Finally food and wine had arrived and we were talking about Channel 4, and since my contract was going to be up for renewal quite soon, what I’d like to do next. I really didn’t know what to say. I was still really enjoying So, but my worry was that I thought that the public would start to get bored of it after another series. He seemed to agree and then, almost casually, he mentioned the idea of going five nights a week. My eyes lit up. Ever since filling in for Jack at Channel Five this had been my dream.
I knew that Graham and Jon back at the office would be as excited as I was. For anyone doing a chat show this was the Holy Grail. It had never worked in Britain, but we believed that we could make a success of it, or at least have an amazing time trying. Talks began between Channel 4 and SO Television, the production company that I had started with Jon and Graham. Meetings followed about how many weeks a year we would do it for and what time in the evening it would be shown. In order for it to work I felt it had to be on for as many weeks as possible and always on at the same time. The idea was to make it a part of the TV landscape rather than anything special. In America the five-nights-a-week talk show succeeds because of its inevitability. Very few people would watch it every night, but most people would dip into it once or twice a week. It was decided that we would start later that year, during the summer. We began production on our last ever series of So.
Since I had come back from South Africa I had become closer and closer to Tim until finally, very drunk, we rolled around some bar in Soho and decided we would give dating a whirl. Poor Tim. I think he thought that going out with the guy off TV would somehow be cool, but of course all his smart lawyer friends were just faintly embarrassed rather than impressed when he showed up with the ridiculous poof from Channel 4 on his arm. I suspected that I wasn’t exactly the love of his life when on Valentine’s Day he took me to the media brothel that is the club Soho House and then over dinner confided that he thought we made ‘a very plausible couple’. Just what I’d always wanted to be.
‘Who’s coming to dinner?’
‘Tim and Graham.’
‘Oh, they are so plausible!’
I had gone back into the dating game full of good intentions, but after a few weeks we decided to go back to being friends, which is what we still are.
It was also after getting back from South Africa that I discovered one of the great loves of my life – driving! Up until that moment, whenever someone had suggested that I learn how to drive I had always pooh-poohed the idea. I had lived all my adult life in London where a car really never seemed like a necessity and I quite liked feeling a little bit eccentric – ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly drive! I’d kill myself!’ In order to fully enjoy my new house in Cape Town, however, I realised that I would have to get behind the wheel. I rang a central London driving school and was booked in with a saint called Howell. It sounds stupid to call a driving instructor ‘inspirational’, but he really was. He made me believe I could drive. He was the human equivalent of that feather Dumbo had to have in order to fly.
As anyone who has learnt how to drive will know, the first lesson is a huge shock to the system. Somehow I thought day one would be a lot of chatting in the car, but no. Within minutes I was driving down a road – a public road. Although Howell had dual controls, a perverse part of my brain couldn’t help but think, ‘If I really wanted to kill someone in this thing I could!’ Howell did his best, though at times it was difficult. Reversing around a corner for the first time was never going to be easy, but somehow I think that having a crowd of schoolboys all waving in the windows shouting variations of the ‘Hello, Graham, you big poofter!’ theme really didn’t help. I learnt in an automatic, because I can’t understand why anyone could be bothered with a manual. It’s like walking across the room to change channels after they invented the remote control. Technology is our friend, let’s use it.
Finally Howell declared that I was ready for my test. At the time I still vaguely believed that I got nervous before I did a show, but on my way to west London on the morning of the exam I was suddenly reminded of what real nerves felt like. I was terrified. Happily, I think my examiner was equally terrified to be trapped in a small car with a renowned homosexual, because I passed.
I love driving, but a bit like the way I am with sex, much as I enjoy it I can’t pretend that I’m very good at it. I try to tell myself that I will get better with experience, but in truth I have as much chance of parallel parking now as I did the day I took the test. I drive quite fast, using the brake as if I were trying to shake the head off a crash test-dummy. On the upside, so far, apart from the walls of multistorey car parks and the occasional parked car, I haven’t hit anything – well, apart from one woman who crashed into me, but because I was a new nervous driver I decided that it must be my fault. She happily agreed.
I started driving into work every day. Plans were under way for the five-nights-a-week show, which we had decided to call V Graham Norton. We were incredibly excited, but we made the decision not to announce to the media that it was to be the last ever series of So just in case V Graham Norton was a disaster and we wanted to go back to it. As the countdown began to the last ever show, we became unexpectedly emotional. Getting a show is a huge stroke of luck, but having a hit show is a miracle. I was doing what I had always said I wouldn’t – I was walking away from a hit.
I was going to have three guests on the final show: Cilla Black, Cybill Shepherd and Orlando Bloom. Cilla was very concerned about coming on the show and was the only guest ever to come into the office during the week to have a meeting about the content. When she left she seemed happy about everything. I’m not sure why she was so worried, and as it turned out I wasn’t the one she should have been concerned about. The night before the show I went to the Dorchester and had a drink with Cybill Shepherd in her room. She was very funny and up, and I thought she would make a great guest. Annoyingly I didn’t get extra time to spend with Orlando Bloom. Sigh.
