by Dawn French
So, do you remember when I called you and told you about the production? ‘Who is in it?’ you asked. I told you. Juan Diego Flórez is the tenor, Natalie Dessay is the soprano, Laurent Pelly is the director, and so on. ‘There is only one word to use regarding this decision, Dawn,’ you said, ‘and that word is “must”. You MUST do this. If you do not do this I will kill you. No, seriously. Kill you. A slow, lingering, merciless death. Understand?’ Message received. You went on to explain that these people are the corps d’élite, prodigious talents at the top of their game, and the time was right, this particular opera hadn’t been performed at ‘The Garden’ since Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland did it in the sixties. It’s rarely staged because the tenor has to hit nine extremely difficult high ‘C’s in one demanding aria and there are very few singers alive who can do it well. Juan Diego is one such singer. And what’s more, you explained, he’s Peruvian and drop-dead gorgeous. Sold.
What a bloomin’ roller coaster! Opera is such a different world to the kind of theatre I am used to. My part was in French so I had to attempt to conquer that, which I never fully did, so we decided Franglais was a good, funny, alternative route. To be directed in French was quite an experience. I found out that operating in a language which is not your first language is potentially limiting, especially for comedy, because the nuances, the playing around, is curtailed. I couldn’t have as much verbal fun as I usually would in a rehearsal room, with shared jokes and running gags. I had to make myself understood with gesture and posture, which is suitable for big opera in a big opera house. I was also aware that my part was tiny and that a great big muscly machine of a production can’t wait about for one fat ol’ comedienne to arse about. It needed to be grand and slick, and funny. This, after all, is not my audience. They might loathe my intrusion, my style. Gulp. In the rehearsal space the singers mark their parts by blocking out their actions, but not singing out too loudly, in order to save their voices. The day comes eventually, when, after endless costume, shoe, wig, jewellery, make-up tests and fittings, you actually get on the stage for a dress rehearsal. Finally, the many different elements who’ve been rehearsing in many different rooms come together at last. That’s when the chorus are there to join in and when the singers sing out for the first time. That’s when my head was nearly whipped off with the full force of the sheer blast of power of their huge impressive voices. It was fantastic!
Luckily, the show was well received, and no one seemed to mind me, the impostor, too much. When opera audiences love a show, they really love it. We would bow our way through ten curtain calls with the entire opera house on their feet. It was utterly thrilling and I’m so glad I took your advice, Alf, to do it. I made some good friends, and I had a front-row, in fact onstage, seat every night to hear and see such phenomenal talents at their peak.
During the run, I kept complaining that I would finish my time at the opera house having never sung a note. Surely, I ought to be entitled to one note?! Then I’d be able to claim for ever that I had sung onstage at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. My final exit each night from the stage was a big huffy flounce off, accompanied by a loud angry roar because my character had been thwarted. It comes about three minutes from the end. So, on the very last night, instead of roaring I decided to sing that last moment of fury. I waited, I waited. The moment came, and I sang out loudly, one note, one word, ‘Merde! ’ – and exited. Yes, ladies and gentlemen and my beloved Alfred, I have indeed sung onstage at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. I thank you.
BRAVO! And Toi Toi Toi!
Dear Dad,
WE’VE NEVER BEEN a family where any one person’s achievements matter more than anyone else’s, so I really want to make sure you know about all the amazing stuff Mum and Gary have done.
