by Julian Clary
These were the first shows my parents came to. ‘Thought we’d better come and see what all the fuss is about,’ said my father. ‘Very nice,’ said my mother, ‘but please don’t ask us to come again.’ On the written page this looks unkind, but she was joking, acknowledging the significance of the occasion. That initiation was good for them, I think, as they’ve been to see me many times since. My sexuality has now been well and truly demystified for them, and indeed everyone else. I’ve never worried about upsetting them: they’re fairly thick-skinned and we do, after all, share the same sense of humour. There was only one time when I faltered. I was performing at the Playhouse Theatre and I had booked a box for my parents, my grandmother and Auntie Tess and Uncle Ken. The older generation were in their late eighties. The box there is right on top of the stage and just before I came to a particularly graphic section, I saw them all sitting there in a row, glasses glinting at me. I took a deep breath and sallied forth.
‘I didn’t know I was gay myself until last Thursday week. I was just getting out the bath when I suddenly thought – do you know what I feel like? A great big cock up my arse.’ It was the sort of line that sorted the men from the boys, usually causing a collective intake of breath and a delayed laugh. (Paul O’Grady was in that night, too, with my favourite drag queen of them all, Regina Fong. ‘We could not believe what you’d just said,’ recalled Paul. ‘Regina nearly passed out!’) I nervously glanced at the box and thankfully they were all laughing, apart from my grandmother, who was smiling happily: she’d taken the precaution of turning her hearing aid off before the show began.
I needed to expand my act as a matter of urgency. Addison was booking me into larger and larger venues where my fee would be considerably more than I was used to. I could no longer get away with my usual hit-or-miss 20 minutes. Songs would be a good filler, I thought, so I put the word around for a pianist. The fact that I couldn’t sing was neither here nor there. A posh friend of Neil Mullarkey’s called Dobbs offered his services, as did an ex-Cambridge Footlights musician called Russell Churney. Dobbs had cheekbones, Russell had dimples and a whiff of Rick Astley about him, and after some rumination I opted for Russell. Kim Kinney from The Comedy Store helped us rehearse, and we soon resurrected ‘I Wonder If My Mother Ever Knew’ from Glad and May days, and a strange song I wrote the lyrics for about an incestuous pederast, inexplicably sung in a West Country accent. It was called ‘Was That A Robin I Saw Bobbin On Your Finger, Uncle Tom?’ (‘Or was it just a little piece of fluff? And why was you a huffin’ and a puffin’ like you was, and snortin’ like you’d just been sniffin’ snuff?’)
Kim Kinney used to choreograph Soho strippers years before and his directions were along similar lines: ‘Pout and sashay! Swing those hips, Julian!’
Russell soon settled into his role as a stooge. He was to be known as ‘The Lovely Russell with his Fabulous Upright’. Russell’s heterosexuality alone gave me plenty of material to work with. I introduced him as ‘the straight I bait – the only known heterosexual in the world of showbiz today – apart from Judith Chalmers’. He had that slightly irritating, lazy self-confidence about him that Oxbridge types often display, but that was a minor matter and easy enough to live with. ‘You’ve got lovely eyes, Russell. Goat’s eyes. You’ll make someone a lovely yoghurt one day. Are you hot under these lights, Russell? Maybe this will cool you down . . .’ And I threw a glass of water over him.
Spare the rod, spoil the pianist, was my philosophy. And anyway he enjoyed his moment of mock indignation. The more we worked together the better he got. Russell quickly memorised my act and I could turn to him mid-sentence in a blank spell and he would rescue me.
Prior to Edinburgh that year we played three nights at the Purcell Rooms on the South Bank. Proper stage and lights and a Steinway grand for Russell to tinkle on. I called the show Uncanny and Unnatural after another song I’d written with Jungr and Parker:
Something strangers noticed as they peered into my pram Uncanny and unnatural, that’s what I am.
I did my best to live up to the new expectations people had of me. Some new material, daring new impersonations from Fanny, stylish costumes by Michael Ferri, a recorded announcement for my entrance and a glitter ball twinkling above me. (Glitter balls have featured in my stage shows ever since, despite the fact that they’ve crashed to the ground on three occasions over the years and I’ve narrowly missed what would be certain death. But what a way to go!)
