One night in January it was particularly cold. I had a convertible BMW 325i at the time and because of the soft-top, it got very cold inside. Jason finished the show, signed autographs at the stage door then jumped in the car. I’d been waiting for a few minutes and was warming it up. As I set off past Liberty’s, Jason dozed off, as he tended to do. I was listening to the radio.
Suddenly, he woke with a start.
‘Oh. Shit, mate, I’m so sorry. I think I’ve pissed myself,’ he said.
‘What the hell? How have you managed that?’
‘I don’t know, but my arse is warm.’
‘Go back to sleep, ya twat, I’ve turned your seat heater on.’
JD was more open, honest and giving than he needed to be. He warned me that in Act II there was a moment by the giant corn one-armed bandit where the spotlights on you are turned off briefly as the corn spills out. It’s the only time in the show that suddenly you can see the audience. The rest of the time, all you see is velvety, smoky blackness as you look out.
Jason warned me that at that second when the spots go out it’s such a shock to suddenly see 2,500 people on your opening night. The first time, he jumped and nearly swore.
Also in a moment of extreme openness, Jason told me how much he was paid each week.
My jaw hit the deck. This was 1992, and these figures were the equivalent of footballers’ wages. It was an astonishing piece of information. I passed it on to Daz, who had started work on my contract. He was, as ever, firm but persuasive, and negotiated the same fee for me. I told you earlier how I retired my dad and bought him his dream Hasselblad camera. Now you know how.
My dad was, as usual, doing some DIY in the Chiswick house for me. He, Mum and I were chatting. I was in the bedroom; they were in the bathroom. All their lives they had put me and Tim first. They had gone without things so that we could have them. We had both had perfect lives because of them. I couldn’t have been more grateful for the net of safety, support and love that they always had ready in case I needed to fall into it, and it was my turn to repay that. My dad was saying that he had a big job coming up and that he was knackered. The timing was perfect.
‘Don’t accept the job.’
‘I have to accept it, we can’t afford not to.’
‘Yes, you can. As of this moment, you are retired. I’m paying your wages from now on and always will.’
Their faces were a picture. It was a nice feeling to be able to do it for them, but then I said, ‘But please finish painting my bathroom before you down tools.’
Even though I lost my dad in 2008, I still keep my promise to Mum.
My opening night was getting closer and I had hit a minor snag. I can’t dance for shite! I spent my days with Assistant Director Nichola Treherne, who was teaching me the part, and occasionally Anthony Van Laast, the choreographer, would pop in. It became obvious pretty quickly that if a singer, dancer and actor was a ‘triple threat’, it was quite apparent that I was only ever going to manage a double threat at best. At the end of Act I, I had to walk across the stage, and the moves were a simple ‘step, clap, step, clap’. On my opening night, they both presented me with a leather keyring that said ‘step, clap, step, shit!’
I’d started having regular anxiety dreams. I’d wake up sweating in the night, having just dreamt that I was standing on the stage of the Palladium in front of 2,500 people and, when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. Some nights I dreamt I’d forgotten the words, and one night I dreamt I was naked!
The big day finally dawned on Monday, 13 January 1992. I was about to be the lead in a West End musical, just about the last direction I had ever expected my career to take. There were a few moments during the day that I just stopped to think where I was. It was all quite difficult to process. At about midday, I understood what I was thinking: it was grown-up! I had the reputation of the show, the cast, the theatre and Andrew Lloyd Webber in my hands – the responsibility was very bloody adult. I think the word to describe it would be ‘exposed’. On TV, if something goes wrong, it’s seldom a calamity. I try to seamlessly cover it up, or my usual reaction, if it’s appropriate, is to point out the mistake so that the viewers feel involved and included. That tactic would not be available to me here! If I screwed up on my opening night, there would be no covering it up and no laughter to be had.
My name in lights … at the London Palladium!
