Anything Goes

by John Barrowman

  Timber Estates, Joliet, IL (i)

  Titans (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

  TM Blue One (i), (ii)

  Tomas (i), (ii)

  Top of the Pops (i)

  Torchwood (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

  atmosphere on set of (i)

  Best New Drama award for (i)

  Cardiff site of (i)

  ‘Countrycide’ episode of (i)

  filming of (i)

  genesis of (i)

  Jack–Ianto kiss scene in (i)

  JB’s mooning on set of (i)

  JB’s plea for musical version of (i)n

  props used on (i)

  Torchwood characters:

  Captain Jack, see main entry

  Gwen (i)

  Ianto (i), (ii), (iii)

  Rhys (i)

  Toshiko (i)

  Torvill and Dean, see Dean, Christopher; Torvill, Jayne

  Torvill, Jayne (i), (ii)

  Tracy, Susan (i)

  Triplett, Sally Ann (i), (ii)

  Tygett, Jack (i)

  Tyler, Zoe (i)

  United States International University (USIU), San Diego, CA (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

  Performing Arts School at (i)

  Untouchables, The (De Palma) (i)

  Van Dien, Casper (i)

  Van Outen, Denise (i)

  Varna (i), (ii)

  Victor Victoria (i)

  Vinovich, Bret (i)

  Way Out West (i), (ii)

  West End Cares (i)

  White, Betty (i)

  Whitticker, Jean (i)

  Wilde, Oscar (i), (ii)

  Williams, Robbie (i)

  Wilson, Mark (i), (ii)

  Winfrey, Oprah (i)

  Wombles, The (i)

  Yap, John (i)

  Young Frankenstein (i)

  Yucatán Peninsular (i)

  Footnotes

  ‘I Hope I Get It’

  1 Clare’s short … well, she is.

  2 I’ve heard all of these comments at least once from casting agents or producers.

  3 Keep an eye out for the others. There may be a quiz later.

  4 I’ll tell you about the other times later.

  5 Andy is a casting director for Doctor Who and Torchwood. Please do not send your tapes to him or he’ll come after me.

  6 Stay with me, now. My family moved to the US in 1976. More on that later.

  7 You can’t buy them in America.

  8 If you’re interested, my picks are Sarah Jane, Davros and ‘Terror of the Autons’.

  9 Just seeing if you’re paying attention.

  ‘Milly, Molly, Mandy’

  1 It’s always good to learn a new word. There will be more.

  2 Mum, I’m kidding. Really.

  3 Of this I know and I’ll tell you how I know in a later chapter.

  4 Any comparisons to Joan Crawford from now on are purely for her acting ability and in no way imply any coat-hanger incidents in my childhood.

  5 Oh, trust me, that’s another chapter.

  6 Gran’s name was really Marion Anderson, but she couldn’t pronounce it when she was little. She’d say ‘Murn Adden’. The moniker stuck.

  7 Which sounds like ‘rains’ – both common in Scotland.

  8 My dad was Big John, so I was Wee John. More about the burden of that name later.

  9 This ritual demands that the first person to put a foot across your threshold after the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day must carry a drink to share. Some Scots have been known to implement it on the occasional Saturday night in August. I’m kidding.

  10 No actual cats were hurt in the creation of this metaphor.

  11 Couldn’t resist. Sorry.

  12 Really makes you wonder why Jennifer Eccles, who had lots of freckles, was actually being called all those names. I dare you to listen to the song if you don’t get this reference. You’ll have it stuck in your head for months.

  ‘Defying Gravity’

  1 Along with the party gene, this one is hot-wired into my system.

  2 Aka Maria and Joseph, the BBC’s talent quests that I helped to judge in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The programmes searched for undiscovered performers to play the lead roles in the West End productions of The Sound of Music and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

  3 More about my superstitions and phobias later, I promise.

  4 Stop it. It’s not that kind of book.

  5 The star of the West End’s The Sound of Music and winner of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

  6 I’m not a pilot, but I play one on TV.

  7 Well, almost.

  ‘Journey of a Lifetime’

  1 Mister Lucas to you.

  2 Puhleeze. That’s what they’re called in the States.

  3 Gareth David-Lloyd, who plays Ianto in Torchwood.

  4 Truth, schmooth. This is my memory.

  5 I kid you not. With toes, too. They gave new meaning to ‘sweat(er)y feet’.

  6 For the toffs among you, ‘to let off’ means ‘to fart’.

  7 So it’s my dad’s fault.

  8 The kind of cuddle that only mums and grans can give you.

  9 American football, of course.

  10 Both Andrews, my brother and my nephew, are named after my mum’s dad, Andrew Butler.

  11 My book, my word.

  12 Even then, it had something to do with where I put my mouth.

  13 His dad was in landscaping.

  14 For those of you keeping track for a future Friday Night Project trivia game, my character’s name in Titans was Peter Williams, but in the initial script it was Mason Williams and my real-life mum’s middle name is Mason.

  ‘Don’t Fence Me In’

  1 I use the term loosely.

  2 Pagan had emigrated with us from Scotland, thus the new name.

  3 A Latin word! I told you there’d be more cool vocabulary.

  ‘New Ways to Dream’

  1 Of course it’s a real word!

  2 I’ll explain what this is in a couple of pages. In the meantime, rest assured it had nothing to do with examining crime scenes.

  3 Although my audiences up until this point had mostly comprised family and friends – and the few odd characters who had wandered into the record shop back on Shettleston Road in Scotland to listen to me sing – I still knew in my heart and in my head that this answer was true.

  4 This can be summarized as: ‘You haven’t fully paid your dues, so don’t even think you should get a chance, no matter how talented you are.’