Cilla was going to be guest one, and although nothing was said, I think Cybill was a bit miffed by this. I have long been a fan of Cilla, but somehow she didn’t really work on the show. I think she fell into that trap that happens to some guests of being so worried about what’s going to happen that they forget that they are just there to relax and enjoy themselves. She seemed a bit stiff and was being very proper. Somehow I thought she would be a real laugh and a little bit racy, and actually I’ve seen this first-hand many times since, but on the show there wasn’t a hint of that. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing that Cybill Shepherd was watching this on a monitor in the green room and thinking to herself, ‘Right, I’ll show them who should have been guest one.’
I introduced her, and on came a woman who seemed to have had a personality transplant since the night before. The woman I had met was funny and bright, but this woman was like a wild creature unleashed. She sat down and immediately started talking about sex. I believe one of the first stories that came out of her mouth was about teaching Elvis Presley how to go down on her. I could see that Cilla was taking an instant and profound dislike to the woman.
Cybill then went on to mention something about being in a sandwich.
Cilla asked, ‘What’s a sandwich?’
Cybill turned to her. ‘Two guys at once. You don’t know what a sandwich is?’
‘Well, no,’ responded Cilla, ‘I’m not easy like you.’
I may have blurted out the word ‘Catfight’. I had never had this on the show before, where two guests so obviously loathed each other.
Cybill told us that Elvis was doing drugs when he had gone out with her.
Cilla remarked, ‘Doing drugs as long ago as that?’
Cybill glared but just said, ‘Yes.’
Poor Orlando Bloom wandered wide-eyed out into the middle of this, and immediately Cybill turned all her attention to him. I feared for his safety, and the look in his eyes said that he did too. She grabbed the Orlando Bloom action doll from Lord of the Rings out of my hands and sta
rted rubbing it between her breasts while staring at Orlando. He giggled nervously, and to be honest I wouldn’t have been that surprised if he had burst into tears.
Finally the show was over, and although it had been a very strange one we were all quite pleased because we knew it would make good television. Afterwards I spoke to Cybill, and she was restored to the nice funny lady I’d met the previous evening. The person on the show had just been some sort of showbiz creation. Up in the star dressing room, Cilla sat with her entourage drinking champagne, asking everyone in turn, ‘Did you know what a sandwich was?’
I always tend to get a bit out of control at the wrap parties at the end of each series. At one such event, after several glasses of absinthe, I failed to recognise Jon or Graham. That’s drunk. At the party for our final So, I did quite well pacing myself, though I do remember at one point being sucked into a drunken rant of ‘I’m so proud, I’m so proud’, saying it to everyone and crying. I obviously managed to dry my tears because I ended up going home with a very cute young man who I had never seen before, but who said he was a friend of one of the stagehands. We got back to my house in Bow, and as we were staggering from the taxi to my front door, he grabbed my arm and out of the blue said, ‘I’ve never had gay sex before. It better be good!’ Luckily for him we were both too drunk for him to find out.
I had six weeks before the start of V Graham Norton. After heading back to Cape Town to pick up the keys for my new house (yes, I still loved it!), I was off to America. Although I had turned down the BBC, by some odd quirk of good fortune BBC America had decided to buy So. I was delighted because working in the States on projects like the ill-fated radio series and the Dolly documentary had made me realise just how much I loved the place. If I could find a way of working there more, then I could spend more time in the place. It was as simple as that.
I was being flown to LA in order to promote So to the great American press, and my Internet sister Carrie Fisher kindly insisted that I stay with her. She has a beautiful old sprawling house in Beverly Hills with a sweet little guest cottage. Although Carrie is a true friend, at that point I still couldn’t quite get over that I was staying at Princess Leia’s house and Debbie Reynolds was living next door. Who’s that on the tennis court? Oh, it’s Matthew Perry from Friends.
One night there was a party. It was Carrie’s daughter’s birthday and a host of people had been invited to celebrate. The director Penny Marshall was there, Al Pacino, Beverly D’Angelo and of course the Hollywood royalty that is Debbie Reynolds. I lurked in dark corners drinking white wine, occasionally talking to the other people who didn’t seem to know anyone. There was cake, there was singing, it was an ordinary party except that it was in Hollywood. People started to leave, but of course I couldn’t because I was staying. Oh, and there was still wine left. Eventually even Carrie had gone to bed and that was when I found myself alone with Debbie and a bottle of Chardonnay.
We sat by the fire and she chatted to me as if we had been friends for ever. She told me tales about old Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor, the studio system . . . It was like I was in a dream: me sitting with Debbie Reynolds. She has an amazing memory and is a wonderful storyteller, but I’m ashamed to say that my old friend, drink, was about to play its usual cruel trick on me: the wine had greater power than the Queen of Hollywood and I fell asleep. I’m not sure how long I was gone for, but when I woke up, I am happy to report that Ms Reynolds was still talking. Apparently she hadn’t noticed that she had temporarily lost her audience.
The reaction of the American press to the show was very positive and I began to notice that sometimes it was Americans in the street and not British expats who were coming up to me to say hello and that they liked the show. BBC America was advertising the programme quite heavily, and it seemed to be getting a cult audience. Because of this I was approached by a production company to see if I wanted to do stand-up in New York. Given that I hadn’t been very good at stand-up in Britain, I was a bit reluctant to try it in America, but they reassured me that it would be in a theatre space and I could do a full-length show in the same way I had in Edinburgh for so many years. I said yes.
