by Alan Carr
Mind you, the randomness of watching a dog on its hind legs wolfing down a birthday cake sort of fitted in with the randomness of the One Show itself. The talking points of that show are so disparate: the subject matter can veer from elephantitis to exercise bikes in the blink of an eye and the research chats before you go on the show are always entertaining. In one of these chats I was asked whether I had ever handled a bird of prey, visited Chile or fallen down a sinkhole. No, no and no. I felt like I was being ever so unhelpful but I hadn’t done any of them – a pigeon had landed on me in Trafalgar Square once but it was totally unsolicited, I promise you.
It’s not just birthday cake with Bev either – when our lovely friends Sally Lindsay and Steve White were getting married down in Greenwich, Bev managed to get out of a locked car, run into the pub, belt up the stairs and take a bite out of the wedding cake before Sally had even had a chance to slice the bloody thing. Do you know how hard it is to yank a marzipan mini bride and groom out of a dog’s mouth?
I’ve done a lot that I’m proud of – my stand-up comedy tours, The Friday Night Project and Chatty Man – but there are definitely some shows that I would choose to forget. One of those is Celebrity Ding Dong. As The Friday Night Project was increasing in popularity, Channel 4 decided to give me my own show – a panel show, a game show, it could be anything we wanted. We all agreed that it should be Celebrities versus Civilians. Liz Hurley had recently in a magazine called people who weren’t famous ‘civilians’ – I thought it was ridiculously stupid but could be a good hook for a game show, exploiting the perceived stereotypes between celebrities and civilians: that celebrities are self-serving, vain and sneery while civilians are uncouth, unworthy of even breathing the same air as Carol Vorderman or Lorraine Kelly and who left unsupervised would be nicking things out of your dressing room. My role as panel-show judge was to be a bit snide and contemptuous to everyone – a role which, looking back, wasn’t really me. I felt a bit uncomfortable slagging off members of the public and being rude to celebs who I’d met outside of television and who were actually really nice.
I would see the laugh-out-loud Celebrity Juice on ITV2 with its anarchic games and feel that we had missed a trick. It was everything that Ding Dong wasn’t – fresh, innovative and fun. I was in a grey suit and I’d put on tons of weight – it hurt when I walked because of my hip so I’d stopped doing any exercise, plus I was depressed about the leg and the show so I was drinking a bit more than I should. It just wasn’t one of my finest moments and, hey, we all make mistakes. Maybe I’m being too harsh; in retrospect, there were some funny moments. There was a TV show on MTV at the time that was all the rage called MTV Cribs – it was basically a trendy Through the Keyhole set to a hip-hop beat. The viewer got an intimate look inside the homes of some of America’s most successful and famous multimillionaire rappers and basketballers and got to be horrified at the huge amount of vulgar shite they had spent their many millions on. I watch that show with my mouth open, not in awe at the wealth but the actual revoltingness of the decor. Not only can money not buy you happiness, but also curtains that match and a front room that doesn’t look like a bunker. In one episode we found out that Missy Elliott had an actual car sawn in half for a bed – for God’s sake, that’s just wrong, and I’ve woken up in a car park a few times. Well, in homage to MTV Cribs we decided to do, wait for it, MTV Crypts – where just like Through the Keyhole we would subtly reveal clues to a celebrity, in our version a dead celebrity in an actual crypt, and the panellists would have to guess who it was.
The day of filming was a beautiful sunny day although I wouldn’t get to enjoy the rays as I was six feet under in a crypt in a cemetery in Kensal Green, north-west London. I wasn’t alone, however, I had a camera crew with me and Scouse spirit medium Derek Acorah and his spirit guide, Sam. Derek Acorah would go into a trance and through props and little hints would slowly reveal clues about a celebrity that had ‘passed over’. The game was silly and I probably would have forgotten all about it by now if Derek hadn’t had one of his turns. Mid-filming, Derek looked abruptly to the side and started a conversation with person or persons unknown, hidden in the shadows. At first I thought he was talking to a runner who’d inadvertently walked into shot but there was no one there. Whether you believe in that stuff or not, standing in a pitch-black tomb smelling of damp, with Gothic Victoriana greeting you at every turn and then hearing, ‘It’s all right, love, we won’t hurt you,’ to a ‘presence’ that you can’t see would fill even the most steely-hearted cynic with fear.
