by Alan Carr
‘Of course, I remember,’ she said and she rushed over and gave me a huge hug and then we both proceeded to do the dutty wine in the corridor. It was one of those magical moments that just makes me love her even more.
I also remember dancing with Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine in a flurry of confetti as Blur played. I don’t know where her machine was but these kind of things just don’t happen to me. The whole of that night was literally a blur and me and Paul woke up in Adele’s suite at Claridge’s the morning after wondering if the night before had actually happened.
If you want to know where you are in the hierarchy of celebrity then such showbiz events as the Brits are just perfect for finding out. It’s not just the applause you get from the crowd as you exit your limo, but also where you are in the seating plan. When I was a guest of Adele’s in 2012 and sat at her table I was so close to the stage I could have retuned Chris Martin’s guitar with one hand and poured myself a glass of Prosecco with the other; obviously when I wasn’t with Adele I was at a table in Zone 6 with Sonia. You get to know your place very quickly, and it’s the same with the after-parties. It can be all very hit and miss: sometimes you’ll get whisked in as the doorman recognizes you instantly and your feet won’t even touch the red carpet; other times you’ll be standing there for ten minutes in the freezing cold relaying your CV and waving an Access All Areas laminate in their face.
I was invited to the MTV Awards and greedily said yes, before it was revealed to me that it was in Frankfurt not Los Angeles. Like I said, you get to know your place. What they didn’t tell me till I got there was that I would have to walk the red carpet. Fine, I thought, I’ve walked a red carpet before, you just shuffle up behind someone more famous – all the autograph hunters and fans go wild for them, the journalists lunge forward with their microphones ready to ask them a question and then you spot your chance and like a cat burglar slip inside under the radar and head to the bar. Result! Sadly, not this time. I would be walking the red carpet – individually – after having my name called out. What? But no one’s heard of me in Frankfurt – it’s Chatty Man not Chatty Herr.
Well, there I was outside this modern concrete building (like the one Prince Charles calls a carbuncle) on an industrial estate. The red carpet thrust out of the front door like a lolling fat tongue and my name gets called out via a tannoy like I’ve been separated from my mother in the Arndale: ‘ALAN CARR!’ Not a cheer, not a whoop. I’d been in louder libraries. I walked in silence along that red carpet while the paparazzi actually looked away and started chatting. I plodded onwards, the carpet feeling a mile long, until finally a group of girls screamed at me and started talking in excited German. They beckoned me over and I soon realized that at last someone had recognized me. My German isn’t the best, but even I could understand ‘Chatty Man’ and ‘One Direction’ – they had recognized me from my show and from having the World’s Biggest Boy Band on. I confirmed that I was he and they screamed as if Harry Styles had just materialized before their eyes. They grabbed my hand, touched it, looked at it, admiring it like an artefact in the British Museum – my hand being the very hand that One Direction must have gripped at some point during Chatty Man. I had unwittingly become a conduit for a boy band – these girls were in the throes of ecstasy through osmosis. It was sweet to watch them giggling and admiring my hand but I decided I’d better move on before one of them whipped out a circular saw to take it home as a souvenir.
Sometimes I don’t think I get the most out of fame. Sometimes I get serious FOMO when I’m flicking through those celebrity magazines. Pages and pages of parties that I haven’t been invited to, wall to wall beautiful people, models, Hollywood starlets and superstar DJs having the time of their lives in these exclusive clubs. Most of the time I will let it wash over me but every once in a while I will snap and say, ‘Paul – get your coat! We, my dear, are getting a piece of that’ – jabbing the society page in Hello magazine. Glad rags will be put on, Come Dine With Me will be switched off, and we will go out.
One time, we headed out midweek and typically nothing seemed to be open or remotely ‘happening’. We were just walking past Claridge’s feeling that we had made a big mistake leaving our cosy living room when we heard the sound of some music floating from a sash window of Claridge’s ballroom. If my ears did not deceive me there was a party going on, and quite a good party judging by the number of posh cars lining the streets and the crowd of people idly milling around outside, rubber-necking at every twitch of a curtain and silhouette on the door. Plus there had to be celebrities inside due to the handful of autograph hunters outside, all buttoned up, the grey of their anorak colour coordinating with their auras. Determined to wring some life out of this dreary midweek night I approached the scowling lady at the door, who was gripping a clipboard.
