by Alan Carr
‘Whoa, whoa! No, man, I’m not kissing that. C’mon, I have over a billion fans, what if they see me kissing a guy on YouTube? C’mon.’
I was beginning to see a pattern here. And you wonder why I have self-esteem issues?! Of course, I totally understood – why would a heterosexual red-blooded man want to kiss a camp homosexual? But to be fair to me, I wasn’t that happy about kissing him either, to be honest. What about my rights?
The rest of the show went well and for me that was a real stand-out episode. David was a lot of fun and he had some great anecdotes about Knight Rider and Baywatch – he was a legend, no doubt about it, but when it came to my body confidence he can fuck right Hoff.
You certainly get to meet a lot of people in this business. Some of them are stars that you’ve grown up watching on the telly and you hope and pray that when you do actually meet them they will be as nice and lovely and everything as you want them to be. When we heard that we had Joanna Lumley hosting The Friday Night Project, it was one of those moments – obviously like the whole of the nation I adored her as Patsy, as Purdey in The New Avengers and, hell knows, even that Mellow Birds advert. Basically, I loved her. Talented, beautiful and oozing class, in some ways she reminds me of a younger me. We were to film a sixties-themed photo shoot as our bonding day in Fournier Street, in a beautifully preserved eighteenth-century house tucked down the side of Spitalfields Market in the East End. I was so nervous to meet her – say she wasn’t nice, say she strode in, scowled and said, ‘Who’s this specky poof?’ Well, life wouldn’t be worth living. My faith in humans would be over and I would move to a monastery.
She glided through the door like she was on coasters, numerous scarves flowing, and instantly threw herself on the floor in a blaze of chiffon. Look, I know The Friday Night Project is good but please, there is no need to worship us like idols, Joanna. ‘Oh, darling,’ she exhaled in that velvety-breath voice that at times borders on emphysema, ‘your shoelace is undone, darling, please let me do it up, you’ll fall over and hurt yourself, darling.’ And there she was, a National Treasure on all fours doing up MY shoelace and we hadn’t even exchanged a word. As you’d expect, she continued to charm and work her magic as only she could. It’s so nice to meet someone off the telly and they are actually as you WANT them to be. Believe me, the amount of times I have met so-called National Treasures or family favourites and they have been complete arseholes. Seriously, you think, how hasn’t this filtered down to the general public? Why don’t people know that this person is a real nasty piece of work? But then again I suppose that is a skill in itself – being able to disguise your nastier side is just as much a talent as keeping a theatre mesmerized with a monologue or tearing the roof off the O2, but really, it must be exhausting for them.
Sometimes the fun times we’ve had during the recordings overflows into our personal lives too and we get to experience some really wonderful things. Jamie Oliver took us to dinner at his flagship restaurant 15 and before we knew it we were at his house having a barbecue – I know, get me. Mel C did The Friday Night Project in the winter of 2007 and she was a dream guest, didn’t mind dressing up, took the piss out of herself and the Spice Girls, she just got it. What made it even better was that it was a Friday Night Project first: we actually went abroad to film, seriously abroad, like with a passport and everything. We went to Magaluf to meet Sporty, and I ended up singing the Bryan Adams duet ‘When You’re Gone’ with actual Melanie Chisolm. We were in the Eastenders Bar in Palma Nova and being a huge Spice Girls fan I found the moment very surreal; being watched from the walls by framed photos of Fat Pat and Wellard made it even more surreal but it was definitely a story for the grandkids.
Not only could I cross that off my bucket list, but the day after the show went out the Spice Girls announced they were going to reunite! Frustratingly, naughty Melanie had denied it on the show, but any bad feeling about this swiftly evaporated when Melanie got me front-row seats at their comeback gig at the O2. Tickets for the gigs were like gold dust and for me to sit there in the front row (the kids call it FROW) next to Posh Spice’s mum blew me away. I was so close to all the action that when Posh Spice minced down the catwalk and pointed she nearly took my eye out, and during ‘Spice Up Your Life’ who did Mel pass the mic to when she needed the audience callback? Yes, you guessed it, little old me.