But I note from my diary of that time I wasn’t particularly pleased with myself.
6 August 1987
Must be more sure of myself. No good being wishy-washy, is it? Brassier, in fact. Too low on physical energy, too calm. Be more affectionate towards the audience.
Interesting to note how completely I ignored my own advice. I’ve never gone in for self-confidence and I often find it rather off-putting in others. For better or worse my lethargic ways, off stage and on, have become something of a trademark. As for being nice to the audience, it’s not in my nature. An air of amateurishness has come to be expected of me. No one quite knows if I’m going to make it to the end of the show. I was particularly forgetful in those days, possibly due to the vast amounts of marijuana I was consuming before and after the shows. That was where Russell came in handy.
‘Where am I, Russell? Who am I?’ He could always be relied on to set me back on course. And then be told off for being a smarty-pants. Reviewers in Edinburgh that year noted the fact. ‘The whole act is surprisingly hesitant and unprofessional, with Clary seeking desperate prompts from his long-suffering pianist, the Lovely Russell,’ wrote Charles Spencer in the Observer.
But there were forces at work whatever the critics wrote. People came and clapped and talked of me to their friends, who then came to see for themselves. The amoeba of popularity was multiplying. Despite my lethargy, despite my hesitancy, poor memory and poorer singing, the snowball of fame was rolling down the hill, getting bigger and attracting more attention than was seemly.
Meanwhile in a place called Manchester their chief of police, a bearded hulk of a man called James Anderton, was making some unpleasant homophobic remarks. Gay men were ‘the spawn of Beelzebub’ he announced, and the AIDS epidemic a direct result of their unnatural practices. Homosexuals were ‘living in a cesspit of their own making’ – you get the drift. Such unsavoury views from a pillar of society quite rightly caused a storm of protest and I was as incensed as anyone. Fear and ignorance about AIDS seemed to be particularly prevalent among police forces across the nation in those days. There had recently been a raid at the Vauxhall Tavern in south London where 40-odd policemen piled through the door wearing latex gloves, as if merely touching a homosexual might lead to infection. The pretext for the raid was the sale of poppers behind the bar. Lily Savage was thrown down the stairs in full drag but managed to kick an officer in the back. ‘The best fucking strike of my life!’ The next series of Saturday Night Live (now moved to Fridays) seemed as good a place as any to respond. Paul Merton and I wrote a sketch called ‘Police Constable Fan Club’. I had a glamorous uniform made and a fluffy pink truncheon.
Evening all! They said it could never be done. They said I’d never be a bobby on the beat, but quelle surprise, I’m wearing Marigold gloves and I’ve got a truncheon in my pocket. Need I say more?
I’ve only been in the force two weeks and already I’m president of the Shiny Helmet Club. And could I introduce you to Fanny of the Yard – now a fully qualified police dog. She’s a sniffer dog. Well, she’s got a bit of a cold.
It’s a hard life. It’s not all flat feet and whistles, you know. They wanted to send me on a dawn raid the other morning. I said I’m sorry but you won’t see me before half past ten; I don’t have my porridge till nine and I’m not leaving the house without something hot inside me, not for anyone.
But I’ve got a very understanding boss. I’m James Anderton’s personal assistant. I’ve got the whip marks to prove it. I’ve certainly earned my stripes. We�
��ve got pet names for each other. In private I call him Jimbo and he calls me the Spawn of Beelzebub. He’s a hard man but I quite like that.
Now I’m here tonight because the police want to improve their image. We seem to have lost touch with the young people of today. You don’t trust us and you don’t respect us. So from now on any young person, or YP, placed under arrest will not automatically be beaten up in the back of the van, but instead will be given a nice cup of herbal tea and a fudge finger. Interrogations will now take place in the station sauna with the detective of your choice, and all High Court judges will answer to the name of Shirley.
So what’s new?
I was invited back on Friday Night Live a few weeks later and decided to do my version of The Shangri-Las’ ‘Leader Of The Pack’. I had first performed this at the Hackney Empire a few months before, at the suggestion of Steve Edgar who was now with a band called he Howlers.