‘Who are you talking to?’ I said.
‘A woman over there.’ He gesticulated to no one over there. ‘She wants to know what we are doing here.’ He turned back to the ‘presence’. ‘It’s okay, love. We’re just filming a show called Alan Carr’s Celebrity Ding Dong.’
There was a pause.
‘She just walked off,’ said Derek.
‘Charming! Even the dead don’t want to be on my Ding Dong.’
Throughout the shoot Derek got more and more dead people coming through, as if they were waiting at some spiritual turnstile, and of course when you think about it we were in Kensal Green Cemetery, which houses over 65,000 graves. In Derek’s head it must have been a bit like a haunted version of Westfield on a Saturday, hordes of people in purgatory, shuffling trance-like in a daze, dead behind the eyes – no wait, just like Westfield on a Saturday.
Who is this now? I was thinking, slightly miffed, as Derek engaged in yet another conversation with a dead person. Normally it’s a car horn or an overzealous member of the public that disrupts a shoot, not a visitor from the spirit world. After a while even I started seeing and hearing things; more than once I thought I heard the swish of a Victorian wench’s petticoat behind me only to find it was Derek Acorah’s mac catching in the breeze. Strange as it was, I started feeling less and less nervous. My eyes were becoming more adjusted to the dark and, besides, if it ever got too dark Derek’s dazzling white veneers would twinkle at the end of the passage like a makeshift beacon, giving him the appearance of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland just before he disappears.
Once Derek had spoken to all of Kensal Green’s undead we eventually concluded the filming, mentally and spiritually knackered. We emerged from the tomb like some extras in the Michael Jackson Thriller video into the Kensal Green sunshine. It had been a lot of fun, and once it was edited and played on the actual show it proved to be one of the (rare) highlights. I often think MTV Crypts would have made a good spin-off for me; who knows, when I’m not so busy, maybe me and Derek could reprise our roles. Our chemistry worked well and he totally understood the ridiculousness of the show. Plus I’d never made so many friends on a shoot before – admittedly they were all dead, but still, friends are friends.
I was halfway through my Ding Dong series when Katie Price pulled out at the last minute (lucky cow – I wish I could have pulled out of it), so with an hour till filming we were a guest down. We were filming in the iconic BBC building, the doughnut one that is now sadly being turned into flats, and I had heard that Paul O’Grady was in the building. Well, when I say I heard Paul was in the building, I actually did hear him. I know I can talk but his voice is loud, it penetrates every wall and corridor – seriously, he’s got a voice you could go fracking with! It was always hysterical when we were filming Chatty Man the same day as The Paul O’Grady Show as we would have adjoining dressing rooms and I could hear him having ‘guest chats’ with his producers, his dulcet Scouse tones pummelling the walls – ‘And you can tell her to fuck herself if she thinks I’m promoting that shite.’ That’s the great thing about Paul, he doesn’t hold back, and it was nice to know that chat show drama just before a recording wasn’t exclusive to Chatty Man. Sometimes we would meet up afterwards. He’d pop over to the offie and come back with some booze and we’d drink, collecting unsuspecting passers-by, and rave or slag off our guests depending on how our shows had gone. So anyway, I asked Paul if he would come on Ding Do
ng and seeing that I was up shit creek without a paddle, and being the absolute superstar that he is, he stepped in at the last minute.
As I mentioned before, Ding Dong wasn’t the best and sadly that show in particular was pretty dire. I felt bad because I was always made to feel so welcome on Paul’s show and I loved going on it. I’d really wanted to repay the favour and give Paul a good time, but I could see he wasn’t happy. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘No good turn goes unpunished.’
I called up a friend and said, ‘That show is doing my head in – do you fancy getting away? Mini-break?’ Before you could say ‘bureau de change’, there we were in Heathrow at ‘bag drop’ preparing to spend a last-minute weekend mini-break in Vienna, Austria. Licking my wounds about the show and still embarrassed at the thought of how pissed off Paul must have been, I suddenly hear, ‘Now how do you work this fucking thing?’ slicing through Zone B like a chainsaw. I’d have recognized that Scouse drawl anywhere – yes, there was Paul in a trilby and mac, jabbing and scowling at one of those self-check-in machines, muttering profanities unsuccessfully under his breath.