I didn’t think we could top flying to Magaluf, but we did later on in the series when we had Mark Ronson as the guest host. What a lovely guy! He is one of the nicest people you ever want to meet. Luckily for us, we got to spend more time with Mark than we usually did with our guest hosts. The Friday Night Project producers must have cashed in some bonds or found some money down the back of the sofa because before we knew it we were flying to the Big Apple to spend a weekend with him – how cool is that. The bonding film we did with Mark was a tourist’s wet dream: the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Empire State Building. We did them all – even playing a tune on the Walking Piano at FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue, made famous by Tom Hanks in Big. Mark was so accommodating – we went to his house and he took us to lovely restaurants. You can’t beat local knowledge for finding the cool places to go. Back then I wouldn’t have known what was cool in NYC – I’d probably have ended up having a Whopper in Times Square – so to get a guided tour from a bona fide New Yoiker (sic) was a real bonus.
One thing we hadn’t taken into account, however, was that our visit to New York City was on the exact same day as the National Puerto Rican Day parade. And, believe me, Puerto Ricans know how to party! Colourful, flamboyant, jubilant and loud, very, very loud. A swirl of rainbow colours rounded off with a Latino beat are the perfect ingredients for a party but the last thing you need when you are doing a link to camera and only have two minutes to do it. In the end we couldn’t use any of the audio in the record because, frustratingly, every link was peppered with honks and whistles: ‘All right HONK, let’s go and see if Mark WHISTLE wants to HONK WHISTLE HONK with us when we go HONK WHISTLE.’ I was literally hoarse with shouting but what could I do? I couldn’t piss off a whole country, I couldn’t say ‘Look, Puerto Rico, can you please pipe down, I’m trying to make award-winning television here?’
A few months later Mark was kind enough to invite us to his birthday party back in the UK – and what a night that was. I had been to a few showbiz parties before but they usually consisted of a handful of Z-listers hovering around a half-open box of Celebrations. This, however, was actually a cool party. I hadn’t ever been invited to a cool party before, a party where cool, ‘in’ people would be. The party was in Buckinghamshire in this massive stately home. Manicured lawns lapped the huge driveway, topiary punctuated the landscape and a throng of paparazzi were at the gates holding their cameras expectantly – so why oh why did I go dressed as Madonna? Not even fun, lacy gloves, ‘BOY TOY’, Like a Virgin eighties Madonna – no, Confessions on a Dance Floor era Madonna, the ginger Farrah Fawcett flicked, sequined, disco diva Madonna, the era that had her toned, sinewy body squeezed into an unforgiving purple leotard. The reason for this was there written in gold under the address of the party: ‘Come as your favourite album cover.’ I had loved Madge’s Confessions album, a real return to form, and I thought what a wonderful homage it would be for me to go as that very album cover to a fabulous party, so that was the look I tried to carry off … and, yes, I was right, leotards are pretty unforgiving but I ploughed on. Thankfully, the tightness of the leg holes chafing my legs took away from the excruciating pain my glittery pink tranny wedges were causing me.
The agony did not dim my enthusiasm and I decided to suffer for my art, crossing everything as we got into the taxi that my outfit would turn heads and hopefully not stomachs. There’s nothing like a traffic jam to put the dampener on a night out – in the house we had been giddy, listening to Madonna, sipping Prosecco and slut-dropping, laughing at how ridiculous I looked, but in the slow lane of the North Circular, bumper to bumper, it wasn’t so fun. The laughs became short
er, the smiles became weaker and the alcohol measures got smaller. This was boring. Plus I badly needed a wee. I looked enviously at Paul, who had decided, quite sensibly, to go as Adam Ant. After what seemed like ages, we finally got off the motorway and I pointed (I was so desperate I couldn’t talk) to a lay-by – the taxi pulled over and I ran to relieve myself behind a wheelie bin. The relief of actually finding a place to finally wee was overtaken by the sudden realization that I didn’t have flies. I scratched frantically at the gusset like I had crabs, finally pulling the elasticated gusset to one side – ahh, the relief … oh no, I’m wearing tights – shit! Stop, stop! Well, it was like telling Niagara to go back, I just couldn’t stop. I tried miserably to tear through my tights but they weren’t ripping and the urine gushed through my fishnets. It must have been an awful sight to behold, a ginger she-man gymnastic publicly urinating in a lay-by, clinging awkwardly for support to a wheelie bin, but I won’t deny that the relief was so nice. I don’t know whether it was my empty bladder or that the rush hour had passed but we seemed to make much quicker progress after that.