I was only doing the show in New York for three weeks, so I’m not really sure why I felt the need to buy a house there. I was sitting at home in Bow when the post arrived. Amongst the offers of free credit cards was a catalogue from Sotheby’s. I wondered why they had sent it to me – looking at the front cover, it seemed to be about a sale of Impressionist art. I hardly felt like their target audience. While I had my morning coffee I casually flicked through it, and there at the back were some advertisements for Sotheby’s real estate. A picture of a house in New York caught my eye. It was a small carriage house in a private mews and it just looked like paradise. I took the picture into work and left it on my desk like a property version of a pin-up. Simply looking at it made me happy. Jon saw it.
‘Are you going to buy that?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I answered a bit too quickly.
‘You can afford it. If I had your money that’s exactly what I’d do.’
The seed had been planted. I suppose I could just about afford it, and . . . and, well, I wanted it. Again I tried to dress it up as an investment, blah, blah, blah, but really it was just shopping with a capital S. I flew to New York to see it, which meant that the various estate agents smelt cash. I was driven around town in limousines and shown amazing lofts and apartments, but in the end, like in Cape Town, I just wanted the one in the picture.
It turned out it belonged to Claudia Schiffer and she had just had it gut-renovated. Part of the deal was that I would buy all the furniture she had just put in it. It wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen, but it meant I could move right in. When I came to do my stand-up a few months later I didn’t need a hotel, I had my own little house in the heart of Manhattan, right by the entrance to the mid-town tunnel where twenty years before I had been driven in a bus, blinking at the brilliance of the city.
Claudia had moved out but I did find quite a few of her personal effects lying around – mostly make-up and toiletries. Every night in the stand-up show I gave away a different item that had belonged to Claudia Schiffer. Someone on the last night walked away with the supermodel’s ladyshave. I’m sure to this day they think I was making it up and don’t realise the value of the DNA on those little blades.
As in my gigs in Edinburgh, part of the show involved a random phone call, but I found that the personal ads in the New York gay magazines didn’t tend to have home phone numbers and if they did they were always connected to an answering machine. I didn’t know what to do. One night I was in a mid-town bar called Stellas. This sounds hopelessly naïve of me, but I just thought it was frequented by a very mixed friendly crowd. It took me about an hour to figure what the combination of elderly gay gentlemen, attractive Puerto Rican boys and a cash machine in the bar might mean. One of the boys came over to me and started to talk. His name was Sammy and he was very funny. On a whim I explained what I was doing in New York, and while he was very sexy I didn’t really want to sleep with him, but would he be in the following night for me to call him from the show? I said I’d pay him. This all sounds very straightforward and almost logical in the retelling, but always remember that when I am telling any story that involves a bar and boys, it is a given that I was pissed out of my mind.
The next morning I found his number and even remembered why he had given it to me. That night, I explained to the audience who Sammy was and how we had met and that I was going to phone him. I half expected him not to be there, but he was. Sammy was a natural. He told a very funny story about going back with some guy who on the way to his hotel kept saying, ‘I hope my friend likes you.’ Sammy just assumed it was going to be a Cybill sandwich, but so long as they were paying, who cared? Once inside the room he saw a miniature picket fence set up on the carpet and there inside the makeshift pen was the guy’s ‘friend’. A small hen. Not just any hen, however. This was showbiz poultry. The hen
had appeared in Babe: Pig in the City, and the man was looking after it for its owner. Perhaps it was in the city for a round of auditions? While he sucked Sammy’s penis he had to keep shuffling around the floor on his knees to make sure that the chicken was looking at him at all times. Never had a hen seemed so uninterested in a cock.
Night after night I phoned Sammy and he was brilliant. He always began with a new topical joke and then told his chicken story, and if that went really well, I’d encourage him to tell another story about pissing in a bottle for some man who wanted to drink it. Every couple of nights I’d go and find him in whatever bar he happened to be in, often working as a go-go dancer, and I would shove dollars of thanks down his pants. It was the perfect arrangement. Sammy knew that I had a show in Britain, but he didn’t really know what it was. As far as he was concerned I was just some guy who phoned him up and then gave him money. I knew that later on I would simply be the subject of another story along with the chicken guy.
One night, BBC America, along with Vanity Fair, had a party for me at the Whiskey Bar in the basement of the Times Square W Hotel. I was asked whom I would like to invite. I immediately said Sammy, partly because I felt I owed him that much and partly because I knew what a kick he would get out of it.
The Whiskey Bar of the W Hotel is exactly how you’d imagine it to be: dark and stylish and populated by stylish people in dark clothes. Models and actors-in-waiting handed around trays of tiny canapés and glasses of champagne. BBC America had set up a huge screen which was showing clips from my TV show on a loop. The Vanity Fair people, who, if their laugh-free reaction was anything to go by, had, I think, hated the show, came up to me one by one to offer me a pale, damp hand of congratulations.
So Me Page 22