To be fair to Paul, I hate those machines too – they’re a hindrance more than a help, they’re awful. I’m sure you’ve had the same annoying experience: first you put your booking reference in, then slide your passport (face down, mind) in the slot and then type in your flight number, only for UNABLE TO ASSIST GO TO CHECK-IN to appear on the screen. You want to headbutt the bloody thing. Mind you, if you did, given how temperamental they are, it would probably say ALL CHECKED IN, MR CARR, PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR GATE. Anyway, Paul was visibly struggling. I went over to him, didn’t mention, you know, the D D thing, and found out he was going to Vienna on the same flight as me for the same amount of time as me. Shit, he must have hated me for dragging him on the show and now we were going to have this awkward bumping into each other on the Ringstrasse. But do you know what, it’s the best thing that could have happened because we met up and even went on the lash.
I went to visit him at his hotel, hoping and praying that his room just had a door knocker or a buzzer – I couldn’t face a ‘ding dong’ announcing my arrival, let’s not spoil a lovely evening by mentioning the panel show that dare not speak its name. If you’ve read his brilliant autobiographies you will know that with Paul there is always a drama. I found him standing on a chair having a drag on a ciggie out of the window, complaining about the hotel giving him ‘Hitler’s fucking bedroom’ – it did look quite ‘Third Reichy’ with its austere and sombre decor and you wouldn’t have been surprised if the eyes of the huge oil paintings that hung on the wall above his bed started to move and follow you around the room. It was a very entertaining weekend, but don’t worry, I did give him some space. I wasn’t one of those people you meet on holiday who cling to you like a tapeworm – ‘So I’ve booked a sightseeing trip at ten a.m., then a museum at twelve, wine-tasting at two p.m.’ etc. You end up leaving a pile of clothes and a note by a canal, faking your own death so you can have an afternoon to yourself. I’m so pleased we got to hang out as I’m a huge fan both of him and Lily Savage and I hope it went some way to repairing his feelings about his appearance on you know what.
There was one occasion when I actually got cautioned by the police on a Ding Dong shoot – no, not because it was shit, but because of an item we were doing in a local park. Let me explain. Do you ever look back on something and think how did it ever get to that? Wasn’t there at least one person who was thinking maybe this is a bit wrong? Well, apparently not that day in the Ding Dong office. One of the games we played was ‘Guess the Celebrity’. Dear reader, could you recognize a celebrity if he or she was flashed to you for a matter of seconds when you least expected it? Maybe, maybe not, who’s to know. But would you recognize the celebrity if their face was stuck over my cock and I jumped out of a bush and flashed you by opening my mac? Hmm, maybe you’re not so sure, but at least you can see where the police caution comes in. I kid you not, that was the game: me in a park, naked except for a mac, jumping out at people and flashing them and then asking the shocked member of the public to describe who they had seen on the end of my knob. Can you believe no part of that made alarm bells ring? None.
So like a lamb to the slaughter I headed off to Battersea Park. Took all my clothes off in some disgusting public toilets, and slipped on my beige mac while the poor runner, armed with some string and a glue gun, attached Arnold Schwarzenegger to my penis. There was an added frisson to the whole game as, unbeknownst to me, it was the school holidays and the park was teeming with children, so if I was going to jump out and flash someone, I would have to pick my moment carefully. I must admit, after filming this game I had a bit more respect for professional flashers, it’s harder than it looks (which in itself sounds a bit wrong). I was told to wait in the bushes for someone ‘unsuspecting’ to walk by. Isn’t anyone who is about to be flashed at by a complete stranger ‘unsuspecting’?! Anyway, I saw my victim, a young woman walking through the park, and I chose my moment as she passed by – I jumped from the undergrowth and opened my mac. Did she guess who the celebrity was? Did she giggle? No, she called the police.