Thankfully, any worry or concern that I had about being seen as an imposter, proved to be totally unfounded. The West End, in its supportive entirety, was achingly wonderful. All the other shows sent huge bouquets of flowers – Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Blood Brothers, Miss Saigon, Les Mis, The Mousetrap. The cards attached to them said things like ‘Welcome to your new West End family,’ and ‘We’re all cheering you on.’ The office had to go out and buy monster vases to accommodate them all.
Inside the Palladium, the atmosphere was equally supportive and loving. Linzi Hateley was the super-talented narrator, and I was in awe of her and the entire company.
It had been decided to give Piers Morgan preferential treatment, as he had been very supportive of James Grant and its stable of artists. If he was allowed in to watch the dress rehearsal, he would have the steal on everyone else and could write his review for the Sun. In the afternoon, I did my first full run: costume, wig, make-up, full cast, company and full orchestra. To sing with a live orchestra is one of life’s great experiences: full-on spine-tingling goosebumps. Piers was sitting in the auditorium. He and I have had a couple of bumps in our friendship over the years, but the review he wrote that day for me was immensely kind.
It was 7 p.m. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your half-hour call. Thirty minutes, please.’
I could hear the bustle of the auditorium filling up as I sat waiting in my dressing room for the evening performance. This hallowed space had been home to some of the biggest showbiz names on the planet. The dressing room had two areas, a sitting room complete with a coffee table made by Ronnie Barker and an area with the full-on lights-round-the-mirror vibe. There was a jacuzzi in the bathroom which I’m sure, if you turned it on, bits of Tommy Steele would come out. The rooms were full of the heady scent of flowers and there were cards by the hundred. Steph and my family had taken their seats. Pete, Russ, Paul and Daz had done the same. Pete was a nervous wreck – there was a lot of hair-rubbing going on. All my friends were in their seats. If I did indeed arse it up, as the cab driver had suggested, I didn’t know how I’d ever recover from it. To mix metaphors, I had stuck my head above the parapet and I risked being holed below the waterline.
Before or since that night I have never felt that level of fear. Shaking hands, dry mouth, rapid heartbeat. This wasn’t fear, this was full-on fight-or-flight terror! Why? Because I wasn’t in front of the glassy black eye of a camera, I was in front of 2,500 real human eyes – 5,000 if you count both eyes – right in front of me, watching, appraising, and what’s more, the bodies that those eyes lived in had paid £27.50 for a ticket.
The cast, the crew, the band were popping their heads through the open door. ‘Break a leg, Phil.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your fifteen-minute call. You have fifteen minutes, please.’
Jason’s dresser, Tina, had stayed to look after me, and she was doing a good job of preventing me opening the secret back door from the dressing room and bolting down Great Marlborough Street.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Act I beginners call. Act I beginners to the stage, please.’
I looked at Tina with unblinking, scared eyes. She smiled and said, ‘You’ll be fine, you know it back to front. Just sing the right words, in the right order and in tune. Oh, and try to stand in the right place. That’s all you need to do tonight.’
‘Yeah, okay, right,’ I mumbled.
We walked out of the dressing room and down the ‘donkey run’, the large corridor that led from big double doors at one end; that opened on to Great Marlborough Street, directly to the wing
s of the stage at the other end. If indeed you needed a donkey, that’s how you’d get it to the stage. It was rumoured that during his run in The King and I Yul Brynner was so vile to the company, as he walked down the donkey run barefoot he was very likely to stand on a tack or two that had been ‘clumsily dropped’.
At the end of the donkey run, on the left-hand side, is a huge and very famous mirror. I looked into it and checked myself before I turned and walked into the darkness of the stage, as
had been done by so many before me: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Nat King Cole, Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr. I walked on to the stage of the most famous variety theatre in the world, my head screaming, ‘Pretender!’
The prologue music had started on the other side of the curtain, and the stage manager walked over to me with a small torch, which she shone through the swirling dry ice
so I could see the circular, dinner-plate-sized break in the yellow carpet of the stage. I stood in the centre of the circle, she tapped my shoulder and said, ‘Enjoy it.’ Then she spoke into her mic and the hydraulic lift I was standing on rose fifteen feet into the air. I couldn’t run for it now, even if I wanted to. I was totally alone, elevated above the stage in the darkness with dry ice swirling beneath me. My legs were shaking uncontrollably. Linzi Hateley had started to sing. I was moments away. I looked high up into the flies, where the scenery hangs before it drops in. There was a spotlight that had been dimmed down so it was only a faded ivory disc, and the operator leaned forward and put her hand in front of it. The last thing I saw before the curtain lifted was a thumbs-up on that faded disc.
