by Alan Carr
We never tried to be – that terrible word that gets bandied about on telly now – ‘relevant’. Relevant to whom? Relevant to what? Who cares? If you aren’t relevant then you get demoted to a ‘guilty pleasure’, an awful phrase that means you are so embarrassing as a concept that people can only enjoy you behind closed doors. I say embrace your guilty pleasure, don’t let society tell you what you should or should not like. If you like a bit of cheese then go for it. If you love Crocs then go to the highest mountain and shout ‘I love Crocs.’ If you want to line-dance to Steps’ ‘5,6,7,8’ down Oxford Street, who gives a shit – do it!
So as you can imagine, getting a BAFTA nod came just at the right time. Not only was it a pat on the back, it was a two-fingered ‘up yours’ to all the naysayers. The show had actually won something back in 2006, a Rose d’Or. No, I hadn’t heard of it either, but as it turns out it’s a very prestigious award and not a high-end brand of ice cream, and we got flown to Switzerland no less to collect the prize. Once there I saw that past winners of Rose d’Ors had included Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, Little Britain and Strictly Come Dancing, and I could have kicked myself for being so ignorant. Put up in a beautifully grand hotel overlooking the lake, sipping a celebratory glass of champagne with the likes of Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais, I felt such a fraud– I mean this didn’t happen to people like me.
The BAFTAs were on a Sunday and I was really looking forward to it. I’d hired a tux and everything. We were up against QI, Harry Hill’s TV Burp and the X-Factor so an acceptance speech had not even crossed my mind, let alone been written down and slipped into the inside pocket of my tux for good luck. A friend of mine was having a birthday party on Saturday but thankfully it was just going to be ‘quiet drinks’. Quiet Drinks. Have there ever been two words in the English language more misleading, more dangerously unassuming and more deadly than the two words ‘Quiet’ and ‘Drinks’? The words are like a spell – every time I’ve turned up for Quiet Drinks I’ve ended up twatted, or I’ve lost a shoe, or got into a fight. If people instead dubbed their night of birthday celebration a one-way ticket to Sodom and Gomorrah I’d probably be in bed by half ten with a Horlicks and a Catherine Cookson. Needless to say the drinks were not quiet, I drank loads, I ended up at Walthamstow dogs for some reason and woke up at one o’clock the next day – at least in my own house. Well, I think it was my house, because whilst I’d been asleep someone had filmed a rap video in my lounge. Minging, I was. I climbed out of bed, tried to find my phone, couldn’t find my phone. Damn, the curse of Quiet Drinks had struck again. Downhearted, but not too downhearted – I was a BAFTA nominee after all, albeit a hungover one – I went down my local. I’d checked the TV listings and the BAFTAs weren’t on till 7.00 p.m. that night – six hours away, fine. I’d have a beer, have a nice Sunday roast, the puffiness would go down and hopefully the cat litter tray that was basically my mouth would start feeling a bit more fragrant.
Now, reader, you thought the BAFTAs were live, didn’t you? When I used to watch them on the telly they always seemed live. So I’m sitting in the pub – I’d moved on to my second pint, was feeling much better thanks for asking, and was now perusing the dessert menu for a strudel. ‘Alan! Alan!’ I heard. Oh shit, I thought, I’ve started hallucinating. Shut up, voices in my head. Shut up! ‘Alan!’ It was the barman holding up the telephone receiver. ‘It’s your agent.’ I went over and took the phone and, yes, it was my manager, Addison Cresswell.
Addison Cresswell was a legend in the comedy world. He passed away, sadly, in 2013 and I owe so much to him. He represented some of the biggest names in comedy, including Jonathan Ross, Lee Evans and Michael McIntyre. Basically, if you’ve laughed at them Addison has probably represented them.
‘Hi – ooh, sorry, I sound a bit croaky …’ I said.
‘Where the fuck are you?!’
‘What?’
‘Where the fuck are you? The BAFTAS are about to start – where are you?’
