I repeated those lines from The Producers that everybody quotes at first nights.
Wow, this play wouldn't run a night.
A night? Are you kidding? This play's guaranteed to close on page four.
How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?
And so on.
Years later, Mike would collaborate with Mel Brooks on The Producers' reinvention as a stage musical, only to be struck down with incurable leukaemia before he had the chance to see it open as the biggest Broadway hit of its day.
During the second half, just after the audience had gone back in from the interval, Ralph Rosen, the company's general manager, waddled in his amiable flat-footed way across the lobby to whisper to us the news that a friend of a friend had a friend whose friend was dating a friend at the New York Times and that their friend had seen an advance copy of the Frank Rich review and that it was good. It was more than good. It was a rave. Ralph solemnly shook our hands. He was the most quiet-spoken, honourable and matter-of-fact person I had met in America. If he said a thing was so, then it was so and not otherwise.
By the time we all assembled upstairs for the party Richard had a copy in his hands and a wetness in his eyes once more.
At the Antoinette Perry Awards later that year Me and My Girl was nominated for thirteen Tonys. We failed to pick up ten of them, my category included, but Robert and Maryann each won for best performance in a musical and, perhaps most pleasingly of all, Gillian Gregory won for best choreography. I don't know if to this day she is aware how adeptly Richard saved her from being pointlessly and unjustifiably fired.
I got back to England still shaken by my good fortune. Me and My Girl was running in the West End and on Broadway, there were productions in Tokyo, Budapest, Australia, Mexico - I have forgotten the other territories. The show would run on Broadway for the next three and a half years and in the West End for another six. In the meantime there was Fry and Laurie to look forward to, another Blackadder and ... and ... who knew what else? It seemed that I was an insider, a showbusiness somebody.
In August 1987 I was at home in Norfolk congratulating myself on having given up smoking for ten days. Hugh, Kim and other friends came up to help me celebrate my thirtieth birthday, and within ten minutes of their arrival I was back on the cigarettes.
My roaring twenties were over, and next month Hugh and I would start work on our BBC pilot, which we planned to call A Bit of Fry and Laurie. My bank balance was good and getting ever better. I had cars, certainty and a slowly growing name. I was the luckiest person I knew.
Never one to take stock or make inventories I do recall standing in the garden of the Norfolk house watching the sun set and feeling that I had finally arrived. I do not believe that I actually crowed over the remains of my miserable past self, but I came perhaps as close to exultation as a person can.
When someone exults, Fate's cruel lips curl into a smile.
C
Back in London some weeks later an actor friend asked me if I fancied a line. I did not even know what he meant but I said that I certainly would like one, because he had asked in a way that made 'a line' sound intriguing and wicked and fun. I thought perhaps he was going to tell me a quite appalling joke or pick-up line. Instead, he took a packet of folded paper from his pocket, dug out some white powder and chopped it up into two lines on the surface of a smoked-glass coffee table. He asked me if I had a ten-pound note. I produced one, and he rolled it up tight and put it to one nostril. He sniffed up half of his line, applied the rolled-up ten-pound note to the other nostril and sniffed up the other half. I came forward, took the tube, knelt down and did the same, reproducing his actions as carefully as I could. The powder stung my nostrils enough to produce a few tears in my eyes. I went back to my chair, and we sat and talked for a while. After twenty or thirty minutes we did the same thing again. And then a third time. By now I was buzzing and garrulous and wide awake and happy.
I did not know it but this was to mark the beginning of a new act of my life. The tragedy and farce of that drama are the material for another book.
In the meantime, thank you for your company.
Experimenting with a new pair of glasses in the kitchen of my parents' house in Norfolk.
Acknowledgements
Some of the characters who feature in this book have been kind enough to read it and correct lapses in my memory. I am especially grateful to Kim and Ben and the Nice Mr Gardhouse, but my gratitude reaches out to many others. It is very hard to know whether people will be more offended by inclusion or exclusion from these pages. Full as the book is, it would have been twice the length if I could have given space to everyone who was important in my younger life.
I thank Don Boyd for leading me to the kind and helpful Philip Wickham of the University of Exeter's Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture, which houses a Don Boyd archive where invaluable Gossip material was made available to me.
To Anthony Goff, my agent, to Jo Crocker, my tireless and loving assister, to Christian Hodell and to Louise Moore at Penguin go the warmest and most affectionate and grateful thanks too, but I reserve my deepest acknowledgements for the dedicatee of this book, the colleague without whom I would never have been in a position to write it and without whose friendship my life would have been unimaginably poorer.
