I’ve only seen the one remaining sketch featuring the latex Muldoon. In spite of the care, skill and inventiveness of the women in the makeup room, I looked like Lon Chaney. Cynical people might say they got Muldoon’s makeup absolutely right. Gradually, we reduced the prosthetics until, by practising for long stretches in front of the mirror, I could twist my face into a reasonable facsimile of Robert Muldoon.
Then, all that was required was some gel on my already receding hair and a few pencil lines to accentuate the vagaries of his face. I would push my stomach out, jerk my head back, thrust my jaw forward and then deploy the finishing touch. As a small boy Muldoon had fallen when climbing a fence. His face had caught on a barb and for the rest of his life, whenever he smiled, there was a large and quite distinct dimple on his cheek. I learnt to recreate that dimple. There was one problem. I could only make the dimple on the right side of my face. His was on the left. But, I discovered, once I’d contorted my face in this twisted fashion, the moment I opened my mouth I sounded exactly like him.
Chapter 17
RIGHT ROYAL OCCASIONS
I have been honoured to meet the Queen only once. It was a meeting that neither Her Majesty nor I would wish to repeat. But more of that later.
I was in the company of her son-in-law, Captain Mark Phillips, for some long and bewildering weeks. He was the first husband of Princess Anne. Like many millions, I had watched the young couple manoeuvre themselves along the aisle of Westminster Abbey: Princess Anne was tall and erect, clutching a posy of hopeful flowers. She had always been lampooned because of the length of her nose and the size of her galloping teeth. However, on this morning she was a picture of poise, and defying the clatter of the cameras, she smiled obliquely. Her husband-to-be seemed to be having trouble with his sword. There was something in Captain Mark Phillips’s frigid smile and Princess Anne’s eloquent reserve that suggested this was a marriage that had not been made in heaven and would never be made in bed. And so it turned out.
When I met Mark Phillips he was the honorary judge in a particularly ridiculous television programme I was producing. The central absurdity of the show was to make athletes who were masters in their own sport fail in another. So, if you were a supreme kayaker you had to compete in a weight-lifting event. Similarly, if you were a weight-lifter you were expected to nearly drown in a river.
Mark Phillips was required to judge those athletes who survived. This task stretched him somewhat. The programme had been successful in Britain. So, it’s not surprising it was considered to be the type of entertainment New Zealanders were longing for. As it turned out, it wasn’t.
At the end of the final programme, my director John Lye and I were invited to dinner with Mark Phillips and his entourage. He had two social impediments. The first was an inability to focus his eyes on any agreed point. But the second, more worrying, difficulty was his inability to speak English. He had a commendable grasp of one-syllable nouns but his efforts at conversation were always torpedoed by his habit of putting W at the beginning of nearly every word. As in, ‘Why don’t we play a game with a bwoom and a wubbish bin?’
John Lye and I were about to leave the unpalatable table — there had been very little wine and far too much food for my liking — when one of his aides minced to my side and hissed that Mark Phillips was hoping we’d join him for after dinner dwinks in his suite. Reluctantly, John and I entered the lift. Mark Phillips had a large thuite and not much happened. There were no women so it was impossible to flirt. John and I talked to each other. Mark Phillips’s associates spoke amongst themselves while the guest of honour seemed to be having a conversation with a standard lamp. It was becoming increasingly dreary so we edged towards the door but were spotted.
A young person of indeterminate age and sex jumped up and shouted, ‘Let’s play a game.’ I didn’t like the sound of this but Mark Phillips seemed to perk up considerably. The game in question required a broom. My uneasiness increased. However, I admit to being surprised how swiftly a command from a member of the Royal family can get a broom to a hotel room.
A waste paper bin was filled with water and positioned on the bristle end of the broom. The handle of the broom was then given to an unfortunate and with the help of his friends he pushed the bin up until it was flush with the ceiling. So, you have a man forcing a waste paper bin filled with water to the ceiling with a broom. The moment you relax the bin of water will crash down. To make sure this happened, members of Captain Mark Phillips’s staff tickled the man holding the broom. I need not remind you that some of the men were members of the most prestigious regiments in the British Army. Former distinguished officers had fallen at the Crimea, Khartoum and the Somme.