  5 Oh, I’ll get to that later, don’t you worry.

  6 My first real dream car was my Jaguar XJS Insignia, a model I had wanted since I was a wee boy, when I used to play with a Matchbox version; I bought the Jag when I was in Sunset Boulevard in 1994.

  7 Good-naturedly, of course. Lord Lloyd-Webber took it all in his stride.

  ‘The First Man You Remember’

  1 That’s Iowa’s nickname, in case you didn’t know.

  2 Back then, my head wasn’t so full. There was rehearsal space.

  3 The birds were originally my flatmate Midge’s. More on Midge in chapter nine.

  4 Stay with me, now. All will be revealed shortly.

  5 Maths was never my strong point.

  ‘That’ll Show Him’

  1 Disappointed?

  2 A gay district of Chicago.

  3 Of course, that’s not his real name.

  4 No need to skip ahead – the stories will be there when you are.

  5 Derived from the Latin phrase wankerus non wankeri, meaning ‘once a wanker, always a wanker’.

  6 Once again for the posh among you, ‘piles’ are haemorrhoids. No matter what you call them, they’re still a pain in the arse.

  7 Incidentally, Alex and Ian were the first gay couple to record their relationship in London’s Partnerships Register in 2001, and in 2005 they were one of the first couples to take advantage of the Civil Partnership Law. They’ve been together for over forty
years.

  8 I totally freaked my family out the first time I emailed them pics of me as a blond.

  ‘No One is Alone’

  1 I’m gay, not blind.

  ‘High Flying Adored’

  1 Aguilar was awarded the 1992 Olivier Theatre Award for Best Choreographer for his work on Matador.

  2 Still a favourite song of mine from Matador.

  ‘Love Changes Everything’

  1 Yup, we’re party animals.

  2 I told you we were party animals.

  3 Our second cocker spaniel and one of Penny’s litter.

  4 Sadly, Tiger, who was thirteen when we adopted him, died the following October.

  5 Aka Gwen, Owen, Toshiko and Ianto respectively.

  6 Martin and I first became friends when we both performed in Trevor Nunn’s 2002–3 production of Anything Goes, of which there’s more to tell later in the book.

  ‘Anything Goes’

  1 Looking for historical accuracy? Not that kind of book either.

  2 The official theatre name for an electrician. Now you’re in the know.

  3 Strong though I may be, this is just a figure of speech for not letting the show begin.

  4 A moniker from my Glasgow childhood.

  5 I blame Stephen Sondheim. I’ll tell you why later.

  6 I’m not into birthday parties and usually celebrate quietly. My thirtieth was the exception: Scott threw a surprise party for me.

  7 My fave dresser John Fahey was not available for this show.

  8 Don’t you love alliteration?

  9 Obviously, they weren’t complaining about the volume of the singing.

  10 I don’t care how many years you’ve been in theatre, there isn’t an actor among us who hasn’t once or twice missed a cue.

  11 At the interval, I poured her a stiff whisky from the bar in my dressing room.

  12 I said thespian!

  13 Incidentally, my parents came to see Matador at least ten times. They are my biggest fans.

  ‘There’s Nothing Wrong With Us’

  1 God, not at the same time. They’d have killed each other.

  2 Shortly after my dad retired from Caterpillar Inc., my parents began a seasonal lifestyle of living in Florida in the winter and Brookfield, Wisconsin in the summer.

  3 That’s about 15–20°C.

  4 I’m enjoying these moments of alliteration.

  5 He has a fine ‘six-shooter’.

  6 Head hurt from that?

  7 Gabriel’s mum was Sandie, who also died of cancer in 2005.

  8 As you may recall, Tiger didn’t become part of our family until our civil partnership ceremony in 2006.

  9 That’s really old in America.

  10 I lie, because I’m sure it will.

  11 Do not try this with your own car. ‘Flapping’ should only be done by a trained professional.

  12 For the record, I’ve made it my mission to pester Russell T. Davies regularly about writing a musical episode of Doctor Who or Torchwood.

  ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’

  1 The shows are not usually filmed on the lot at the same time. When they are, shooting is staggered: one programme films at night, the others during the day.

  2 You thought I was going to say champagne, didn’t you?

  3 Love this word. Sounds so much more refined than what the tabloids claimed were ‘addictions to sex and drugs’.

  4 Little-known fact: Penny had her own cartoon in the magazine.

  5 Never ever attempt this at home.

  6 Surely you’ve not forgotten the bearskin rug that crossed my path when I was a toddler?

  7 I mean this in the nicest possible way, since I’m a bit of one myself.

  8 I mean this in the nicest possible way too.

  9 I should say here that I’m quite sure the accident to my character had nothing to do with my smile.

  10 She plays Martha Jones on Doctor Who.

  11 She may be pulling my leg, or my finger, depending on your perspective.

  12 When I say view, I don’t mean the landscape.

  ‘Putting It Together’

  1 Especially if you’re from the Dean Martin school of acting.

  2 A door in a theatre that connects the backstage area to the auditorium.

  3 Okay, so it’s a tacky pun.

  4 Actually, I know lots about veggies. I can pick a parsnip from a turnip any day.

  ‘Being Alive’

  1 My book, remember?

  2 A private organization for actors, directors and playwrights that was founded by the director Elia Kazan and that supports its own drama school, which has trained Julia Roberts, Robert De Niro, Steve McQueen, Edward Albee, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Al Pacino and Paul Newman, among others.

  3 Third, really, if you count the LA Putting It Together separately from the Broadway production.

  ‘Together Wherever We Go’

  1 I call her Freema Agyvagyagyman on set.

  2 Puhleeze. Get a hold of yourself – the kind from Toys R Us.

  3 More than once, if I remember correctly.

  4 They’re both such classy lassies.

  ‘Live, Laugh, Love’

  1 A Grey Goose with tonic remains my drink of choice as a result.