Illustrations
Papa.
Mama.
Grandpapa.
Sister Jo, self, brother Roger.
Between Mama and Papa with a rather long-haired Roger on the right.
Tragic hair. Tragic times. Taken some time between school and prison.
The Sugar Puffs addict has moved on to Scott's Porage Oats. (All author's collection)
Universally Challenged. (ITV/Rex Features)
Kim in Half Blue scarf. (From the collection of Kim Harris)
The Cherubs. I know we look like wankers, but really we weren't. Honestly.
Kim Harris. Not unlike a young blond Richard Burton. (From the collection of Kim Harris)
Emma Thompson's hair is starting to grow back. (Brian Logue/Daily Mail/Rex Features)
Unable to afford an outboard motor, Hugh Laurie and his poor dear friends are having to propel themselves through the water.
Playing the King in All's Well That Ends Well, BATS May Week production 1980, in Queens' Cloister Court. (Dr Simon Mentha)
Cableknit Pullover, Part 1. (Author's collection)
The backlit ears of Hugh Laurie, gentleman. (Author's collection)
Cableknit Pullover, Part 2. (Author's collection)
Latin! The most stolen poster of the 1980 Edinburgh Fringe. (Author's collection)
Solemn but triumphant in the Mummers group photo celebrating our Fringe First Awards. (Cambridge Mummers)
A moment later, responding to Tony Slattery and revealing an unsurprising cigarette. (Cambridge Mummers)
The Snow Queen, 1980. My first Footlights appearance. (Cambridge Footlights. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library: UA FOOT 2/5/30, UA FOOT 2/8/95)
With Kim outside the Cambridge Senate House, celebrating our Tripos results. I was insanely in love with that Cerruti tie. (Andrew Everard)
In room A2, Queens'. Graduation day: posing with sister Jo. (Author's collection)
Rowan Atkinson presents Hugh with the Perrier Prize cheque. Edinburgh, 1981. (Perrier)
The Cellar Tapes closing song. I fear we may have been guilty of embarrassing and sanctimonious 'satire' at this point. Hence the joyless expressions. (BBC Photo Library)
Photo call in Richmond Park for BBC version of The Cellar Tapes. (BBC Photo Library)
The same: ultimately a git with a pipe stuck in his face. (BBC Photo Library)
Performing the 'Shakespeare Masterclass' sketch with Hugh. (BBC Photo Library)
With Emma in 'My Darling' - a Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning sketch. (BBC Photo Libra
ry)
Hugh in Crete. We rented a villa for the purposes of writing comedy. (Author's collection)
A cretin in a Cretan setting. (Author's collection)
Hugh prepares to demolish me at backgammon. The retsina was satisfyingly disgusting. (Author's collection)
Hugh, Emma, Ben, self, Siobhan and Paul: There's Nothing to Worry About, Granada TV, 1982. Oh, but there was ... (ITV/Rex Features)
I host a bed party in my room at the Midland Hotel. We seem happy. I think perhaps we were. (Photo by Robbie Coltrane)
An Alfresco sketch that a merciful providence has erased from my memory. (ITV/Rex Features)
The only time in my life I ever wore a donkey jacket. Alfresco. (Photo by Robbie Coltrane)
Providence has once again been merciful. Alfresco. (ITV/Rex Features)
Alfresco, series 2: The Pretend Pub. (ITV/Rex Features)
A twat in tweed and cravat: inexcusably slappable. Alfresco. (ITV/Rex Features)
'We cannot be said to have been the prettiest quartet ever to greet a television audience.' University Challenge. (BBC Photo Library)
The Young Ones. Comic heroes. (BBC Photo Library)
David Lander, earnest investigative reporter in a badly behaved blond wig. (Courtesy of Hat Trick Productions, Channel 4 and Screenocean)
The Crystal Cube, with Emma and Hugh. (Author's collection)
The Crystal Cube. The warty look was created using Rice Krispies. True story. (Author's collection)
The man who put the turd in Saturday Live. I cannot recall a single thing about that sketch. Why the rolled-up trouser leg? (ITV/Rex Features)
As Lord Melchett in Blackadder II. (BBC Photo Library)
More Saturday Live: with Hugh, Harry Enfield and Ben Elton. Why the electric carving knife, if that's what it is? I remember nothing of this moment. (ITV/Rex Features)
The Tatler celibacy article. (Photo - Tim Platt/Tatler (c) Conde Nast Publications Ltd. Words - Stephen Fry/Tatler (c) Conde Nast Publications Ltd)
From Forty Years On, Chichester, 1984. Self, Doris Hare, Paul Eddington and John Fortune. (Picture courtesy of the Chichester Observer)
I remember that Paul Smith shirt. My birthday. (Author's collection)
Emma (Ted Blackbrow/Daily Mail/Rex Features)
First-night party for the Forty Years On 'transfer', Queen's Theatre, London, 1984. Katie Kelly (back to us, shiny bun), boys from the cast, self, Hugh Laurie, sister Jo.