They laughed so much they didn’t notice John and me slipping out the door. Later, I encountered several members of the Diplomatic Protection Unit. Mark Phillips had tired of the broom game. He was now entertaining himself by jumping on the bonnets of parked cars. Mark Phillips was later divorced by the Princess Royal. He sired an illegitimate child during an equestrian event somewhere north of Auckland. Obviously, Her Royal Highness regarded this as more undignified than leaping on cars.
My fateful meeting with Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh occurred at the end of a Royal Variety concert at Auckland in 1981. It was a day that started with such promise, collapsed in the middle and then, at the end, miraculously exceeded my expectations. I felt honoured Jon Gadsby and I had been selected to appear in the concert until I discovered that virtually every other living performer in the country was also invited.
Royal Command performances have a sad history of being notoriously long and the local producers were clearly hesitant to tamper with this tradition. It was a royal, rare occasion and everyone would have a turn. There was, however, an unexpected benefit. In the hours before the concert I found myself with some of the funniest people in New Zealand.
All performers had been instructed to arrive at the theatre early in the day. After a short rehearsal we were herded into dressing rooms where we were instructed to remain. No one was permitted to leave the theatre because of the security of Her Majesty. However, I suspect the producers had a more pragmatic intention. Performers are, in the main, jolly people who enjoy the conviviality of each other’s company. They also believe this conviviality can be enhanced immeasurably with cheerful glasses of wine. The producers wisely considered that, with more than four hours to wait before the arrival of the royal couple, the amount of conviviality could have reached hysterical proportions.
Jon and I found ourselves in the scintillating company of two of New Zealand’s most endearing performers — the chefs, David Hudson and Peter Halls — along with the distinguished actor and director Jonathan Hardy. After 30 minutes of their riotous reminiscences and scandalous mimicry, Jon and I agreed we were no competition for these genuine wits and should consider new careers as plumbers.
I was also intrigued by the number of eminent opera singers who slipped into our dressing room because it was the only one where everyone was smoking. We were in high spirits but there was a worm in my apple of happiness. Jon and I had made our dubious reputation with political satire and coarse impersonations. This was what our audience recognised and, presumably, liked. So, I am still baffled why I insisted we abandon what was expected and write a peculiar parody of Shakespeare. My confusion is compounded by my desire to appear on stage in a court jester’s costume complete with the traditional hat and jingling bells. I do not know what the royal couple thought of the performance, but it was obvious every other member of the audience was utterly confused and, by the glacial silence, more than a little unhappy.
The star of the evening was Ginette McDonald. With radiant self-confidence she appeared as a character the audience knew and loved — Lynn of Tawa — and with a careful comic eye directed her monologue to the Queen and the Duke. She ended, ‘God bless you. We all love you, eh?’ The applause added at least five minutes to the show.
There was another dazzling perform
ance. Howard Morrison walked out and without fanfare or wisecracks began to sing ‘How Great Thou Art’. Slowly with consummate care Howard’s lush voice turned a saccharine song into a hymn of praise. To transform a particularly banal song into an anthem is a feat.
(Several years later, Billy T James performed a parody of Howard’s emotional rendition. At the critical moment, when the pitch was rising and the lyrics cried ‘And, so I sing, my Saviour God to thee, how great Thou art,’ Billy produced a hand mirror and started singing at his reflection.)
Meanwhile, as all this past and future history was going on, I was brooding in the dressing room about how I could have engineered and performed such a comic collapse. I lost all sense of time. This was an oversight that soon overtook the foolishness of the jester’s costume.
We had all been firmly coached on the etiquette of being presented to the Queen and the Duke. You were to stand in line looking ahead and refrain from staring at them as they approached. Once the Queen moved into your line of sight you might smile but must remain motionless until Her Majesty extended her hand. You were then instructed to lightly accept her fingers taking care to allow the Queen to initiate the shaking process. If circumstances indicated you should speak, you were to call her ‘Ma’am’. Above all, you were to conduct yourself in a discreet and dignified manner. This involved putting on a dinner suit before being presented.