Once we got there and passed through the migraine-inducing bulb fest that was the paps, I was thankful to see that no one else had decided to choose Confessions on a Dance Floor as their favourite album so there were no embarrassing clashes and, to be fair, the wee stain on the gusset of my leotard just looked like I had a sweaty vagina and I’m sure Madonna has one of those the amount of dancing she does on stage so it truly was win-win. It was a really fun night, and luckily no one mistook me for the real Madonna so I didn’t have to fall back on my old cheeky wink, lifting up my glasses schtick – ‘It’s me, Alan.’
Nick Grimshaw cross-dressed himself as Lily Allen, though in fact his ensemble of a spotty dress and hairband was factually wrong – Lily has never worn that on a CD cover so by rights he should have been evicted from the party but I bit my tongue and decided not to bring this to the attention of Mr Ronson. I wished I had when Grimmy turned to me and said, ‘Who’ve you come as – Cilla?’ Cheeky bastard – ha! I put it down to jealousy and slut-dropped off.
Some of the celebrity appearances on The Friday Night Project coincided with the promotion of a new single, a film or even an underwear range as for gorgeous supermodel Elle ‘The Body’ Macpherson, but sometimes people were flogging something that defied description such as David Gest. (Yet another person who has sadly passed away this year.) He had written Liza Minnelli: The Musical, which was due to open in a theatre in North Finchley. Knowing that he wasn’t exactly bezzie mates with his ex-wife Liza Minnelli, me and Justin were intrigued to see what he had in store. We were excited to meet him too – he had come across as so eccentrically funny on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! that we wanted to experience this quirkiness in the flesh.
We arrived in North Finchley and the theatre was abuzz with rehearsals, David was all excited and was literally chomping at the bit to get a West End transfer as soon as possible.
‘Do you want to see some of my show?’ he asked excitedly.
‘Oh yes!’ Justin and I cried in unison. We sat down in the stalls – all that was missing was popcorn and a little tub of over-priced ice cream. The person playing Liza was a drag queen and as he/she came on to the stage not only was she dressed as Liza as ‘Sally Bowles’ but she was holding a bottle of vodka, slurring and wearing a suicide vest of empty vodka bottles. She was singing ‘I’m Losing My Mind’ whilst staggering across the stage, pissed as a fart. It was highly offensive – forget ‘Liza with a Z’, it’ll be ‘Liza with your balls on a spike’ if she ever sees this, I thought. Then three women came on walking sideways wearing Oriental dresses.
‘Who are these?’ I whispered to David.
‘They’re Liza’s crabs.’
‘Oh!’ I replied, hiding my shock. I’d seen Elaine Paige play a tabby on stage in Cats but I’d never seen anyone play an STD before. Then for some unknown reason they were joined by some ‘little people’ singing. I forget who they were meant to represent in Liza’s world but I thought it best not to ask. Finally it ended.
‘Well, guys, what do you think?’ David asked.
‘Very entertaining,’ we enthused, and it was, I had been mesmerized by what I had just seen. Good or bad, I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage. I did wonder how it would go down with a theatre-going audience and also with Liza’s lawyers.
In the studio, the madness continued when me and Justin were both handed Tiffany boxes. ‘I got you guys a present,’ David explained. In the boxes were two crystal candlestick holders, one each, which sort of undermined the effect but who cared, no one had ever brought us presents before. I held mine up to the light and admired the crystal – I had never had anything before or since from Tiffany, and was so chuffed. The receipt was still in the bag and I could see it was off a list, but not just any old list – after further snooping and a quick call to the shop it turned out to be from a wedding list. And not just any old list but the wedding list of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. I had a piece of showbiz history in my very own home – who would have thought it?
David was a real charmer on set and had us all in stitches with his name-dropping and showbiz anecdotes; he seemed to have everyone on speed dial. I spoke to soul singer Candi Staton on his phone one night and at one point went to ring Hollywood legend Jane Russell to say ‘hello’ but she didn’t pick up. Look, I don’t know if it was her, who’s to say, but he believed it was. I performed some sketches with David down at the studio, some ridiculous nonsense where I was Michael Jackson and he was ‘Bubbles’. David then went for lunch and after he came back he said he had rung Michael and told him about the sketch and ‘he had laughed, laughed, laughed’. Now again, I don’t know if this actually happened – David was a bit like his hair in that you didn’t know what was real and what’s been made up – but hey, as I’m doing my housework and buffing my Tiffany candlestick, a part of me likes to think that the King of Pop over there in Neverland did hear about our little Friday Night Project sketch and did laugh and laugh and laugh – wouldn’t that just be the insanest thing ever!