Thankfully, one of the policemen had seen The Friday Night Project so they recognized me, and knew that I wasn’t a proper wrong’un. Once we pointed out the hidden cameras behind the hedge and up the tree, and the director emerging from a bush, the police were somewhat reassured – nevertheless, we were cautioned and told to pack up all our belongings and make ourselves scarce (inside I was relieved to stop – it had all been very humiliating).
Once an episode was recorded, it went into post-production, where they added all the bells and whistles, and one of those bells and whistles was the sound the buzzers made when a punter got the question correct. We had a little brainstorm about what noise the buzzers should make (yes, reader, when you create your own game show do remember that all these stupid little piffly bits need to be sorted and you have to make the decisions). Such days are infuriatingly long; firstly, it’s boring, overanalysing the minutiae of a game show. What colour should the ‘Ding’ go if the answer’s right? What about the ‘Dong?’ Black? Too sombre. Yellow? Too sickly. Green? Bogies! Sitting round that table you would think we were discussing how to create peace in the Middle East. But they really matter, all those little details like fonts, clothes and lighting, because they add an ambience that is so important to an audience – it can make or break a show. One thing we were sure of was that when an answer was right and the ‘Ding’ or the ‘Dong’ lit up we wanted comedy legend Leslie Phillips to say them. I remembered seeing him on a Carry On film once where a woman petrol pump attendant had stuck the nozzle of the petrol pump suggestively into his tank, he’d turned round in his open-top Jaguar and with a raised eyebrow said lasciviously in that wonderful plummy accent, ‘Ding Dong!’ It was perfect! Just perfect! I loved him and was a huge fan so I was double delighted when he said he would come to a studio, watch the show and sprinkle his Ding Dong over my Ding Dong. He sat down and watched the opening credits – I came out, did a wave and said, ‘Welcome to Alan Carr’s Celebrity Ding Dong.’ Leslie looked at the screen with a scowl, then said, ‘What the hell is this shit?’ Well, like I say, you can go off people.
Looking back, though, maybe I should have taken his outburst as a premonition. Maybe it just didn’t look good and maybe someone like himself who has graced our screens for decades can tell straight away if something isn’t right or ever going to be right. The show plodded along for another series and then we put it out of its misery.
One show that did deserve another series was Singer Takes It All. It got slagged off a treat but I loved it. I loved it and I don’t care. Now this is where I turn into one of those pushy mums who hangs around the school gates and will not have a word said against their kids. It was a show where members of the public sang live on a conveyor belt whilst people at home voted via an app on their mobile – if they liked them they moved forward on the conveyor belt, and if they went back to
o far they eventually disappeared through a smoky flap. That show was so much fun – it was live and I could ad-lib, something that I was doing every night with my stand-up comedy and which I relished – but people just hated it. The Guardian sneered, ‘Is this the worst game show ever made?’ and you know if the Guardian hate it you’re doing something right!
But things went against us from the outset. If a game show is controlled solely by an app and that app goes down in the first minute then, yes, it is going to be a tough record, especially with an unchanged autocue on which every other sentence is ‘and don’t forget to vote using the app that you downloaded’ … ‘Er, oh yes, it’s not working. Thank God this isn’t going out live. Oh, it is – shit!’
It’s a cheesy cliché but it’s true – you never get a second chance to make a first impression. People just got it into their heads that the app didn’t work so the show didn’t work. Social media was in its element: with malicious glee everyone was loving the fact that it was failing – live! Interestingly, I spoke to a young writer who had penned a sitcom and he said how depressing it was to see that before the opening credits and theme tune had even ended, ‘This is shit’ and ‘This is awful – I’m switching over’ were appearing on social media.
Obviously I know I’m in a very lucky position being able to be part of a TV show, and I totally get that if you put yourself out there to big audiences then not everyone is going to love you or what you do, and that’s fine. I just think it’s sometimes a pity how quickly the negative comments come through on social media. I love getting feedback from audiences but I do think some things are slow burners, some shows evolve, and some things are worth being given a chance. Chatty Man was slagged off in the beginning (and still is in some quarters) but I have never won so many awards for a show in my life – it’s up to sixteen series now, shown all over the world, and as I write this has been recommissioned for another two years.