I clicked ‘Yes’, and I made the right decision.
But I still wanted to write a final chapter to fill you in on some of the lovely things that have happened to me and update you on some of the characters in the book. You know at the end of ‘films based on a true story’ when they have writing on the screen to tell you what happened to the people in the story? I always love that, so I’m going to do the same thing with my book. Now, I don’t actually know what happened to everybody, so I will fabricate some. I will indicate the false ones, so that I don’t get into any legal strife.
Barry ‘Baz’ Cryer
A bona-fide comedy legend, Barry has written for the likes of Tommy Cooper, Bob Hope and Frankie Howerd, but maintains that working on The Kenny Everett Show with my dad was his favourite. I hadn’t seen him since we sat in the studio audience together at my father’s ill-fated BBC pilot The Hecklers, until fifteen years later he called me at the Lyric Theatre in London, where I was performing. Meeting up with Barry and listening to his stories about working with my father has been so special for me.
Kenny Everett
Kenny died a few years after my father, aged fifty, from an AIDS-related illness. He is greatly missed by his legions of fans and by comedy as a whole. There are photos of him all over my mum’s home in France. She misses her friend.
The Tarot card reader
Revealed as a fraud in a Scotland Yard sting days after my mother’s reading. The psychic bookshop was actually just a front for money-laundering and drugs-trafficking. The so-called psychics are each serving life sentences. (False)
Sam Geddes
Sam is married and lives in Hong Kong doing a job that nobody understands. He seems to be successful at it. I told him he features quite heavily in my book and he said, ‘You haven’t mentioned the boxing, have you?’
Sandrine
The girl who popped my cherry found happiness with Panos Triandafilidis, the Greek kid from Merchant Taylors’. He works as a ferry driver and they live in Dover and have a holiday home in Calais. They have three of the hairiest babies the world has ever seen. (False)
Mark Cousins
I was nominated this year for a Royal Television Society Award for my performance on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. I lost to Harry Hill. Another low point was when Ant and Dec walked towards me and I shouted, ‘Ant and Dec!’ only to find it was actually Ant and some other guy called Paul. I was just so used to seeing them together that I saw one and assumed the other one would be next to him. The high point of the evening was running into Mark Cousins, who was also nominated for a film he had made. I told him I was writing this book and that he was the first person to believe in me. We shared a hug. It was lovely to see him again, and to meet ‘Ant and Paul’.
‘It’s complicated’ guy
I don’t give a shit.
Paul Duddridge
Gave up being an agent and answered his true calling. He is now a successful motivational speaker and self-help guru in Los Angeles.
Brummie Jongleurs comedian
After years of legal wrangling, he won substantial damages from Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Robin Williams and the estate of Richard Pryor for stealing his material. (False)
Jongleurs
The Jongleurs empire that I used to play went out of business. The original owner is now relaunching a series of clubs still using the Jongleurs name. Good luck to them.
Paul Tonkinson
Paul and I are still very close. He came to one of my shows at the Manchester Arena, where there were 13,000 people in the audience. I thought it was one of my best nights of the tour. ‘It was good, but I still think you could be better,’ he told me afterwards.
Charlotte Church
Just for the record, I do not fancy her. (False)
Jason Orange
Jason made an incredible comeback with the rest of Take That, who played Wembley Stadium on their last tour. As far as I’ve been told, they are returning this year to play the Royal Variety Performance alongside the youngest ever host in its history, me.
So what about me?
Well, I cleared my debts and paid off my DFS sofa that my wife re-upholstered and is downstairs as I write. I’m going to be honest; I more than paid off my debts, so thanks to you for buying my DVDs and coming to see my live shows. I also finally got on the property ladder. After much house-hunting, we found our dream family home in Hampstead. When my parents divorced, I thought I would never be able to afford to return to leafy Hampstead. Well, not only have I returned, but in a bizarre twist of fate, I bought a house on the very road where I grew up. Just twenty-two houses up the road from the house we sold to the Osbournes in 1984. Outside Kitty’s and my bedroom window is the road I used to walk on with my dad, and the road I walked alone when he died.
It’s been a strange circle of life coming back here. Stranger still when my mum and Steve visited, and Steve helped me paint my office walls Brinja No. 222 from Farrow & Ball, although he started having flashbacks and rag-rolled them at first. My mum, Steve and I couldn’t resist knocking on the door of our old house, and the present owner, a sweet Jewish gentleman, very kindly showed us around.
