Part 14 (2/2)

I christened Emma, Carol and Victoria the WellNeds, and they stayed with the progra as anyone

For my first few contributions to Loose Ends Loose Ends I presented a range of characters e 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 co 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 i For reasons which now seeinatively, Starsky and Hutch Starsky and Hutch of all prograled out as a'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, Caius Chair of Couistics 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 Edan and others oodness, he concluded, for the jolly car-chases and fight scenes where actors dressed as policemen pretend to shoot each other without innocent ing to the young of all prograled out as a'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, Caius Chair of Couistics 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 Edan and others oodness, he concluded, for the jolly car-chases and fight scenes where actors dressed as policemen pretend to shoot each other without innocent ing to the young

Heavy stea fro tweedy don too old to care whoh at any rate to encouragesi week Soon Trefusis becaraph of introduction would suggest the fiction that I, Stephen Fry, had gone round to his rooms at St Matthew's to interview hiet a trickle of fan ely tore into the fad for Parent Power in education, turned the trickle into a flood of hundreds of letters,for a transcript of the talk, or 'wireless essay' as he preferred to call thee and perceived wisdoely satirical than I could ever have been in my own vocal persona The British are like that, especially the ry person annoys them, and they shout at the radio for hiet the spiritual and intellectual equivalent of a haircut But let the sah 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 alht 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 alht 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 hts I know you young people feel the cold terribly, but I'ht Yes, it is is nice, isn't it? Though I wouldn't really call it a cushi+on, Pekinese is a more common name for them No, well never mind, he was very old just throw hih I wouldn't really call it a cushi+on, 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 Sussex to start h the cast list

Paul Eddington had been proud play nearly sixteen years earlier, that of the head star of television situation comedy, well known and loved as Penelope Keith's harassed 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 so 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 Cae 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 partnershi+p with John Bird was to achieve great proain in the late nineties and beyond with their wildly intelligent and prescient satirical contributions to His partnershi+p with John Bird was to achieve great proain 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 Meldreife in One Foot in the Grave One Foot in the Grave, but I relamorous Queen Victoria in Edward VII Edward VII and an almost impossibly perky and delicious Fairy Godmother in the and an almost impossibly perky and delicious Fairy Godmother in the The Slipper and the Rose The Slipper and the Rose Doris Hare appeared as the old grandisterial trouper of the old school,Varney's randisterial trouper of the old school,Varney'sactor called Stephen Rashbrook took the part of the head prefect, while the rest of the school were played by local West Sussex 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 sue, 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 coed second house called the Minerva, served as a space for s, Chichester was much prized by old-school actors who liked the relaxed at season in repertory that didn't uaranteed festival attendance This regular local audience was known collectively as Colonel and Mrs Chichester on account of their severe and hidebound tastes Rattigan seeht they were able to stomach Colonel and Mrs Chichester were not afraid to i news that they went to the theatre to be that I had coed second house called the Minerva, served as a space for s, Chichester was much prized by old-school actors who liked the relaxed at season in repertory that didn't uaranteed festival attendance This regular local audience was known collectively as Colonel and Mrs Chichester on account of their severe and hidebound tastes Rattigan seeht they were able to stomach Colonel and Mrs Chichester were not afraid to i 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 wereit, gentlemen, but I do feel myself constrained to observe that the dilatory nature of the coress immediately consequent upon Paul's second act exordium is injurious to the pace and dynarateful if this deficiency were rener was Peter Rice, whose son Matthew soon beca the garden of the little house he had hired for the season, shot rabbits and pigeons, skinned and plucked same and cooked thes, sketched and painted His voice was not unlike Princess Margaret's: high, grand and piercing Perhaps he had spent tooa close friend of her son, David Linley, hoe was a charh'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 iven to Frank Thornton, better known as the Grace Brothers floorwalker Captain Peacock 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 nextwas 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 froht I proudly introduced theton 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 ined could ever issue froess and Far Fro Crowd's Gabriel Oak, two of the ot 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 anal Beast, or, in ht party for the Forty Years On Forty Years On 'transfer', Queen's Theatre, London, 1984 Katie Kelly (back to us, shi+ny bun), boys froh Laurie, sister Jo 'transfer', Queen's Theatre, London, 1984 Katie Kelly (back to us, shi+ny bun), boys froh 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 so any better than coood Fine Fine That last is the worst word in theatre When friends coe 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 wasyou 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, 'God, that stank Stephen was ehastly' Then they enter and, as if answering and contradicting thereatno, really, Iht because I so often catchto 'Noreally, it was fine'

The production as a whole was considered a success, however Colonel and Mrs Chichester enthused, and word soon got out that ere going to 'transfer'

'Excellent news,' Paul Eddington said to o on I nearly wrote 'as we stood in the wings', but Chichester had an apron stage that thrust out into the auditoriu 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 tookof '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? Noas 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 so an outdoor perforrotesque

Later, Patrick said to ood 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 Kiether 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 ent Square, Bloomsbury Just me and the new love of h up excitedly 'I've just bought a Macintosh Cost h enjoyed about a week of relaying the news ofas absurd and unworthy of outlay as a raincoat before he discovered that this Macintosh was a new type of coely 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 hite white when you started it all up and loaded the system disk The text that calowing green or orange on black offered by all other co the es of a floppy disk and a dustbin appeared on screen and all along the top ords which, when clicked on with the raphical roller-blind on which menu options ritten You could double-click on pictures of documents and folders and panes would open I had never seen or i like it Nor had anyone Only Apple's short-lived Lisa cos 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 calowing green or orange on black offered by all other co the es of a floppy disk and a dustbin appeared on screen and all along the top ords which, when clicked on with the raphical roller-blind on which menu options ritten You could double-click on pictures of documents and folders and panes would open I had never seen or i like it Nor had anyone Only Apple's short-lived Lisa cos before and it had never had a place in the consuraphical 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 iine a time when computers could have been presented in any other fashi+on, 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, Araphical desktop as 'gi fad' Well, I shall refrain fro 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, ewriter bitmap printer and small collection of floppy disks were all very, very very happy together What possible need could I have for sex or huether What possible need could I have for sex or huh, Katie and Nick Syhton Grove, Kentish Town; I had my Bloomsbury flat; Kim stayed on in Chelsea We all saw each other as ht tie 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 deent, unforeseen rewrites

We had participated in sohatsbetween his identity as the show's producer, the heir and er of the composer's estate and, not least so far as I was concerned, ent 'I have had a ith eous demands as to your financial participation in this project I wanted to cut you out of any backend, but I absolutely insisted, so much to reatly'

Early on in the rehearsal process Leslie Ash had not responded well to her dance and vocal lessons and by reement 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?