‘It’s okay, they’re not on till seven, I’ve got loads of time. It says in the TV listings—’
‘Get your arse here now!’
Well, apparently the BAFTAs are pre-recorded. And when they say ‘don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers’ I’d assumed it was the articles they meant, not what was in the TV listings.
I dashed home frantic, absolutely frantic. Most actors and actresses treat themselves to a mani, a pedi and a nice facial before their Jimmy Choos even skim the red carpet – my first big award ceremony and I was rifling through a succession of bags looking for the invite, running down the road, cuffs flapping pathetically in the wind whilst I tried to insert my cuff links. Eventually I flagged down a taxi and got to the Palladium. The red carpet had been rolled up and a solitary pap putting his camera away tapped his watch and said, ‘You’re late!’
I felt awful. The ceremony had started and the host Graham Norton had made a joke about ‘If you do win, give it lots of eyes and teeth. Well, maybe not you, Alan Carr,’ or something like that – I wasn’t there, remember, Justin told me. Apparently the camera had panned to my empty seat with Justin shrugging next to it. I felt so bad, it was so disrespectful, but it was the TV listings that did it, honestly it was.
We didn’t win, as predicted, which maybe was a blessing as I hardly felt like a winner. Plus I was sweating and hadn’t showered and still had that stale smell from the night before. I knew I’d been at Walthamstow dogs but I didn’t know I’d slept with them too. The rest of the night went smoothly, thank God, and although technically losers we had a great time meeting some of our television heroes and experiencing something in the flesh that I had only ever watched cross-legged on the floor in front of the telly.
We’d had the Big Brother lot on The Friday Night Project so the producers thought it would be a good idea for a sketch if me and Justin actually spent half a day in the Big Brother house. Firstly, and not surprisingly, it is very claustrophobic; and secondly, it is unbelievably dirty – of course, when you think about it, it’s going to be. Fifteen people living in such a confined space for up to a month, well, there are going to be stains, hairs, smudges all over the place. I swear I saw a skid mark in the diary room. After being in there for even a short period a lot of the behaviour you witness on screen suddenly makes sense.
Interestingly, you do actually forget you’re being watched and after an initial urge to fool around your self-awareness evaporates surprisingly quickly. When Justin and I watched the footage back, there I was picking my nose, adjusting myself and scratching my tit. At one stage, my face pressed up to the mirror, I was pulling my lip up to see if I’d got any food stuck between my teeth – it was only when I heard the whirr of the camera behind the mirror that I remembered I wasn’t in the comfort of a brightly coloured, albeit filthy home but a CCTV-riddled Orwellian hell. That always freaks you out, knowing there is someone on the other side of the mirror just watching you – plus there was that quite unsavoury urban myth knocking around the corridors of Channel 4 that a cameraman had been axed as he was caught wanking behind the glass as a housemate was undressing. All of a sudden I felt relieved to hear just a cameraman’s whirr behind the glass rather than the frantic flapping of wafer-thin ham and a groan of release.
I get asked to go on Celebrity Big Brother most years and I always decline, basically because I remember that surreal half-day in that house. It is dangerous. Sat on the sofa, I started a really bitchy anecdote about someone and it was only when I saw Justin’s eyes widening that I realized, shit, Alan – you’re being watched – again! The anecdote stuck in my throat and I clamped it shut like a Venus flytrap with a bluebottle. And just imagine unlimited alcohol being thrown into the mix – my God, I would either leave the Big Brother house as the best housemate ever or a complete social pariah. I think it’s a lot safer to stay watching Celebrity Big Brother from my own sofa.
