“You’ve been suspended.”
“So what?” They used to do that at school; sometimes to punish you for non-attendance, which always struck me as poetic.
“Without pay.”
I didn’t care; I didn’t do the show for money. None of our lot are in it for money. We’re in it for the kicks and the glory.
“We’re under a lot of pressure here, mate, they want us to do an apology.”
“I’ve apologised to Andrew Sachs.”
“They want us to apologise publicly.”
“What’s the fuckin’ point in that? We’ve apologised to him for the incident, all this bullshit that’s happened since ain’t our fault.”
“I know, mate, but that’s not how people look at it.”
“Well, what do they want me to do? I’m not going to resign.”
We looked at each other. Resign. We realised in that moment that the only power we had was to walk away, to seize the initiative. We only did the show for fun and it was no fun anymore. To be honest, it had stopped being fun when Matt left.
Nik was aware of the impeding severity and rippling irritation far more than I could be; I was locked into the battle. He knew how my actions looked to people who read about it in the papers and saw it on TV. He knew that I looked arrogant, self-satisfied, unrepentant.
In my life I have encountered a lot of conflict and committed many wrongs. As a breadline junky, morals were ballast to be dispensed with as they interfered with survival. Now the skills and attitudes evolved to cope in an unforgiving environment peopled by ne’er-do-wells, dealers and chancers were themselves a hindrance.
I suppose it’s easy for others to forget, as it is for me, when they see me all perfumed and flouncing, that I crawled out from between a rock and a hard place. When then strife occurs I know only to stiffen and to fight. To prepare for the insults and the onslaught, but sometimes that’s the last thing you should do.
It was a mistake to leave those messages and upset Andrew Sachs. Even though he has since joked that he’s done quite well out of the affair, it must have hurt him. I know what it’s like to have complicated familial relationships and to have those fragile feelings jangled for a gag is wounding.
Now, more than I did at the time, I see how wrong it was to use such private matters to fuel humour and I hope he and his family know of my regret; it was certainly apparent in the apology I sent him and I hope clear in these words I now write.
At the time I was so incensed by the media reaction, which I still consider to be hugely disproportionate, that I too quickly disregarded my own transgression. In spite of what I’ve been through I have never sought to make capital or jokes at the expense of vulnerable people, my mother did not raise me that way.
Resign. Nik and me knew what we had to do.
I called Jonathan. He was sad, but accepted it was the right thing for me to do. Nik called Lesley. She was worried. “Don’t do it, darlin’,” she said, all Geordie. But we’d made up our minds.
We went to the John Noel offices in grimy Kentish Town. John was in and he loves a ruck. We went into his office. Jack and Gareth, John Rogers and Gee were all there. Jack picked up a camera and aimed it like a rifle. I made a heartfelt speech. I said I regretted that I’d damaged the BBC, a great and beautiful institution. I hoped that by resigning and accepting culpability the storm might acquiesce, that Jonathan, who I regard to be less to blame than myself, and Lesley, who was entirely guiltless, might be spared further recriminations.
We exhaled and a courier came. Within twenty minutes it was on every single channel. It was like letting off a visual bomb – a moment that had only just happened was there on every screen in the office bouncing back at us. When we recorded it, someone noticed that on John’s wall at the back of the shot was a framed picture of Stalin with a red clown’s nose on. Nik said we should move it and took it off the wall. “No, leave it, mate,” I said. Later I saw experts discussing the semiotics of that image and what it meant, whether it was a comment on media tyranny and dictatorship. But in essence that summed the show up: the picture of Stalin in a red nose just happened to be there; no one planned it, but when we spontaneously noticed it we had the intuitive foresight to know that it was funny and pertinent. It wasn’t planned, it was just funny.
The storm continued to grow. There would be an official inquiry by a board of governors. Jonathan was suspended for three months and his shows were taken off air. Dear, beautiful, brilliant Lesley Douglas resigned. A great professional, who loved her job, who loved and understood radio, who had reinvigorated a dusty old fuddy-duddy station and made it the most listened to in the world, was forced to leave. That’s the saddest thing about it. For her, for me, but mostly for radio and the BBC.
