cannot be sure It is obvious, however, that in terms of employment it doubles one's opportunities Whatever I lacked in physical attributes as a natural clown I seeh's word It seeh I had produced nothing up until that point except Latin! Latin! And, with Hugh, the h, the material in The Cellar Tapes The Cellar Tapes and the handful of and the handful of Alfresco Alfresco sketches that had h to transh to transs now happened in a succession rapid enough to be called simultaneity and which served to bolster the self-estee soso much to undermine

Cinema In the late sue and a man called Don Boyd Boyd had produced Alan Clarke's cineinal 1977 BBC television production had been Mary Whitehoused off the screen) as well as Derek Jarinal 1977 BBC television production had been Mary Whitehoused off the screen) as well as Derek Jarman's Tempest Tempest and Julien Temple's and Julien Temple's The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and he now planned to direct his first major feature film, which was to be called and he now planned to direct his first major feature filined a British compendium of The Sweet Smell of Success The Sweet Smell of Success and and La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita infused with the spirit and h's infused with the spirit and h's Vile Bodies Vile Bodies This was to be a film that would capture a new and horrible side to Thatcher's Britain: the recently confident, arrogant, vulgar Sloaney world in which night-club narcissists, trust-fund trash and philistine druggie aristos cavorted with recently cherished icons of finance, fashi+on and celebrity It was a soulless, squalid, valueless and trashy milieu that believed itself to be the stylish social suazed with breathless envy and admiration

A script had been written by the brothers Michael and Stephen Tolkin Although their screenplay had been set in Britain, Don felt that, as Americans, they had not quite captured the world of London 'society' such as it was in the early eighties and he was after solish voice Jilly Gutteridge, as to be location er and assistant producer, was instantly affectionate and charly enthusiastic about iven the job of rewriting the script for the princely sum of 1,000 I had three weeks in which to do it The part of the lead character, a beau ossip coluins, who had starred opposite her in Peter Greenaway's gossip coluins, who had starred opposite her in Peter Greenaway's The Draughtshtsman's Contract, would be the man hom she falls in love and ould rescue her from the unworthy world she inhabits Simon Callow and Gary Oldman were also cast It was to be Oldman's first film appearance

I rewrote in a fever of excitement, and Don seemed pleased with my efforts His preparations ell advanced for what I soon learnt was known as the 'principal photography' In thewith Michael Tolkin, who just happened to be in town As one of the original writers he had read ht even have one or two valuable suggestions

I assented to this idea, and Tolkin and I met in an Italian restaurant called the Villa Puccini which was just yards from the Draycott Place flat

'The Villa Puccini,' said Kim 'Named, one must suppose, after the famous composer Villa-Lobos'

The lunch was not destined to be the feast of reason and the flow of soul of which P G Wodehouse and Alexander Pope wrote so fondly Tolkin was very disapproving of what I had done to his beloved story He was outraged at ue scene

'The focal point of the narrative The pivot about which the entire movie revolves The centrepiece The keystone The eless without that scene There is is no picture without it You couldn't no picture without it You couldn't see see that?' that?'

I tried as best I could to explain why I had felt it rong and unconvincing