Watching the first couple of Big Brother series was an absolute joy, seeing these characters blossom org
anically as they found themselves and interacted with their housemates – who could forget lovely Anna the ex-nun or the charismatic Brian Dowling? But by the time series six came along, the genie was out of the bottle, the experiment had imploded and the people who auditioned were a motley crew of Mensa-dodging fame-hungry halfwits. Journalists always ask eagerly, ‘Who was the worst guest on The Friday Night Project?’ and you see them with their pens poised to write down Mariah or Lily Allen, both of whom were in fact great. Without a doubt, it was the Big Brother lot. So-and-so wouldn’t speak to so-and-so; so-and-so had to be out of the room because they had slept with so-and-so’s boyfriend. Oh, by the way, I’m not calling them ‘so-and-so’ because I’m disguising their identities and don’t want to run the risk of defaming them but because I’ve forgotten their names and I’m not prepared to use my precious Wi-Fi data searching for them.
Of course, there was one Big Brother contestant we had on who was a delight and who had somehow managed to outgrow the Big Brother franchise/curse (delete as applicable), and that was Jade Goody. We had her on during her first ‘National Treasure’ phase just before we hated her again, but then fell in love with her again when she was sadly diagnosed with cervical cancer. I would love to say that the ditzy, ‘fick with an f’ persona was just that – a persona – and that when we met her she was halfway through James Joyce’s Ulysses, but alas no. Then again, we didn’t love her for her mind, we loved her because she was so down to earth, a laugh, a girl done good, and in that respect she didn’t disappoint.
I actually met her at her beauty salon, Ugly’s, in Hertfordshire, where she was to give me a chest wax and a fake tan – all on camera, of course. The salon shut down soon after and press speculation was that the prices were too high. Well, I think otherwise and I have two good ideas why it closed down – my yellow and purple tits. With her trademark cackle, Jade ripped the wax strips off my chest with no warning and with no waxing cream. I had foolishly assumed you yanked the strips in the same direction as the follicle. Oh no, not at Ugly’s it seemed – the strips were laid haphazardly on my chest and yanked off with the same ferocity that a Chippendale stripper removes those odd Velcro trousers they seem to wear. I cried, I actually cried. She thought it was hysterical. I looked down at my red chest – well, I say red, but I could see it slowly turning a delicious plum colour, like a mood stone. Surveying the carnage, I couldn’t help saying a silent prayer for any lady going into that salon to have her bikini line done. Ouch! Their fannies must have looked like they’d been dipped in Ribena Toothkind.
I then went on to have a spray tan. ‘Stand up straight, please,’ she requested – I was still bent double from the waxing. As I was in Hertfordshire I was planning to pop up to Northampton after the filming to see my family and as I was staying over I specifically asked Jade, ‘Is this fake tan going to run?’
‘Oh no, don’t be silly,’ she laughed as I stood there in my paper pants, letting her do her worst. Hmm, let’s just say I wasn’t convinced. If my mum and dad had told me that they’d had a succession of religious pilgrims marching to Northampton and kneeling at their front door chanting, begging to be let in, I would not have been surprised as the next morning when I pulled back the sheets in my parents’ spare room, lo and behold, there was a carbon copy of the shroud of Turin – well, the shroud of Essex. It was a smudged version of me – a bright satsuma outline – of my good self, prostrate. My actual body was patchy, part brown and part orange apart from the now mauve slash yellow expanse that used to be my hairy chest. I’m all for small businesses and for anyone trying to make a go of something and following their dream but I can say for certain that Jade was probably better sticking to being the nation’s sweetheart than becoming a beauty therapist.