The sky was black with scandal still and the rain lashed down hard on us. The waves crashed against the shores, the furore would not relent. Nik and I packed our bags; I had got a part in a film with Helen Mirren directed by Julie Taymor. An adaptation of a Shakespeare play, scheduled perhaps by the only poet greater then he, God himself. Nik and I set off for America, leaving the storm behind, to be in The Tempest.
†
Part Four
I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m sure I can repeat them exactly.
Peter Cook
The one measure of true love is: you can insult the other.
Slavoj Zizek
Chapter 18
Mummy Helen
Helen Mirren’s presence blazes through all my best social defences and everyday façades, right to the writhing uterus of my throbbing Oedipus complex.
A man of my age wouldn’t rightly regard her as a partner; she is a generation older, but in spite of this she has traded none of her sexual allure. Which is confusing. Nonetheless, intrepid thinker that I am, I’ve managed to distil my requirements of her into this conveniently perverse package: I’d like her to give me a bath, a bath which begins as functional, merely the business of cleaning my body, but then, a few minutes into the bath, it all gets a bit confusing. The boundaries become blurred. I imagine the catalyst could be the necessary soaping of my unmentionables. Dame Helen would be vigorously setting about my prize-winning privates (Shagger of the Year, three years running) with a bar of Pears when we’d make eye contact, then, and I’m aroused even as I write, then, we tumble into a bubbly wonderland, all squeals and half-hearted admonishments, till thighs part and eyes roll. I’d still be into it if she was wearing her Queen costume, and I’ve got a whole other scenario that centres on her Oscar.
I suppose it’s haphazard delusions such as these that will ensure that I am never ennobled as Helen has been, and that led to the embarrassing episode I shall here impart, when the Dame and I first worked together.
The Tempest was an ambitious project. It was to be directed by Julie Taymor, a lunatic visionary who only ever seems to have one eye on the real world, and the cast was incredible. Joining Mirren were Alfred Molina, who can surely be described as “a damn fine actor” and a convivial gent; Ben Whishaw, a gentle pixie Jimmy Dean effortlessly enchanting all with downcast eyes and mumbles; Djimon Hounsou, intense, magnetic and in a state of constant regret, having agreed to play the part of Caliban in make-up that covered his entire body and took four hours to apply and three to remove; and me.
As with all films, the majority of filming took place in Hawaii. This time though there was far less money, which equals more pressure for everybody and peaked with me and Fred Molina sharing a trailer about the size of this book. A caravan is what it was and not even a nice one; if you saw it in Margate you’d kick it down the beach while bellowing the eponymous Chas & Dave song. The stuff for which they required a studio took place, unusually, in New York City, where they matched the exteriors shot in Hawaii with sets they’d built on a sound stage, common practice.
The final day of filming was very busy and comprised a complicated scene where Alfred, Djimon and myself had to be pursued down a frankly bloody dangerous fifty-foot open stairca
se by angry Rottweilers. Whenever there are animals on a filmset they are accompanied by their handlers, invariably characters somewhere between Mowgli and inhabitants of a news item in which a loner is evicted from their home for living with sixty cats. From within her fleece that shimmered with dog hair the trainer gave the three of us the rundown on how to behave around her canine Kray twins, one of whom stood menacingly at her hip. Djimon is quite butch and wandered off indifferently; Alfred is professional, so listened patiently; I was scared, so stared intensely. This was the worst thing I could have done, as the dog-lady went on to recite a list of decrees that if you were told them before meeting the President you’d say were a bit over the top. One of the main things you mustn’t do with these dogs, it turns out, is stare at them, they don’t like it apparently. I confess to being somewhat irked that I, a movie star, was being given protocols on how I had to comport myself around a mutt. In the good old days I would’ve put a hat on it and tickled its balls, this bugger I was expected to treat like J.Lo. “Don’t stare at Franco,” she said, “or go behind him.” I silently nodded at these commandments. “Nor shalt thou covet his oxen,” she may’ve added, but by then I was lost in a fantasy in which I’d saddled Franco up and rode him into Bethlehem.