Me and My Girl. Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson. (Alastair Muir/Rex Features)
The French's acting edition of Me and My Girl. (Noel Gay Organisation)
Me and My Girl. Emma's dressing-room on the first night. (Ted Blackbrow/Daily Mail/Rex Features)
One hour before Me and My Girl's Broadway opening. Between my cousin Danny and his grandmother, Great-Aunt Dita.
Experimenting with a new pair of glasses in the kitchen of my parents' house in Norfolk. (Author's collection)
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to rectify in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
Index
Aaron (Biblical figure), 284
Abrahams, Harold, 147
Adams, Douglas, 121, 366-72, 383, 422
Adams, Jane, 367-8
Adelphi Theatre, London, 357
Alfresco (TV series): rehearsals, 20; SF co-writes and performs in, 231, 249, 254-5, 279, 350, 364; broadcast nationally, 238, 353; McNiven in, 243; poor ratings, 246; filming and taping, 297-8
Allen, Keith, 209, 406
alternative comedy, 205-10
And So to Ned (radio programme), 330
Andersen, Hans Christian: The Snow Queen, 168, 175-6
Anderson, Clive, 121, 205, 220
Anderson, Lindsay, 147
Anderson, Michael, 60
Andrews, Anthony, 220
Angell Sound (studio), Covent Garden, 292
Annan, Noel, Baron, 307
Arden, Annabelle, 97, 152, 155, 176
Arden, John: Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, 162, 164
Arden, Mark, 365
Are You Being Served? (TV programme), 338
Arena (magazine), 299, 325
Armitage, Reginald ('Noel Gay'), 259-61, 376
Armitage, Richard: signs up Emma Thompson, 175; signs up SF and Hugh Laurie, 193-4; and SF at Edinburgh, 197; and Ben Elton, 229; offers advances to SF, 234; entertains at Stebbing Park, 258-9; and SF's writing book for Me and My Girl, 259-62, 264-6, 342, 349, 390; background, 261-2; arranges SF's part in Forty Years On, 270, 274; sends SF to BBC, 295; and SF's radio appearances, 331; and SF's earnings, 359; and Elton's writing Blackadder, 373; influence over BBC, 376; and Me and My Girl on Broadway, 409, 420-2, 424; see also Noel Gay Artists
Arnold, Matthew, 71
Ash, Leslie, 266, 298, 338, 343
Atkinson, Rowan: as Oxford man, 71, 129; performs at Edinburgh, 126, 129; on Not the Nine O'Clock News, 180, 193, 209; Armitage sends to watch and report on SF, 193-4; announces Perrier Award to The Cellar Tapes, 198-9; visits Stebbing Park, 258; Armitage signs up, 262; celebrity, 290; SF collaborates with, 298-9; motor cars, 369; and Blackadder, 372, 374, 376, 382-3, 385-7; character, 385-6; marriage to Sunetra, 387-8
Attenborough, Richard, Baron, 354
Auden, W.H., 31
Aukin, David, 266, 268-9
Australia: SF tours with revue, 203-5; SF visits for staging of Me and My Girl, 391
Ayckbourn, Alan (Sir), 191, 240
B15 (radio programme), 328
Backs to the Land (TV sitcom), 138, 193
Baddiel, David, 121
Baker, Tom, 384-5
Barber (Queens' College undergraduate), 138-9
Barker, Ronnie, 209
Barrault, Jean-Louis, 127
Barretts of Wimpole Street, The: parodied, 190
Barton, Anne (nee Righter), 85
Barton, John, 108, 190
Bates, Alan, 44, 338, 351
Bathurst, Robert, 128
Beale, Simon Russell, 90, 163, 190, 256-8
Beaton, Alistair, 333
Beckett, Samuel, 52
Belushi, John, 60, 206
Benn, Tony, 54