When I was ordered to get on stage for the presentation I found myself in a line of contemporaries looking dignified in their dinner suits or elegant gowns and I was wearing the chequered red and yellow diamonds of a harlequin’s costume. This would not have unnerved me had the sketch been a thunderous success. The audience would think I had remained in costume to remind Her Majesty of the witty and amusing Shakespearian parody she had just observed. But the sketch had just made a suicidal dive into the long-drop of comedy and I was intensely embarrassed.
As a result I forgot everything. I gawked at the royal couple as they approached. When the Queen stopped before me there was a faintly puzzled look on her face. I thrust my hand forward and said, ‘Good evening, Madame.’ She took my fingers with some distaste. However the hand I extended was still holding the jester’s hat, so when Her Majesty initiated the shaking manoeuvre the bells on the hat tinkled.
I returned to the dressing room, changed into my dinner suit and began considering painless ways of committing suicide.
To my everlasting gratitude the host of the show, the elegant and forever gracious Peter Sinclair, assured me the sketch ‘wasn’t that bad’. Besides, he continued, he had arranged a small supper party at Napoleon’s Restaurant and Anne and I were invited. I had walked past this restaurant on many occasions. The menu looked delicious but the prices gave me a mild cardiac arrest.
It had been a day of crashing catastrophes, but at dinner Ginette and Peter were sparkling company. Jon reminded me there were at least two good jokes in the Shakespearian sketch and finally there was Michael Houstoun. His artistry had always impressed me and here in the declining elegance of a French restaurant we sat and talked. At one moment Anne said, ‘I’d like to dance.’ The owner announced he had unfortunately sent the musicians home. Then, Michael, with quiet grace, rose from the table. ‘What am I?’
Anne turned to me and asked, ‘Will you waltz?’
I said, ‘I don’t waltz.’
She replied, ‘Our country’s greatest pianist is playing a waltz for us and you will.’ And we did.
Chapter 18
TRAVELLING ON
My two years with the Honda Motor Company started in a most unusual way. I had been approached to appear in the company’s television advertisements. I was told that if I was to be the company’s New Zealand spokesman, I had to be conversant with the manufacture of Honda vehicles. The company wanted to fly me to Japan to visit assembly lines in Tokyo. I had always wanted to visit the country and I rather audaciously asked if my wife and two young children could accompany me.
Graciously, Honda agreed and two months later we found ourselves in the company’s gleaming Tokyo headquarters. We were introduced to Honda’s chief executive for Oceania, a surprisingly tall and impeccably dressed Japanese gentleman. He spoke English without an accent and moved with casual elegance. He welcomed Madame McPhail and smilingly shook hands with Anna and Matthew. He then asked them how they enjoyed Elmwood School and if Anna was still learning ballet. As the conversation proceeded it became obvious he knew a lot about our family. But, curiously, I didn’t feel that we’d been pried upon. The company was simply exploring the man who would represent them and wanted the assurance he wasn’t a raging drunk or a foul-mouthed bully. I think I passed the test.
From Japan, the four of us flew to China. This was four years before the events at Tiananmen Square and the country was still recovering from the latter days of Chairman Mao’s rule. Few people from the West visited China in 1985, and, for reasons I didn’t understand, we were to be escorted by members of a travel organisation that dealt almost exclusively with overseas Chinese visitors. We entered the country through Shanghai and could smell the city 20 minutes before we landed. It was daunting entering Shanghai airport and I still marvel at how composed Anne and the children were.
Immediately I was aware of two things: heavily armed police and the unflinching stares of hundreds of Chinese. We flew on to Beijing. Honda had booked us in first class and just after we landed I noticed a calm, grey-haired woman in trousers and Mao jacket. She was obviously a government official and as she caught my eye she smiled slightly and nodded her head. I smiled back thinking it was a nod of welcome. Later, I realised her gesture really meant, ‘Aren’t you in for a great surprise, my little round-eyed man.’