‘… In the story of a boy whose dream came true, and he could be … you,’ sang Linzi.
‘Any Dream Will Do’ began, the curtain flew out, I was blinded by multiple spotlights pointing at me. The hydraulic lift travelled forwards and down, carrying me through the swirling mist to set me and my cowboy boots gently on to the yellow stage. I was sure most of the auditorium were desperately on my side, but there were certainly a few who would delight in saying that they were there the day Phillip Schofield arsed it up on the stage of the London Palladium.
Just get the words right, just get the words right, big … deep … breath … and …
‘I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain.’
That first show flew past. There was no time to really enjoy anything; I just had to get the mechanics right on this show. There would be time to enjoy and fine-tune in the next six weeks. I stood in the right place, I sang the right words at the right time in the correct key. I thought: I may very well get away with this.
In the interval, ALW sent back one scribbled word on a torn-out bit of paper: ‘Superstar.’ The relief washed over me like the giant Cribbar surfing wave in Newquay.
Act II started. Here was the moment Jason had warned me about. My spotlight went out and there, suddenly, was every face in the auditorium. I was so grateful he’d told me. I looked up to the front of the dress circle. There were Steph and my family, and they looked happy, certainly not hideously embarrassed. The spotlight burst back into life and they were gone.
If you saw the show in the West End, you’ll know that at the end Joseph is once again lifted on a hydraulic lift, this time, at the front of the stage. I ran to it, two of the brothers made sure the safety clips were fastened and up I went, over the heads of those in the stalls, up to the dress circle, huge rainbow coat spread out behind me. I stopped and looked into the eyes of my family. They had tears streaming down their faces, my dad was punching the air and shouting, ‘Yes!’ That is a moment I can remember with total clarity, seeing their beaming, proud faces, and their tears of joy were all the reassurance I needed that the biggest gamble of my career had paid off.
As the last note was sung, the audience leapt to their feet: I was getting my first-ever standing ovation. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I fought to keep them in. All
the anxiety I had felt evaporated. Someone told me that the ovation went on for minute after minute. I was lost in the moment and have no idea.
As the curtain came down, the wonderful cast lifted me on to their shoulders. Joseph’s brothers really did feel like my brothers. We laughed, we cheered. The next time I faced a TV camera wouldn’t be from behind a curtain of shame
and embarrassment, after all. It’s hard to explain how I felt at that moment. Definitely elated, pumped with adrenaline, massively relieved. I was proud that I didn’t think I’d let anyone down, and I think I was also stunned that the audience had actually stood up. I hadn’t even considered that reaction. I had debuted on the stage of the Palladium and I hadn’t made a tit of myself. I quietly thought, ‘Up yours!’ to the taxi driver.
My last ever Joseph performance.
There was a party afterwards in the Langham Hotel, opposite Broadcasting House, where the BBC club had been when I was seventeen. Sarah Greene and her hubby, Mike Smith, said they would take me to the party, but they had one thing they wanted to do with me first. I got into the car and, instead of turning right up Regent Street, Mike turned left. Through Piccadilly Circus, down to Trafalgar Square, past Downing Street to Parliament Square, then, turning left on to Westminster Bridge, he stopped halfway across. Even in 1992 you weren’t allowed to stop on the bridge. I asked why we were here.