In Shadow Morton’s original anthem a teenage girl has to tell her boyfriend (Jimmy) that her parents have demanded she finish with him. He screeches off on his motorbike and has a fatal crash. She vows never to forget him. The plot remained the same in my version, but there were one or two lyrical modifications. In my version Jimmy and James Anderton became one and the same.
He was the Leader of the Pack but now he’s gone. Well he’s dead, let’s face it, he was killed in that terrible accident. I’m the Leader of the Pack now, and a much better job I think I’ll make of it. I don’t drink and drive, which Jimmy certainly did, and I don’t actually have a motorbike, but I do have a Sierra Estate, which is much more comfortable: the boys can all fit in the back, which is what I like, and we can travel around together as a group, instead of some kind of threatening, machismo convoy, getting separated by traffic lights and junctions and that sort of thing. He was the Leader of the Pack but now he’s gone. Good-bye, Jimbo.
Stephen overheard two men in a pub discussing my performance.
‘Did you see that Joan Collins Fan Club on Friday Live? He was spaced out of his head.’
‘Oh yes, I’ve seen him a couple of times. He’s always like that.’
Someone from 10 Records, a subsidiary of Virgin, was watching and within days I had a record deal. My Thinkman bandmate Rupert Hine produced the single, and ‘Leader Of The Pack’ reached number 47 in the charts. We might have done better, but I’d got Stephen in the video and he licked an ice cream too suggestively for the network’s liking and it was banned before midnight. Ho hum. My follow-up single was ‘I Was Born Under A Wandrin’ Star’. Its meagre comedy value stemmed from the fact that I sang in an unexpectedly low, gravelly voice. It featured lots of clippety-clop noises, and references to Dobbin the horse, a feature of my live act at that time: ‘Here’s your nose bag, Dobbin. Fresh hay soaked in amyl nitrate.’ Before the singing started you could hear me say: ‘Hold up here a while, Dobbin, and I’ll spread my gingham tablecloth out over that grassy knoll and fumble in my rucksack for my banjeleylee.’ I think we sold about five copies. I went on Phillip Schofield’s radio show and he played it and enthused in his kindly, professional manner. I got ready to leave while the next record was being played. Off air he gave me a concerned look. ‘You don’t really expect it to be a hit, do you?’ he asked.
‘Well, no, I suppose I don’t,’ I said. And that was that.
BACK IN TELEVISION-LAND, a producer called Michael Hurll was putting together a new Saturday teatime game show called Trick or Treat for LWT. It needed two presenters and, as the title suggested, contrasting ones. Chalk and cheese, was the general idea. He’d settled on Mike Smith as one; a harmless, genial man, the male equivalent of his wife, Sarah Greene. But who to pair him with? The pilot with Nicky Campbell hadn’t worked. (I could have told him that.) Daringly, Michael thought of me. The show itself was a rather flawed concept: I’d pick preselected punters out of the audience and Mike would give them money tokens they could swap for keys, which may or may not lead to a new hi-fi (treat) or a tin of baked beans (trick). One week the excited contestants were promised a caravan for the final star prize. When the curtain finally went back, a stuffed camel was revealed. I didn’t understand it either. Anyway, my main job was to chat to the audience, which I quite enjoyed. I knew the show wasn’t very good, but I was just doing what was asked of me. My transition from late-night TV shows to kiddies’ teatime caused alarm in some circles.
‘TV BOSSES WASH OUT GAY JULIAN’S FOUL MOUTH,’ screamed the now defunct Today newspaper.
‘Gay sex gags by gender bender Julian Clary have been AXED from TV star Mike Smith’s game show,’ said the Star.
‘SMITH’S TRIP OR TRIPE DISASTER,’ said the News of the World.
It seemed to get worse each week. Some sort of former football person called Jimmy Greaves who had downgraded to become a ‘TV pundit’ chimed in on a live TV-am talk-in: ‘He asked people in the audience if they’d picked up a bit of trade. He’s a prancing poof!’
‘GREAVSIE JIBE AT TV POOF,’ reported the Sun.