It was weird to see my parents’ old room again, after all these years, where my dad used to blow his morning breath into my baby face. Surreal to see the once dark jungle-like out-of-bounds living room now light and modernized, and to see Lucy’s and my old bedroom with the ceiling that once fell on us. Unfortunately, Steve had another flashback and made a pass at the present owner’s wife.
After the Royal Variety, I sold out just about every venue I played. I started in 200-to 300-seat capacity theatres and built my way up to the biggest venues in the UK, selling out fifty-four arenas each of around 10,000 seats in the autumn of 2009. I’ve had some pretty wild dreams in my life, in fact I’ve spent most of my life dreaming about success, but what has happened to me was beyond all of them. Things occurred so fast I barely had time to take a breath. It’s only now, writing this book, that I have begun to digest everything. I suppose it’s part of the reason I don’t have many amusing or insightful stories about the past few years. The fact is that I’ve been working flat out and anything funny that has happened I’ve turned into stand-up material that you’ve probably heard.
An advert for my DVD at Piccadilly Circus. It looks very cool but was actually revolving with several other adverts. I went to see it with Kitty and we had to drive around the block twelve times before we caught it!
It’s just mind-blowing. One minute I was traipsing around comedy clubs telling my jokes, and the next minute I’m playing arenas where they’re selling merchandise with my jokes written on them. Some of the jokes that couldn’t get me to headline Jongleurs were now on T-shirts, key rings and mouse mats.
If there was one moment when I was able to stop and appreciate what was happening to me, it was on my last night at the O2 in London. The O2 is the biggest venue I’ve played: it’s the biggest venue in Europe and holds 16,000 people. I played there for four nights. Before my tour started, I saw Madonna there, the first night I did was replacing Michael Jackson, the night before my final night Beyoncé was there. It simply doesn’t get any bigger than this.
I arrived for my final O2 performance at about 4 p.m. feeling at home, having already had three gigs there. I knew it was the last time I would be there for a long while, maybe ever, so I was determined to enjoy it. The gig is surprisingly easy. Despite there being so many people, the spotlights were so bright I couldn’t see a single soul from the enormous stage. I could just hear an eruption of laughter. This night was extra special because my mum had come over from France to see the show and my sister Lucy had come over from New York, where she now lives and works.
All through the tour I was looking forward to my mum seeing the astonishing size of these venues. You really have to see it to believe it. She sat in her seat and watched the thousands and thousands of my fans taking their seats, clutching bags of merchandise with my
face on them. She was overwhelmed and began to cry as she thought of her visit to the Tarot card reader on Kensington Church Street when she was pregnant with me over thirty years earlier.
‘It came true. It all came true,’ she thought to herself, smiling through her tears.
I belted out my show with all the passion and exuberance I could muster and savoured every second. I once fantasized about storming the Comedy Store and calling for Kitty at the end like Rocky calling for Adrian. We weren’t together then. If I’m brutally honest, I thought that dream was a long shot. I had achieved nothing in comedy and nothing with Kitty and doubted whether I could get close to either. Now the reality of my life was something I wouldn’t have dared to dream of. Sixteen thousand people standing and cheering my name, and Kitty among them, rushing backstage and into my arms. My wife, the love of my life and mother of my children, Lucas and our new baby, Oscar.
With my gorgeous wife at the GQ Men of the Year Awards.
So many people came to the O2 that night, and I knew then how special it was. Chilling out after the show in my dressing room with Kitty, Lucy, Danny, my mum, Steve and my brothers, all together, proud of me.
Basking in the spotlight during the recording of my second DVD, Hello Wembley.
‘Where’s Addison?’ I asked Danny.
Addison has been integral to everything good that has happened in my career. He is an incredible man and agent. From the moment he saw me for the first time in Edinburgh and subsequently squeezed me on to the bill at the Royal Variety, he has been plotting and planning my next move, always one step ahead, masterminding my success. No sooner had I asked about his whereabouts than he burst into the room.
‘Michael, congratulations, you were a revelation. Now I need to talk to you about something. I think you’re up to it. If it goes well, it’s massive. If you want to do it, I need to move fast on this.’
‘What is it?’ I asked with the now familiar mix of excitement and trepidation.
‘How do you feel about writing your life story?’
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Life and Laughing: My Story Page 27