‘Alan Carr plus one for the party.’
‘Alan Carr?’ she said, casting her eye down the guest list.
I did the same, muttering ‘Alan Carr, Alan Carr’ – if my name had actually been on that list I probably would have passed out.
‘I’m afraid it’s not down – you can’t come in,’ she said dismissively.
I was going to kick off and say that someone had mistakenly forgotten to put my name down and I would be speaking to them first thing in the morning, but then it dawned on me, I did not have the foggiest idea who or what the party was for. I was only after a free drink so I thought I’d better not push it. I was just about to give up when I caught sight of a bronzed leg protruding from a limo. Who could that be? No, not David Dickinson, but Kate Hudson – who had just that very week been on Chatty Man.
‘Hi, Kate.’
‘Hi, Alan.’
‘Oh, Kate, they don’t seem to have put my name down on the list.’
‘Just come in with me.’
‘Okay, Kate.’
I linked arms with Kate, which looked a bit weird as she was already linking arms with the baseball player A-Rod, but anyway, needs must, and in we went to the party, which just so happened to be the after-party for her new movie Nine. It was a musical and although musicals were sort of having a renaissance it didn’t really grab cinema-goers’ attention, but who cares – ‘I’ll have a free drink, Mr Weinstein – make it a double!’ Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench were there, along with the Hollywood uber-producer Bob Weinstein.
Bold as brass, Paul went straight over to Judi Dench: ‘Excuse me, Ms Dench – can I please introduce Alan Carr to you?’ He totally missed the point that you have to actually know someone yourself before you can introduce randoms to them. She was sweet but I didn’t know what to say to her. ‘Do you reckon As Time Goes By will ever come back?’ popped into my head but I thought better of it. ‘I loved the film,’ I lied and quickly kowtowed over to Tamara Beckwith, who was probably on the same celebrity plateau as me and who I could relax with. After we drank the bar dry we decided to head home – life a little bit shinier after a slice of Hollywood on a rainy Wednesday night.
The musical performances on Chatty Man are a real treat for me because a) I get to see these huge stars singing so close up on my show and b) it means it’s the end of the show and I can have a (nice) drink. These performances are usually done twice so that the artist can pick which one vocally is better. Obviously we do our best to sell the song and light it beautifully – in fact, our lighting man actually won an award for it – but sometimes that is not enough. The producers got an angry phone call one Saturday morning from a certain star’s manager, complaining that from the filmed performance it looked like he was miming. He WAS miming!! What more could we do? Do you want me to crawl across the stage and poke his lips up and down with a stick so they fit the lyrics? C’mon, please – meet us halfway.
We’ve had some really memorable performances on the show, including Rihanna’s ‘Rude Boy’, Justin Timberlake and his on-point horn section; Katy Perry doing a stripped-down version of ‘Unconditionally’ blew me away. Lady Gaga decided to do two songs
for us and that was fine by me – both were amazing. Honestly, there are times when I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. Sometimes the stars like to hang around afterwards, which is a lovely compliment. There was a lovely piece in the Mirror once saying that on my birthday Adele and J-Lo had surprised me with a cake and they had all sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to me – all bollocks but I ain’t going to correct it, it’s nice to have something in the newspapers that paints me in a good light. I remember Kylie stayed and had a whisky that was basically as big as her – who knew Kylie drank whisky? She’s so cute and petite, you imagine that even a quick gargle of Listerine would have her ‘Spinnin’ Around’ – ha ha, I’m on fire today!
My dogs are a real honey trap when it comes to celebrities; my Bev’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and Justin Timberlake was no exception. Outside his dressing room he saw Bev and instantly fell to his knees, smitten with the ginger bitch, and how could we resist taking a photo? It’s on our mantelpiece: Justin is smiling, looking dead cute as usual, and there’s Bev, completely oblivious, mesmerized by a squashed pastry on the floor. This is one of THE biggest stars in the world and Bev is more interested in a discarded vol-au-vent – I guess not everyone can love you, Justin.