Gary, it probably comes as no surprise, has been adventurous. He’s travelled a lot, especially in his twenties and thirties. He would work hard for a couple of years to fund each next journey, where he would have phenomenal experiences – for instance, actually building the main part of a hospital in a leper colony in India, or living with and helping Tibetan refugees. Then, when he’d exhausted his funds, he’d return and put his nose to the grindstone again. But even the grindstone has been an area of huge personal achievement about which he has been very quiet, very self-effacing. He’s worked mostly in housing, both in London and in Devon and Cornwall. At one time, he was finding housing for people on probation for whom life was pretty tricky, and he was later the instigator of an amazing ‘Foyer’ scheme in Plymouth. He’d seen a version of this scheme working on the Continent, where young homeless people are given a place to stay while they have access to an IT centre and careers advice which they can use to springboard them into jobs and consequently further housing. They are given counselling and lifestyle advice to help them bridge the gap between home (for many, this is a major problem area) and work. A crucial stepping stone for the young, vulnerable and disaffected. It sounds like the sort of thing you would have been involved with, Dad. Perhaps he is more of a chip off the old block than we know. He has married a fantastic woman, Sarah, with whom he has had two gorgeous kids, Hannah (the Heavenly) and Jack (the Lad). He is a great dad, for whom family comes before everything. They live happily in Cornwall, where Gary and Sarah both worked hard in housing – until recently, when Gary made a huge decision of which you would be so proud. He decided to change his life completely. No longer does he work nine to five for the city council, where he was snowed under with bureaucracy. He runs the cafe that overlooks Burgh Island at Bigbury-on-Sea in Devon. He is his own boss, he cooks the grub and makes the decisions. I’ve rarely seen him so happy. He is knackered a lot of the time, but he starts and ends his day with a cup of coffee, looking out to sea knowing that life is more than memos and meetings. Who knows what he’ll do next. He is willing and open and creative. He knows, as we all do so well in our family, that nothing is worth getting depressed about, that you have to expand your horizons and ‘follow your bliss’, as Joseph Campbell said. Gary knows himself and has listened to his heart. He’s still fiery-tempered, always fighting for the rights of the underdog or the unheard. He is remarkably unmaterialistic and generous of spirit, and he is a great listener. Certainly for me and for Mum. He loves his dog, his family and his friends, he loves to sail, he loves to read, he loves music, and chickens and pigs and food and Cornwall. Simple stuff really. Properly achievable, tangible happiness is his motivation and I really think he’s done that rare thing, and found it.
Mum rose from the ashes like a phoenix. She turned her grief and her loneliness and her fear into a snowball of energy that gained and gained momentum. One Christmas, maybe 1982 or so, I noticed she had an unusual amount of cards on her fireplace. As I read them each one was more effusive than the last, Dear Roma, you are the light in my darkness, To Roma, thank you for saving my life, and on they went. When I asked who these people were, it turned out she was opening her home to all comers, glue-sniffers and heroin addicts and alcoholics alike, to have a place to come and talk. Although it was a generous gesture, I was a bit concerned for her safety, and I felt that she would be more use to people if she had the proper training. Well, Dad, she was amazing. Mum, who had left school at 16, took herself off for, firstly, a foundation counselling course, then further qualifications to enable her to help the people she most wanted to. She was gripped with a desire to change what she saw was useless practice and bad law when it came to young mothers with drug problems. The typical process was that, once the mothers were discovered to be addicts, the social services would immediately take the children into foster care until the women had been through rehab and proven they were clean. It all had to go through the courts, so very often this process could take years, during which the mother and children were separated. Mum’s theory was: keep them all together in a safe place. They must recover and heal together because the kids are the ‘affected others’ and need to witness their mum’s recovery in order to trust her again. It’s no good separ
ating them, it only causes heartache and alienation; but if the mums and kids are to remain together, it has to be controlled and supervised for the kids’ sakes. Meanwhile, alongside the rehab, the mum also gets cooking and parenting classes, the kids go to local schools and they all work together to slowly, carefully feed the family back into society when they’re ready.
In order to achieve this, Mum had to find the funding to buy properties that could be transformed into safe flats for the families, with a rehab centre attached. She somehow (I suspect by fair means AND foul, you know what a Boadicea Mum is when she sets her sights!) raised the cash, through a mixture of charity, fund-raising and the local council, to set up with her colleague, Bob Underwood (the ex-police chief), first one house, then two, then more, which became the Trevi House Project in Plymouth. The ongoing success rate was so good that the government, specifically Mo Mowlam, consulted with them to use their method as a blueprint for other projects around the country. As if that wasn’t astounding enough, she went on to acquire the magnificent ex-admiralty Hamoaze House at Mount Wise from the MoD, and with a dedicated team she created a drop-in centre there for drug and alcohol abusers and their families in Devonport, Plymouth, which has been a huge success. She has worked tirelessly for other people’s benefit for 30-odd years now, and when she retired a couple of years ago, the city gave her a posh lunch to thank her for all she’d done. And, like Gary, she’s done it all quietly. No hoo-ha. I took your lovely mum, Grandma French, along to the official opening of Hamoaze. I looked around the room and saw that there were four generations of our family there. If ever a family have been committed to the improvement of a city, the Frenchies have been to Plymouth. Your city, Dad.