Once shooting began the dogs behaved like a right couple of arseholes, snapping at us and terrorising us for mere kicks. Fred and I were dressed in women’s clothes, as the script required it and Djimon was nude but for a loincloth and a ton of make-up. Sometimes in films a stunt or effect is achieved not by trickery but simply by forcing some poor sap to undergo the horror that the story demands. In this instance to get the effect of three men being savaged by devil dogs they simply acquired those ingredients, released the dogs and filmed the inevitable carnage.
When the ordeal concluded, Tom, my adored assistant, hurried me from the set and to the dressing-room upstairs as we were due to catch a flight back to London. There was no time to lose, so I hastily stripped off my costume and leapt into my civvies, first removing the bright yellow underpants I’d been wearing as the day had involved much running and considerable dread. I had no time to pack them, though, so I fled the dressing-room with them clutched in my fist. I was scarpering plane-ward down the corridor to freedom when from a doorway in a voice that conveyed regal authority and mischievous sexuality I heard, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye, Russell?” Dame. Helen. Mirren.
I stopped and politely curtsied.
“Goodbye Ma’am,” I said, struggling to subdue the image of her filling a tub with Matey.
“I’ve enjoyed working with you, Russell, you naughty boy!”
Uh oh, that’s not helping.
“And I you, Your Highness.”
“Well, I hope that we shall work together again soon, you cheeky monkey.”
In my mind the bubbles part and the loofah is submerged.
“Yes. That’d be nice.” My voice cracked. Did she notice? I bowed.
“Well, I best be off …” I was ready to depart and had made it through the entire conversation, in fact the entire shoot, without doing anything peculiar – a triumph.
“Goodbye.” Then I noticed her eyes momentarily flick over to my hand, which still contained the yellow underpants. For some reason I was holding them with my arm straight out at shoulder height. They were bound to be conspicuous. I felt awkward at her having noticed the ol’ pants, so I thought I’d give control of the situation to the insanity that forever lurks at the back of my consciousness waiting for moments such as this, when I’m vulnerable and inclined to do bloody stupid things.
Luckily the insanity is never short of an answer. In any situation, he’ll come up with a solution. The problem is of course that these solutions often cause greater problems than the one they were enlisted to alleviate.
“Dame Helen …” began my madness, “I could not help but notice you were admiring my underpants …” She remained silent, the lunatic did not. “Please accept them as a token of my erection, I mean, affection.” He then thrust them under her proud nose. Dame Helen Mirren considered the dirty yellow pants for a moment and then with a gracious smile … SHE TOOK THEM.
SHE TOOK THEM RIGHT OUT OF THE MADMAN’S HAND! SHE HAS THEM STILL! I hope to God she hasn’t looked inside them.
Also whilst in New York me and the barmy gang were working under the name of our production company, Vanity Projects, and if you think the name is stupid just look at the bloody logo!
Matt drew that. It’s a man examining his own bottom whilst masturbating. Matt assures me the man is called Jason, though I don’t see how that makes his behaviour any more forgivable.
Matt and I were, I suppose, estranged at this time, although he’d hate the use of that term as it implies marriage and that was something he would always strenuously reject – even on our honeymoon. I missed him, of course, but sometimes close friendships have a tidal beat that pulls you towards different shores though the ocean that connects you remains.
On this New York trip we made my first American stand-up special for the Comedy Central network, which was surprisingly commissioned even after I, during the meeting to discuss it, forlornly stared at the floor of the terrace upon which we were dining and fed the sparrows at my feet pieces of bread from the table. “What’s the point?” I said to the concerned executives. “I mean, why should we give you this programme?” Luckily, Nik had told them that I was a lovable eccentric and they assumed this was part of my charm. The special went ahead and was jolly funny, mostly because, freed from the context of other English people, I became such a preposterous caricature of Englishness I’m surprised the gods didn’t punish me by turning me into a bulldog.