Grace Jones is one of my favourite ever guests on Chatty Man. My idea of ‘diva’ is very much rooted in 1920s Hollywood. If you are fortunate enough to be a star then at least bloody act like one, be fabulous, be other-worldly, and this is exactly what Grace is and I bloody love it. She is a handful but a glorious handful at that. Her head is always covered, unlike her long, long legs, and she is always wearing a Philip Treacy hat – the first time she was on she had this hat with huge antennae poking conspicuously off her head and I didn’t know whether to kiss her or hang my coat up on her. Our meetings hadn’t always been so friendly. A while back I had been very kindly invited by Julien Macdonald to see Grace Jones at the Roundhouse in Camden Town – he had designed a few of her outfits and so we had been invited to see her perform. What a treat. It was such an amazing night and reconfirmed why I love Grace. Why just perform a song when you can perform that song rotating a hula hoop round your neck wearing a bowler hat with your left tit out? ‘Come and meet Grace,’ Julien trilled in that lyrical Welsh voice he has, and we were promptly whisked (once you get famous you never just walk) to her dressing room. So we stride past the queue of trendy Roundhouse Camdenites to the front and with a flourish Julien knocks on her door. It is opened by Simon Le Bon no less, and we enter. I must have gone in first as Julien was behind me. Grace Jones spins round on her heels, wearing nothing but a black minotaur hat and a sheer top (I’d only seen her left tit on stage and now I caught sight of the right, so in an OCDish way I felt happy I’d ‘got the set’ as it were – I felt a bit like those antique experts on Antiques Roadshow when they are presented with two matching vases). She glares at me. ‘Get out, get out!’ she spits. She grabs me by the shoulders and in one fell swoop I am spun round and flung out of the dressing room on to my knees – in full view of the queue. It must have looked like that bit where the goat is lowered into the cage at Jurassic Park and then once devoured the remains of its corpse are discarded. I brushed myself down and hobbled off. Perversely, I was quite chuffed, because you kind of want that from Grace Jones, you don’t want to meet celebrities and coo about how wonderful the night has been, fawning over them whilst they sip tea politely, nodding sagely – no, you want to be manhandled aggressively, thrown about like a rag doll. Well, maybe.
When Grace Jones agreed to come on Chatty Man her rider was slightly alarming; she requested an expensive bottle of red and copious amounts of oysters – great, I thought, she’s going to come on stage pissed AND horny. But we were more alarmed by the fact that she was always notoriously late, which had us all sweating. This is naughty and I hope Grace doesn’t mind, but we basically lied to her and told her that Chatty Man filmed at 1.00 p.m. in the afternoon – she turned up at 7.00 p.m., which was actually just when she was meant to be arriving at London Studios so it was the promptest she’d ever been.
The meeting was a bit friendlier than our previous one, but still eventful – this is Grace Jones we are talking about. Now, how can I put this? I got off with her. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have, but I’d been mixing my drinks throughout the show (as always) and the tequila shot (as it always fucking does!!) had pushed me over the edge. As my tongue playfully toyed with her tongue, our mouths invigorated by the instant hit of tequila, I wondered to myself, what would Michael Parkinson do? At least Russell Harty only got twatted round the head when he interviewed her, I was being emotionally assaulted too. Half of me was thinking, Wow, I’m getting off with Andy Warhol’s muse, model superstar, musical sensation Grace Jones, and then I remembered she was sixty-seven and if this was undercover footage recorded in a nursing home I would probably be arrested and/or put on a register. Anyway, it was something to tell the grandkids, wasn’t it? That’s what makes life a little bit more interesting. She’d come down the steps flashing her knickers, crawling on all fours, swearing and being outrageously flirtatious, not just with me but with a horrified front row – but I’d rather have that than some flash-in-the-pan singing sensation wittering on about how their album has upbeat songs and slow songs and how there is something for everyone on it – oh, bore off! As I came off stage everyone said, ‘Was she hard work?’ No, give me that any day.