Mum lives happily alone, by the sea in Cornwall, on a cliff overlooking a fishing village, where she’s lived for nine years now. She says the view and the air are healing. She’s very high up. I think she feels closer to you there.
Dear whomsoever it may concern,
I WRITE TO wholeheartedly recommend Miss Kathy Burke for the position of Queen of England. I am aware that the post is not technically open to applicants presently, but I expect you must be tossing around a few names, just in case, surely? I’m also aware that there are other, more seemingly suitable contenders. Members of the royal family for instance, who may appear to be the obvious, if not the legal and constitutional, choice. Prince Charles springs to mind as the first thought of course, and actually I like him very much. So much so that I’ve always fancied the idea of ruffling his hair up during a tumble in a royal bush on a lazy Sunday afternoon in September. Yes, I would have to concede that he would do well as Queen. BUT, don’t be too hasty. Hear me out.
Miss Kathy Burke is the quintessential Englishwoman, and loved by all. She is firm but fair, she is maternal but disciplined, she is creative but focused and above all she doesn’t suffer fools, she tells it like it is. She is instinctive and clever and funny and she would really, really suit a crown. So few can pull that off and I genuinely believe that she is one of the lucky ones in that respect. Kath wouldn’t hold with long boring formal dinners for foreign dignitaries unless there was a bit of entertainment, so I reckon life at the Palace could liven up a bit. She also doesn’t like to stay up too late if she’s working, so the staff would be certain of reasonable hours, unless she was in her cups in which case I’m sure they would be free to join in.
I’ve heard tell that a large contingent of Palace staff are as gay as a really gay thing, and again, Kath would be perfect because she is nothing if not a splendidly well-qualified and experienced friend of a friend of the odd Dorothy.
Please consider my reference. This country needs her, so do your duty and anoint her with the Holy Gism. Soon as.
Yours in anticipation,
Dawn French
(possible future lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty)
Dear Scottie,
I WANT TO own up at last to what happened with your ashes. Much as you predicted, your death was quite a drama, and I’m glad that you decided to put me in charge of it because then, at least, I had something to do to distract me from the misery of it all. I love a bit of organising, you knew that.
I clearly remember when we met, as we so often did, for supper at Julie’s restaurant, it must’ve been about 1989 or so, and you told me you had HIV. I felt the ground beneath my seat shudder. I tried to remain calm, but one of my best friends was going to die quite soon, and I didn’t feel calm at all. I felt scared and panicked. Typically, you had everything in hand and you told me your plans. You’d always been in control like that. I remember loving that about you when I first knew you at Central. That and the fact that you were virtually the only actor who spoke to me for the whole three years at college. We had that in common, we were both people who like to have the organisational stuff, the arrangements of life, done and dusted quickly so there’s time for fun. I hate not knowing what’s happening. It unnerves me. You explained that you were going to the States where they were more familiar with HIV and where there were more advanced medicines available. You knew where you would stay, where you would go for treatment, everything. My job was to support from a distance, visit you occasionally for the craic in New York and be ready for your return, which you told me would indicate that you were in the final phase. And who knows, you explained, they might find a cure in the short time you thought you had left, but probably not. So, hey, that’s enough of that, you said, let’s talk about important stuff like which one of us is the more likely to get a shag with George Michael. If he was blindfolded. On a desert island. With only us two to choose from. Yet again, I was the loser, just like in the same game previously, featuring K. D. Lang.
So, you went to America. When you weren’t ill, you had a great time. You fell in love. He had HIV too. Then you came back in 1992 and the serious business of dying began.