I was back at the Big Brother house the following year, this time thankfully outside, waiting for Michael Barrymore, who was to be the guest host on The Friday Night Project that week. Now, what people want to do with their lives is their own business and who am I to judge, but standing in the pissing-down rain in a Tesco car park in Borehamwood holding aloft an A4 piece of paper with ‘MAGGOT OUT’ written in crayon is not how I choose to spend my Friday nights. Me and Justin were plonked into the middle of this baying mob. We got quite into it and before you knew it we were booing if a contestant showed a side to them that was displeasing and cheering if they showed a side of their character we liked. I could fit quite easily into a mob, I thought as I jeered at a celebrity I’d never even heard of before as they flashed on the screen. I had grown up with Michael Barrymore – watching those popular family favourites such as Strike It Lucky and My Kind of People – and to finally meet him, let alone work with him, was going to be such a treat. However, his time in the Big Brother house had revealed a man very different to the ebullient, over-the-top all-round entertainer that had been a staple of my 1980s TV diet. While presenting The Friday Night Project his mood swung pendulously from being unbelievably upbeat and really funny to being totally morose. At one point he read ‘the dubious Michael Barrymore’ from the autocue – ‘Who wrote that?!’ he demanded, pointing accusingly at the autocue. But there was nothing on the autocue – oh great, I thought, we’ve had people drunk and on drugs hosting the show but never anyone hallucinating. It was sad to see, and I feel guilty writing these things down because obviously he needed help and half of it might have been side effects from the prescription drugs (I assumed) he was taking. In fact, I probably would have omitted it from this book if he hadn’t … well, I’m struggling to think of the word because it was an assault but it was so bizarre I don’t think it could be classed as an assault. I’ll try to explain.
The sketch was topical at the time and concerned the FIFA World Cup that was being held in Germany. Justin was dressed up as Sven-Göran Eriksson and me as Nancy Dell’Olio, and we had both supposedly arrived at a hotel, suitcases in hand. Michael Barrymore wanted to play his Hitler/Basil Fawlty character and pop up from behind the hotel reception. He said he wanted to put an unscripted joke in. Great, we thought – we loved it when the guest host used their initiative. He said he would just ad-lib it.
Me and Justin (Sven and Nancy) enter stage left and ring the bell.
Michael pops up, dressed as Hitler, goose-stepping and Heil Hitler-ing. He turns to me and says, ‘Have you heard ze joke about ze Gestapo?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘LIAR!’ he screamed and slapped me hard round the face. The impact was so forceful that I completely forgot my line. Justin was standing silent next to me, open-mouthed. Awkwardness hung in the air. Cameramen were starting to look at one another and my face was starting to smart badly.
The producer came out to check if I was all right – I said I was fine and he said, ‘It’s a funny joke, would you mind doing it again?’ I glared at him. Okay, anything for the show.
Michael said, ‘Look, I’ll do it again but I’ll only mime slapping you so don’t bother tensing your face.’
‘Good idea,’ I said, thankful – my face was really aching now.
We started the sketch again. Me and Justin approached the hotel’s check-in desk and he popped up.
‘Have you heard ze joke about ze Gestapo?’
‘No,’ I said. He hit me so hard across the face that I went flying. Justin stepped in – ‘Whoa whoa whoa. C’mon now, Michael – that’s not nice.’
The producer came out again and the look on his face was literally ‘What the fuck?’ The producer said that we needed to do it again. My face was red and by then I’d started to get a headache.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to do it again.’
‘Please,’ said the producer.
‘Okay,’ said Michael, ‘I promise I won’t hit you again, I promise.’
I had heard it all before and my numb face knew otherwise.
We all stood around – I really was not in the mood for comedy sketches, especially ones that involved him, but I gave in. ‘Let’s do it again.’
So, third time luck
y – me and Justin arrived at the hotel desk. Again he popped up – ‘Have you heard ze joke about ze Gestapo?’
‘No.’
‘LIAR!’ He went to whack me across the face, but anticipating the smack, I ducked. He then shoved me on the floor. ‘Have you heard ze joke about ze Gestapo? Have you? Have you?’ Well, he started kicking me. ‘Have you? Have you?’ It was so weird, cowering on the floor, looking up through my now wonky Nancy Dell’Olio wig (it had crawled over my face after the second slap), seeing a demented Michael Barrymore dressed as Hitler kicking me – it’s a memory that will always stay with me, it has been burnt on to my retinas. He was a man possessed. It seemed to go on for ever. Throughout the ordeal I kept thinking that he had never done this on Strike It Lucky.