Mike Smith gamely defended me: ‘I’m going to do a show called Small-minded Bigotry and Jimmy’s going to star in it.’
I’d had no dealings with the tabloids before and was bemused by all the fuss. Surely they were mad? ‘Outrageous drag artist Julian Clary shocked showbiz last night when he appeared on TV wearing MAKE-UP and a crushed velvet suit’ (Sunday Sport). I ask you. The nonsense all rather peaked when I said on Michael Aspel’s chat show that reformed alcoholic Greaves ‘must be on the bottle’. Not a particularly kind or interesting comment you might think, but enough to get me on the front page of the Mirror: ‘GREAVSIE IS PUT THROUGH TV’S MINCING MACHINE.’
I wasn’t thrilled, but Addison was. ‘You made the front page, my son! You’ve caused a right Ferrari!’
Soon enough, of course, they change the attack. Tabloid hacks collude to create a drama out of nothing in particular, then question the worthiness of the subject they selected, turning to bite the languid hand that fed them. ‘Who gives a toss about Julian Clary?’ asked Linda Duff in the People. ‘Gender benders are a thing of ’84. Make-up on men is kind of passé, is it not?’ I could not have agreed more. This kind of bite was toothless, tabloid gums nibbling painlessly.
The public made their feelings clear, too, if we consult the LWT duty officer’s report, a written record of people’s telephoned comments. Twenty-two people rang up after the first transmission. ‘This is disgraceful.’ ‘This isn’t fit for family viewing.’ ‘Mr Stein of Dagenham is not happy with Joan Collins Fan Club on the show.’ ‘The co-presenter is shocking. Why not have a woman?’ ‘Mr Thomas Crayford has three young sons and finds the gay presenter distasteful.’ ‘The gay guy is not in keeping with family entertainment.’ ‘A Yorkshire viewer thinks the producer should be sacked for employing a gay.’ ‘Merseyside viewer disgusted and sickened by the gay on the show.’ But they weren’t all so bad: ‘Caller started to watch this programme but had to give up because she was suffering from severe visual disturbance brought on by the dazzling costume worn by Joan Collins Fan Club.’ My most mysterious message, though, said: ‘Julian mentioning South African fruit was unnecessary.’
I rather specialised in making television interviewers uncomfortable and never quite grasped the ‘chat’ element of chat shows. I often wished I was somewhere else. Such thinly disguised indifference wasn’t helped by my insistence on having only my right profile towards the camera, purely for reasons of vanity (the left profile is inferior). This was fine if the interviewer was situated on my left. If he was on my right, I barely glanced at him. I was all for ignoring inane questions and chatting to the studio audience instead.
In 1987 Gary Glitter interviewed me on Night Network. Some of his questions made no sense at all. He said that comedy tours were as big as rock and roll shows used to be. ‘Is this because the rock and rollers aren’t funny any more?’
What was there to say? ‘That’s a bit high-brow for me,’ I said. ‘You’re new to this interviewing lark, aren’t yo
u?’
He struggled on. ‘Who had the idea for the act? Was it you or Fanny?’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘Fanny is just a dog.’
I dreaded most of these interviews, although someone like Terry Wogan, who had improvisational skills and wit, could be more fun.
On The Last Resort, Jonathan Ross’s first question was: ‘Why the Joan Collins Fan Club? Where did the idea come from?’
‘Let’s start with the obvious,’ I said rather ungraciously. ‘The idea came from wherever ideas come from,’ and turned to stroke Fanny.
My boredom was usually obvious. For these shows they want you at the studio four or five hours before you go on for your six minutes on air. You are greeted at reception by an overeager researcher and confined to a windowless dressing room to await your moment. Maybe the researcher will painstakingly walk you across the set explaining that you enter here and walk to the vacant chair like so, as if you might head straight for the fire exit or take your seat on cameraman four’s face by mistake.
But the pendulum of good fortune swung relentlessly on in the right direction. With or without my cooperation. What I needed was a show of my own, late night on Channel 4, and a proper boyfriend. The time was right for both, and they were just around the corner.
EIGHT
Some day I’ll find you,
Moonlight behind you,
True to the dream I am dreaming.