Once more on Albion’s shores we sought to turn the catastrophe of Sachsgate into a palatable piece of entertainment. The guiding star of my anguished adulthood has been the knowledge, absent in my childhood, that shame, embarrassment and failure are funny. These torturous, in-turned Furies are a resource, a deep asphyxiating mine from which gems can be plucked. With each humiliation I now encounter, and they still rain down in tropical streaks, I remind myself of their value as I stand there hot and drenched.
The mêlée around the BBC farrago had indeed been fruitful – effigies had been burned, death threats issued and politicised debates held. Best of all, the entire episode was on camera, documented. The stand-up show that ensued was a unique comment on an absurd situation, and arenas all over Britain and Ireland quickly sold out. I even did gigs in Australia and the States. Throughout this adventure the surrogate family that surrounded me grew. In addition to Nik, Matt, Gee, Nicola, John Rogers, Sharon, Tom, Gareth and Jack there was the implausibly comedic pairing of Danny and Mick. Ostensibly security and driver respectively, these men have clumsily dragged such humour into my life that I feel duty bound to here pay them homage.
Danny O’Leary is a big man. So big that he has to get suits made. Big Danny he is known as round the clubs and pubs of Essex where he has been “doing doors” since he was fourteen. He comes from Romford, a few miles away from Grays where I’m from. Now, through our friendship, a sturdy and occasionally violent bridge back to my past has been built. Although I might have been in his presence before in the white-cider blitz of adolescence, the first time I properly clocked him was when I saw him working with Courtney Love, like a cupboard in a beige suite, lantern jawed, smiling infectiously and with a demeanour and hair that hark back to post-war Britain. He looks like a spiv’s henchman. I immediately liked him and felt a connection, perhaps due to his accent and the familiarity and nostalgia it evoked. Perhaps too I sensed that in him I’d discovered at last a burly protector upon whom I could depend, like having the hardest kid in your school as a mate.
The next time we met was on the promotional tour that accompanied the publication of the first instalment of this book, My Booky Wook. Danny and five or six of his crew were doing the security for a nationwide book chain. That tour was mayhem. It came during a period where my carnal appetites raged like a bush
fire or an awesome CIA-manufactured plague. The words “book tour” hardly summon the spirit of Dionysus. Alan Bennett does book tours and I bet he’s no trouble. I imagine he signs the fans’ books then gets on his way. Well, this was a carnival of destruction, we marauded up and down the country causing mayhem, doing gigs in the evenings before thousands and signing books in jam-packed precincts by day. Proper fame, with screams and bras and codewords to select. In Danny O’Leary I found the perfect accomplice, someone who gleefully facilitated my gluttony. Jack said we reminded him of Fred and Rose West as we exchanged glances after gigs and gave nods and winks and directed women to the area ordained for these matters to reach their conclusion. Once more, I am not proud of the morality employed during this indulgent time but one has to marvel at the efficiency. This operation travelled all over the world and effortlessly assimilated into any culture it encountered, New York, Sydney, Hull – it was all the same: wristbands issued, rooms filled with women in their dozens, day after day. A relentless machine with no off switch, like an untethered lawnmower chewing its way through the Amazon jungle. Journalists often ask me to estimate a number, but I never do because I know they’ll isolate it and make me look like Bluebeard, but between me and you it was a one-man, multi-woman sex epidemic. And some of it was fun. Brilliant, exactly what you’d expect. I felt like I was repaying a debt to the fifteen-year-old boy I’d been who watched life from the sidelines, blustering and shy. “And what’s wrong with that?” many people will say – all the girls were willing and up for it, sometimes they DRESSED up for it. It was astonishing, like being able to walk through walls or dance like Michael Jackson. Naturally though, as is always the case with such things, there was a price to pay – in loneliness. What an unexpected and disappointing clause. I should have read the small print but I was distracted by the boobs. If you live cyclically and obsessively something within you withers as you gorge. But enough of that morose honesty – let’s get back to the rollercoaster.
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