People like to pretend to despise these divas and the ludicrous demands they come up with, but I think if we are honest we actually love them for it. Come on, admit it. When I hear an outlandish, outrageous demand being made by a superstar my eyeballs start to roll but I can feel the anecdote forming in my head like an embryo and I just know it will be ready to be given birth to at my local pub over a pint of lager and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. You must remember that riders are not proportionate with talent or star power – that’s something you soon learn. Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Kylie, Justin Bieber, all good as gold. I couldn’t believe how approachable Lady Gaga was. I remember I got a knock on the door from Bradley Walsh, who was filming his quiz show The Chase in the next studio. He wanted Lady Gaga to sign a CD for a children’s charity.
‘Would she do it?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ came my (honest) reply.
We tiptoed up to her dressing-room door like we were playing ‘Celebrity Knock Down Ginger’ and tapped on it – she answered wearing a purple sperm on her head if my memory serves me correctly and Bradley explained about the charity. She just signed the CD, no ‘Speak to my agent!’ or ‘Don’t you dare knock on my dressing-room door, you Z-list oiks.’ No, she was very sweet, and watching her make Bradley’s and the charity’s day I thought, I’ve got a lot of time for you for doing this – someone so outlandish in dress on stage, yet so down to earth in real life. On her rider I think she only wanted a bottle of Jameson’s whiskey. She loves whiskey and had a few too many on the sofa and really needed a wee, dashing upstairs to her dressing room after the show. She couldn’t get out of her costume quick enough and ended up having a piss in a bin – something I loved her for even more!
Like I said, star power is not proportionate to riders and demands. Made in Chelsea personality Mark-Francis Vandelli Orlov Romanovsky refused to get in the complimentary car we put on for him as he ‘doesn’t do diesel’ so we got him a taxi instead to take him home. He wafted off in it and disappeared home to most probably Chelsea, leaving everyone scratching their heads, for taxis – as we all know – run on diesel. Anyway, each to their own. Still, one thing I was not happy about was that I had offered the Made in Chelsea gang an Iceland buffet on the show and, well, you’d think I’d offered them a dog turd wrapped in a sanitary towel. The shade! They declined, asking, ‘What is Iceland?’ Coming off stage, always ravenous, I had gone to nibble on a prawn ring in the green room to curb my hunger. Gone! The ravaged trestle table looked like something on the Marie Celeste. The Made in Chelsea lot had popped all the Iceland g
rub in their handbags and hot-footed it back to Mayfair! Robbed, we was, robbed, and you know when you’ve set your heart on a chicken tikka lasagna – well, I could have cried.
At Chatty Man we always provide a car home, but sometimes the guests can be a bit cheeky – the Only Way is Essex gang diverted the car to a nightclub, partied all night, then went to a drive-thru McDonald’s where Arg had a wee up against it. Well, I can’t really get on my high horse about pissing; I can’t in one breath condone Lady Gaga’s piss-bin-gate going, ‘Ooh, what’s she like,’ and then condemn Arg for relieving himself too – I have to be fair, I am an equal-opportunities gossip.
As you can imagine, we were all intrigued when we heard that Jennifer Lopez ‘Queen of the Diva Demands’ was making an appearance on Chatty Man. J-Lo (as I call her when I’m hanging around ‘on the block’) was an absolute delight but her rider – what a disappointment! I had literally legged it through Soho, desperate to see all the outrageous demands. ‘What was on her rider, tell me, tell me everything!’ Well, my little heart sank. Bottled water? Just bottled water? Just B-Wa for J-Lo? Where were the black orchids, the pygmies showering her with rose petals as she sashayed down the corridor? ‘Where’re the fucking bottles of Cristal?’ I cried, shaking the celebrity booker.
2015 was one of the busiest years I have ever had – looking at that year from the relative quiet of 2016, I probably did bite off more than I could chew and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. A 200-date comedy tour, Yap Yap Yap, that would cover the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, plus a chat show run and all the extra baubles that hang on the glittery Christmas tree that is my life, like radio, press, weddings, funerals and births, and let’s not forget the Christmas Chatty Man and the comedy behemoth New Year Specstacular that haunts my December every year like the ghost of Jacob Marley. It was a lot to take on, but I felt ready for it. I was really pleased with my Yap Yap Yap tour, it had been going down a storm in the warm-up tour and there was a ‘buzz’ about it, whatever that means.