The Middlesex Hospital was the venue, and the Broderip Ward, an Aids ward which was the campest place in London, was your deathbed of choice. There were nurses in drag, and a cocktail trolley at 6pm. I remember your key nurse, Mark, very well. He knew and loved you and was determined the finale would go as well as it could. With boas and glitter wherever possible.
You were pretty bad by the time they moved you into a private room. We all took it in turns to sit with you, and while you were still conscious, we managed a lot of laughs. I remember one evening when you and I were alone and you indicated (you couldn’t speak too well by then) you wanted a joint. This had become a regular comforter and pain reliever for you each evening. I knew where your stash was. I also knew it meant I would have to roll it for you and help you to smoke it. Being a stranger to dope, and indeed to smoking, what ensued was an utter fiasco. I could see the frustration in your eyes as I dropped everything and cocked it up so badly. The spliff looked like a fat sausage, there was far too much of everything in it, and it was splitting at the side like some kind of illegal pitta pocket. I knew that because of your various problems, you couldn’t actually hold it or properly draw on it, so I had to smoke it and puff the smoke into your mouth for you. This is when I realised what a very poor hippy I would have made. I was rubbish at smoking, with bits of roll-up paper stuck to my lip, and burning tobacco and weed all over the bed and all over us. It was a dangerous, chaotic half an hour that left us both in hysterics. Sorry I didn’t do drugs better. I never have, and it’s unlikely I ever will.
Although I arranged the funeral, you had, of course, stage-managed and designed it to perfection way ahead of time. The music, the coffin, the flowers, all chosen for perfect dramatic effect. You chose the quiet room at the Lighthouse, the Terrence Higgins Trust hospice, for the ceremony and decided exactly how the room should be set out. As we sat there, crying to Louis Armstrong singing ‘What a Wonderful World’, I looked at the coffin and I couldn’t erase the thought of your tired and ravaged body inside it. Then my eye wandered to the artwork on the wall beyond, which was a huge photographic triptych of a mass candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square
with thousands of young gay men singing. Then, I saw you. Right in the middle, young, healthy, with your hopeful happy face bathed in candlelight and your lover’s arm around your shoulder. The old Scottie. It was a fabulous final masterstroke, you absolute drama queen.
So, to the ashes. I know you asked for them to be flung off the top of the Empire State Building while simultaneously incanting favourite lines from various show tunes, BUT it wasn’t that easy, Scottie. Len and me and the BF and her fella Barrie went to New York for New Year specifically for that purpose. We had booked a table for supper at the Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center for 10pm to see the New Year in and to raise a glass to you. So, earlier on in the evening, your old friend Michael Way joined us as we traipsed up to the viewing platform at the top of the Empire State Building with the urn containing your ashes (which, by the way, had involved hefty amounts of paperwork to ‘export’ from the UK to the US). On arrival we discovered that there are fine mesh nets all around to prevent people jumping off, or falling debris killing innocents on the street way below. We didn’t want you to be caught up in that mesh, so we changed to plan B, climbed in a yellow cab and drove to the river on the West Side to scatter you there. But, of course, there are huge fences and barricades, so we climbed back in the taxi and asked the now impatient and confused driver to take us back to our hotel via Times Square. That way, at least you’d be scattered on Broadway. We thought that was fitting. By now it was raining and the cabbie really couldn’t understand why we needed to divert through the busiest square on the busiest night of the year. It would be chaos. We eventually persuaded him and Len distracted him while we attempted to get the ashes ready in the back of the cab as we approached Times Square. Who knew they’d be so industrially well wrapped? We prised the lid off the urn using a key edge as a mini crowbar, then we hacked through at least three thick polythene liners with mini scissors from a Swiss army knife. Then, to our horror, we realised that the cab window only opened two inches, so we had to sort of flick you gradually out of the cab in the fervent hope that most of you would end up on Broadway. Sorry if you got stepped on, but it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Job done, and recovering from the fit of hysterical giggles the whole process had reduced us to, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We paid the driver and gave him a fat tip for the favour he didn’t know he’d done. As I stepped out of the cab, and watched it speed away into the night, I saw that the majority of your ashes were smeared all the way down one side of it, stuck to the rainy door and bumper. We consoled ourselves with the thought that at least you’d see more of New York that night than ever before …