Bennett, Alan: as Oxford man, 71, 129; on snobbery, 105; SF admires, 270-1; at SF's audition, 273-5; SF introduces parents to, 338; declines to join cast of Forty Years On for spaghetti meal, 344; takes over Tempest role in Forty Years On, 346-7; writes screenplay of A Private Function, 348; and Russell Harty, 351-2; Forty Years On, 271-3, 295, 325, 335-7, 342, 344-6, 350
Bennett, J.A.W., 89
Bennett-Jones, Peter, 404-5
Berger, Sarah, 44
Bergman, Martin, 128, 197, 205, 359
Berkoff, Steven: Decadence, 202-3
Berlin, Sir Isaiah, 85
Beverly Hills Cop, 203
Bird, John, 336
Birdsall, Timothy, 336
Bit of Fry and Laurie, A (TV programme), 217, 229, 424
Blackadder (TV programme), 217, 228, 237, 372-6, 381-90, 424
Blackshaw, Ben, 153-4; Have You Seen the Yellow Book? (play), 144
Blake, William, 115
Blessed, Brian, 389
Blethyn, Brenda, 332
Bloomsbury Group, 69
Blunt, Anthony, 179
Bogart, Humphrey, 57
Bond, Edward: Narrow Road to the Deep North, 134
Bostrom, Arthur, 298
Botham, Ian, 195, 203
Botham, the Musical (revue), 203-4
Botterill, Steven, 137-9
Boxer, Mark, 305-8, 318
Boyd, Don, 249-53, 306, 319
Boyd, Hilary, 306
Brahms, Caryl, 329
Bremner, Bird and Fortune (TV programme), 336
Brett, Jeremy, 115
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC): acquires and broadcasts The Cellar Tapes, 197-8, 210, 214-20; recording methods, 218-20; Light Entertainment, 296; declines The Crystal Cube, 297-8; radio, 325-35; Richard Armitage's influence on
, 376
British Pipesmokers' Council, 55
Broadbent, Jim, 353-4
Broadcasting House, London, 328
Broadhurst, Nicholas, 254-5
Broadsheet (student newspaper), 134, 142
Bron, Eleanor, 336
Bronowski, Jacob, 182
Brooke, Justin, 95
Brooks, Mel, 423
Brooks, Ray, 291
Broughton, Pip, 127, 135
Brown, Tina, 309
Bunce (schoolfellow), 17-18
Burns, Nica, 199
Burr, Raymond, 416-17
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 9-10
Bush, Kate, 355
Byrne, Patsy, 382, 384
Cagney, James, 410
Caine, (Sir) Michael, 306
Callow, Simon, 250, 353-4; Being an Actor, 353
Cambridge Mummers (drama club), 95, 124, 127, 145, 152-5, 182-3, 186, 190
Cambridge University: SF wins scholarship to (Queens' College), 30; image, 65-6; SF attends, 65, 72-84, 89-90, 106-7, 110-13, 122, 149, 157-61; appeal to SF, 69-72; collegiate life and system, 73-6; Queens' College, 75-8, 113, 116; admits women, 158-60; drama clubs and theatrical activities, 94-7, 106-9, 113-16, 152; Union, 101-2; Blues and Half Blues, 102-3; May Ball, 104-5, 116, 119, 122-3, 190; terms, 105-6; Head of the River competition, 110; May Week, 110-12, 188, 190, 192, 195; examination system, 122, 149-52; SF's graduation ceremony, 195; SF leaves, 201; Mark Boxer at, 307-8; see also Footlights Club
Carlton Club, London, 378-82
Carr, Allen, 62
Cassidy, Seamus, 391
Cats (stage musical), 260, 267
Cellar Tapes, The (revue), 192, 195-9, 202, 210, 214, 218-20, 249, 280
Champix (drug; varenicline), 62
Channel 4: launched, 245
Chapman, Graham, 71, 121
Chariots of Fire (film), 145-9, 186
Charles, Prince of Wales, 201
Checkpoint (radio programme), 331
Chekhov, Anton, 257-8
Cherry, Simon, 143, 149, 152-3
Cherubs (Queens' College club), 105, 131-2, 160-1, 195
Chichester Festival (1984), 271, 325, 335-9
Chou Lai, 405
Church, Tony, 256-7
Churchill, Sir Winston, 57
Cimino, Michael, 145