Beijing airport was like a vast public lavatory with grimy tiled walls and very little lighting. There was no sign of the promised guide and we were suddenly surrounded by hordes of taxi drivers noisily touting. I was trying to give the children the impression that I regarded this as perfectly normal and might have succeeded had I not cashed a traveller’s cheque. I had no idea about exchange rates as I shoved the cheque through a dark grill. To my consternation I received a huge pile of yuan. The notes were small and, as I returned to where the family was barricaded behind our suitcases, I dropped the lot.
The notes floated in all directions and I was forced to crawl around on my hands and knees to retrieve them. The taxi drivers watched with indifference while the children had looks of rising panic. Finally, when I could no longer disguise the hopelessness of our position, a woman appeared, spoke sharply to the taxi drivers and ordered us to follow her. We piled into a mini van and careened off into the dark. And it was dark. For some reason the driver would suddenly turn his lights off and for several hundred metres at a time we would race through the countryside in complete gloom.
The following morning, after a fretful night in the vast Stalinist Friendship Hotel, I awoke and wondered if I had made an enormous mistake. My children were frightened by the new sights. Anne was strong, but uneasy. Then I noticed a strange noise. It was a low hum and it was coming from outside. It was the sound of over a million people riding bicycles.
The China Travel Service decided we were a separate tour and to my surprise we were given our own guide, driver, and a van. Euee, who could only write her name in Chinese, was determined we would see everything. We raced through a humid Chinese summer just as the wind was lifting the dust off Mongolia and dropping it on Beijing.
My children were little. Anne was stoic but we were alone in an alien culture and while I could chatter on about Chinese history, I knew little of the Chinese present. When I had gained some control of myself and knew what the play money in my pocket could buy, I asked if my children could see pandas. Apparently this was impossible. Anne was more forthright and demanded that Anna and Matthew see the bears. Suddenly, there was a break in the rigid rules that were confining our visit and we saw pandas. They were particularly slothful and as interesting as children’s toys.
That night our hotel rooms were searched.
We continued through China. The only travel document I had was a piece of tissue paper Euee pressed into my hand at Beijing airport. She looked sternly into my face and said, ‘Don’t ever lose this.’ It was written in Chinese characters and made no sense to me at all.
In the early days of Chinese tourism you received a boarding pass with the name of your aircraft written in felt pen. The doors of the departure lounge would open unexpectedly and you were invited to find your aircraft among the 20 lined up on the tarmac. Once you’d matched your ticket to the number of the aircraft, you could climb on board. As we stepped up for the flight to Xian, I noticed the tyres of the aircraft. The white fibre under the rubber was showing through. I didn’t mention this to my family. Later, I learnt this was normal. Chinese pilots were reluctant to fly in cloud. When they finally spied their destination they would dive towards the runway and bounce their aircraft onto the tarmac at 100 kilometres faster than the recommended landing speed.
We ended up in Guilin — a small city close to the Vietnam border. We ate dog, the culinary speciality of the city — it tastes a little like chicken — and found ourselves in the middle of an incident.
There is a great river in Southern China called the Li. You glide past huge, stone mountains of mesmeric beauty. The water is brown and murky. It’s then you notice the boat in front. At the stern two chefs are preparing the meal you are about to eat and using the waters of the Li. Around this time Matthew got very sick.
We left the Li with a new guide and van driver, and started the ride back to Guilin. We passed hundreds of women carefully positioning bricks to make a new road under the dull, overarching sky of an endless China. Suddenly the driver swung off the road and plunged up a narrow, dusty track. ‘What’s this?’ I asked the guide. He explained, with care and precision, that the driver was using a short-cut and we would arrive in Guilin very soon. We drove through placid hills with appealing undulations, until I noticed a few artillery pieces. Then, I saw some tanks and more guns. As we drove on the number of guns increased. What was worse, the soldiers on the hills began watching us through binoculars. We were clearly in the middle of a military area.
The Years Before My Death Page 20