Only Fools and Stories: From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost

by David Jason

  So, a reluctance to rake over the old coals might dissuade Nick from taking the National Film Academy up on their offer. It was certainly in my mind to decline the invitation on those grounds. Then you had to factor in the nature of the award on offer. Again, without wanting to sound ungrateful, your Lifetime Achievement Award has a reputation as a bit of a gold watch. I don’t mean the kind of gold watch the Trotters might have sold; I mean a proper one that actually works – but nevertheless a gold watch offered after a whip-round by the workforce upon your retirement, a fond send-off as you head away on horseback into the sunset, or, more likely, back home on the bus to tend the garden. It might not be meant that way, but you can’t help suspecting that it is. Thanks for everything you did and goodnight. Enjoy the restful years ahead – because you’ve deserved them, no, really, you have. Oh, and please switch the lights off on your way out. Nobody, after all, ever refers to them as a Lifetime So Far Achievement Award. There’s an air of finality lingering over the concept, and even as you stood there on the night, proudly holding the trophy, you would be bound to wonder at some level: is this really, metaphorically speaking, some vouchers towards a lawnmower?

  Yet, at the same time, I’m not sure that actors really do retirement – or not of their own volition and not while their faculties are by and large intact. They certainly don’t like to think about retirement too much. I may be wrong, but I don’t think there’s an actor alive who, despite any amount of evidence they’ve been shown to the contrary, doesn’t think that there will be another part, eventually, somewhere round the corner. That’s certainly the frame of mind that I seem to have about it – and so far, in terms of more or less retaining my faculties, and in terms of there being another part, I’ve been lucky enough to be right. [Author at this point reaches forward to touch all available wooden surfaces.] But my point is, for actors, things that raise the subject of retirement are generally to be tiptoed away from.

  All in all, and considering everything, I wasn’t banking on Nick saying yes to being at the National Film Awards 2017. And, call me a coward, but if Nick wasn’t going, then I wasn’t going either. Safety in numbers, and all that.

  Here’s the thing, though: the invitation did seem rather impressive. To be honest, the National Film Awards weren’t something I had been aware of until this point. Organised by the UK National Film Academy, and apparently voted for by the public via the Academy’s website, these prizes were only in their third year, so they were, relatively speaking, in the context of the more seasoned industry gong ceremonies, brand new. Clearly they weren’t to be confused with the National Television Awards which I did know about and, indeed, had attended around half a dozen times, as both a recipient and a hander-out. Clearly, also, they were to be confused even less with the British Academy of Film and Television Awards, or BAFTAs, which are the big boys in our line of work. (Reader, as I believe I have already mentioned, I have a couple of those on the mantelpiece, as well. Four of them, in fact. I know this because I just went round my office here at home and did a bit of totting up, and yes, there’s four BAFTAs in total. Incidentally, I also, on the way round, counted two Royal Television Society awards. Which is nice. Oh, and eight National Television awards, too. Plus, of course, the three British Comedy awards. And then, if my calculations don’t deceive me, there were three Sony TRIC awards. Not to mention two Radio Times awards, five TV Times awards and two TV Quick awards. Oh, and I suppose we should include the OBE. Yeah, and the knighthood. Not that one should dwell on these things, of course. Far better not to mention it. Wouldn’t want to be thought of as the sort of person who, in an idle moment, went round the room counting up his awards and making a list of them. Not for a minute. Really not my style. But just completing the calculations here … that’s, what, twenty-nine pieces of silverware in total? Thirty-one, of course, if you lob in the OBE and the knighthood. Not that I’m counting. Really, I’m not.)

  However, there was one thing about these National Film Awards – something that couldn’t be denied – which, OK, definitely tweaked my interest: they had the word ‘film’ in them.

  Now, I’ve got to admit – and I speak here as someone for whom Hollywood, for reasons that remain utterly unfathomable to me, still hasn’t come a-calling – that as I stared at this invitation, there was a certain compelling aura hanging about that word ‘film’, especially when seen in tandem with that word ‘national’, and not least when annexed to those words ‘awards ceremony’. Furthermore, consider, if you will, the high-class calibre of the people who, according to the publicity literature accompanying the invitation to the National Film Awards, would be joining us in the Porchester Hall (wherever that was) on this night of a thousand stars, this £200-a-seat (nominees dine free, though) gala dinner. Julie Andrews! Joan Collins! Ewan McGregor! Hugh Grant! Catherine Zeta-Jones, my old accomplice from The Darling Buds of May! I mean, say what you like, but that’s not the cast of Geordie Shore is it? No disrespect to the cast of Geordie Shore.

  Moreover, to climb on a stage, and stand in front of these genuine, bona fide legends of British film and receive an honour … well, it didn’t sound like the kind of thing at which a humble TV actor should necessarily be turning up his nose, irrespective of whether or not he had previously heard of the National Film Awards or the Porchester Hall. Strictly speaking, Nick’s and my work on Only Fools wasn’t a film industry achievement. It was a television industry achievement. That, in itself, was a bit puzzling. But if the film industry was reaching out to embrace us and pull us close, who were we to spurn its welcoming bosom?