We’ve all sat in front of our televisions, switched on and gone, ‘Oh God, not them again,’ at the sight of a new talent that seems to be on everything. You’d bet your last penny that they’d been cloned, how can they be on everything – multiple channels, panel shows, chat shows, cookery shows, you name it, there they are. I always have to bite my tongue before calling up Points of View because that was once me. When you get on television and you sort of become a ‘name’, you’re soon inundated with invites to do other shows, shows that you yourself watch and enjoy, and at first you do accept them all. You’re like a kid in a televisual candy store. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I would shout to my agent, ‘I’ll do it.’ You are blissfully unaware of the word ‘overkill’ and naively have no idea that your perpetual appearance on television could impel the viewer to lob a brick at the screen or perform hara-kiri on themselves. And let’s not forget that these days you’ve got incessant repeats and all the plus-one channels on your Skybox – people can get pissed off at seeing you AGAIN an hour later as you pop up like the last rotisserie chicken in Sainsbury’s. I accepted everything, and I mean everything, from 8 Out of 10 Cats to Countdown, Gok’s Fashion Fix to Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen – oh, and if it had ‘Celebrity’ in the title you couldn’t hold me back. My acceptance of virtually any job offer that came into my agent’s inbox was getting too much, plus my judgement about what direction my career should be going in was worryingly suspect. I turned down Top Gear yet said yes to hosting the National Porn Awards. I know, I know. The National Porn Awards sounded right up my street, a bit low rent, cheeky and probably a lot of adult saucy fun, but when my agent got the script and saw that the categories were ‘Best Blow Job’, ‘Best Use of a Dildo’ and ‘Best Newcummer’, pun intended, he declined on my behalf.
My agent suggested I look at appearing on Top Gear again. ‘Have a little think about it,’ he said. I didn’t
fancy it. You just knew the studio would smell like a boy’s bedroom. I thought I’d sleep on it. It was my friends that made me say yes. When I said I’d turned Top Gear down they looked at me like I’d stuck a winning lottery ticket into a shredder. They were incredulous.
‘What? But you’ve got to go on Top Gear,’ they insisted. ‘It’s an institution, are you crazy?’
‘Oh, okay, I’ll do it,’ I relented. Their incredulity then turned to envy as I headed off out of London to Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey on a balmy June afternoon to film ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ with Jeremy Clarkson, James May and the Hamster. I was dreading being asked about cars or anything automobile-related – it just doesn’t interest me. I once had an argument with the lady at the congestion charge office because I didn’t know the make of my own car.
‘You don’t know the make of your own car, sir?’ she said, and even though it was over the phone I could hear her eyebrow arching.
‘No, I don’t.’
I daren’t tell her I called it Des.
I knew about fan belts and tights but that was from lazy Sundays watching black and white romantic movies in a slanket rather than slipping into an oily jumpsuit and sliding under a car bonnet.
Although my knowledge of the motoring world was minimal, I had heard a little bit about Top Gear, especially the Stig, who filled me with intrigue – the mysterious co-host slash man of mystery whose identity was unknown due to him never removing his helmet. At first I thought this was just television folklore to drum up a bit of mystery, but no, his helmet stayed on. The whole time I never saw his face once – even at the end of the record he stood there nodding and making polite chit-chat, still with the damned helmet on. I am proud to say that I beat Justin Lee Collins’s lap: his was 1:51.8 minutes, mine was 1:51.2 minutes – yeah, take that, JLC! It’s odd because I would never class myself as a speed demon, I avoid speed or danger at any cost. Even my exercise bike at the gym has a basket on the front (I once got mistaken for Miranda from Call the Midwife in the middle of a spin class). But the more I hurtled round that track, the more I wanted to do it again and again, faster and faster. It’s fair to say that adrenaline got hold of me – I was buzzing, I needed my fix, and considering that I had been dreading going on the show I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The atmosphere was surprisingly ‘gay friendly’; I even saw a woman working on the show – yes, can you believe it, an actual woman – and it didn’t smell like a boy’s bedroom at all. I had got it into my head that when I turned up to the studio the crew would be like ‘ooh, hello, sailor’ and ‘backs against the walls, lads, here he comes’, but it wasn’t like that at all.