Mike and Sarah had been in a horrific helicopter crash during a series of Going Live. They were outrageously lucky to survive. As a show and, as friends, we had waited daily for the updates by phone to see if they were going to be okay. Although suffering terrible injuries, they pulled through. Mike and Sarah then told me why we were on the bridge. When they were well enough to drive after the crash, they stopped on Westminster Bridge at about ten at night. There was the city stretching out in all its glorious 360-degree detail. In front, the Festival Hall, the River Thames flowing past the ITV Southbank Tower and down to St Paul’s Cathedral. Beyond that, the skyscrapers of the financial heart of the City. Behind them, Big Ben and Parliament. The lights of the city reflected on the inky water. They wanted to scream that they were alive, and so they did, from Westminster Bridge.
Backstage after my opening night with Mike Smith and Sarah Greene.
Mike put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.
‘You will never have a moment like this again in your life. Nothing will come close to this moment. Tonight, the city is yours. Shout it out at the top of your voice.’ And so we did – we bellowed to the city. The moment was mine.
And then the police car screamed to a stop beside us, blue lights flashing. Two policemen got out and walked sternly towards us.
‘You know you are not allowed to stop on the bridge, so will you immediately …’
He saw me.
‘Christ! It’s you, Phillip. How did it go tonight?’
The papers were kind, though some felt my legs were too skinny, which I couldn’t disagree with. I had actually joined a gym a couple of streets behind me in Chiswick. I went exactly once. I got the personal trainer to write me up an exercise regime, saying I wanted to concentrate on my Twiglet legs. We worked through weights and squats and crunches. He then set me up on the running machine and told me to do about twenty minutes. I was watching MTV on the telly in front of me and I was starting to sweat. The more sweaty my head got, the more my glasses slipped down my face. I had to keep pushing them up my nose and, momentarily, my coordination failed me. As Lyndon B. Johnson said of Gerald Ford, ‘He can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.’ So, it transpires, I can’t run and push my glasses up my nose at the same time! I shot off the back of the running machine and found myself upside down with my feet up the wall. The humiliation of the gym bunnies running to help me was too much. I left and didn’t return. I still have Twiglet legs.
Those six weeks at the London Palladium were so much fun. I found out that I very much liked being part of a theatrical team. This was different to the teams in TV and radio. Eight shows a week, relying on each other onstage, singi
ng together, in each other’s dressing rooms in the interval, howling with laughter. That’s the thing I remember the most – absolute and total helpless laughter, when your laugh goes up to a gear you hardly ever reach. Patrick Clancy was the baker, and one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. He could get me into such a state of helpless laughter that I had to try very hard in the second act not to cough because of the damage he’d done to my respiratory system.
Once, during a Wednesday matinee, I got Joseph’s two premonition dreams mixed up. My mind went racing forward: was I going to be able to make it fit? No, they were different lengths; it was going to come apart and I was powerless to stop it. I was standing, hands on hips, resplendent in golden crown and golden Timberlands. I was all-powerful, I was regal. I was also about to go down in flames! As I ran out of words, the brothers were all in a semicircle in front of me, grovelling, foreheads on the stage. What should have been ‘How do I know where you come from?’ …
Turned into: ‘You … who are you?’
Nic Colicos, who played Reuben, shouted into the carpet, ‘Tim Rice!’
I don’t think that anyone who had paid very good money that day to watch the show would have noticed, but the brothers, Joe included, spent the show with shaking shoulders and wet eyes.
I also learned a very big physics lesson. In the second act, Joseph has to become regal, so in the wings I painted two green, Egyptian-style decorations on my eyes. One day I left the lid off the make-up and it dried out; I’d have to get some more. Tina ran out to Boots. When she came back she apologized. They didn’t have green, I’d have to use blue. I didn’t see that would be a problem. I put it in position by the mirror at the side of the stage for when I needed it. At the appointed time, I ran into the wings, changed costume and then applied the make-up.
At the side of pretty much all stages, the lighting is blue. It’s the least intrusive for the audience should they catch a glimpse of backstage. I started to apply the eye make-up in the mirror. It wasn’t working – none of it was coming out. I tried and tried, but nothing was happening and time was running out. I’d gone beyond delicacy. I was desperately trying everything. I gave up and went back onstage. Here was my physics lesson. Blue make-up under a blue light is invisible, which is probably why it was green in the first place.
Life's What You Make It Page 20