  Something akin to this train of thought may also have passed through the mind of my former co-star. Maybe Nick, too, saw the word ‘film’ and thought, ‘Hmm, that sounds a cut above.’ At any rate, the feelers were put out, my people spoke to his people, and the word came back: Nick, it turned out, was in. Therefore, the maths was simple: so was I.

  But first, picture if you will the growing anticipation in the Jason household as the month of March 2017 wears on and this night of nights approaches. Picture your author’s mounting excitement as he dusts off his dinner jacket, selects his starchiest shirt, de-fluffs his bow tie and, with eyes of childlike wonder, gazes dreamily into the middle distance while his imagination tremblingly contemplates the evening of Cinderella-like joy that awaits him among the perfumed glitterati of British entertainment.

  Actually, can I be honest? Within a couple of days of saying yes, the prospect had started to lose its lustre. Does that sound churlish? Apologies if it does, but I can’t deny it. Nothing to do with the National Film Awards per se, I should swiftly add. It’s the same every time: I sign up for these things and then almost immediately regret it. The initially magnetic attractions (an award! big stars in the room! a chance to see Nick! free dinner!) lose their charge and I instead begin to get agitated and somewhat rueful. The thought of what lies ahead starts to haunt me and prey on my mind. I cast my thoughts forward to the way it’s likely to play out: the exposure, the attention, the high possibility of some kind of red-carpet scenario in which I am going to have to stand in front of a wall of press photographers, grinning like a berk … in short, the whole ‘celebrity’ thing.

  I know there are people who love this aspect of the business and find it exciting and pleasurable and carry it off with aplomb – and Lord knows, I wish I was one of them. I also know there are people for whom this sort of thing is the dream – people for whom standing in front of a battery of Fleet Street’s finest snappers, all of them shouting ‘Over here! Oi! This way!’ represents the promised land. And for those people, the way I feel about it must seem extremely odd.

  The fact is, though, I find it all a bit daunting. It’s the palaver around these events. Maybe if you could just go there one night, on the quiet, and somebody could slip you the award, in a brief but moving private ceremony, and you could shake hands and go home again with the profound satisfaction of a job well done – maybe then I’d be more comfortable with it. But it�
�s the crowds of people, the shouting, the jostle, the camera flashes, the sense of being on show. It’s not really what I signed up for. I find it embarrassing. It puts me way outside my comfort zone and, even after all these years, I don’t really know how to handle it.

  Psychiatrists: help yourselves. But whether you, dear reader, are a qualified mental health professional or not, you’re probably saying: ‘Hang on a minute. How can the thought of a few moments of attention give someone like you, in particular, an attack of the jitters? You’re an actor: you’ve spent your entire working life seeking attention.’

  And you’re absolutely correct, of course. As an actor, I have indeed sought attention for a living. But the difference is (if I could just try to work this through a bit here), I am acting when I get it. I have make-up on, I am wearing a costume, I am working from a script. I am playing characters. I’m not just standing there being myself. Standing there being myself is what I seem to have the problem with. Outside of a role, removed from the protection of the make-up, the costume, the script, attention just makes me feel awkward and exposed. Embarrassed. Possibly even a little bit fraudulent. ‘It’s not me you’re interested in,’ I feel like saying. ‘I’m not why you’re here. It’s those other people – the characters. And I’m not them. Not really.’

  Anyway, however we analyse it, that’s where I found myself as the pages of life’s deluxe desktop diary turned inexorably to the appointed date of the National Film Awards of 2017. It’s bizarre, really. If you had told a version of my younger self – perhaps the teenage one that was lying on the freezing concrete floor of Popes Garage in Finchley, repairing cars while a wind direct from Lapland whipped through the foot-tall gap under the doors and cut a frosty path up the legs of his oily overalls – that one day he would be getting invited to receive an award at a glittery dinner among the greats of British film, he would have laughed his oily overalls off at the suggestion. If you had then told him that he would be feeling mostly glum about it … well, I think that version of my younger self would have assumed you were entirely bonkers and would have put his oily overalls back on and returned to fixing the car. I can’t lie, though. That’s where we are, and these things don’t always end up being quite the way that one envisages them from the outside.

  Of course, there’s one reliable and widely deployed solution to the problem of nerves ahead of public attention: alcohol. Medical science came out in favour of this one a long time ago. Research has demonstrated that, if applied thickly enough, a layer of alcohol can dramatically reduce and even eliminate many of the symptoms of painfully inflamed award-ceremony-itis. Dear reader, it does me no credit but I certainly can’t pretend I haven’t applied alcohol to the affected area at awards ceremonies in the past. It’s the chief reason why that historic evening in 1984 on which Only Fools won its first ever award is so permanently not emblazoned on my memory.

  The prize in question was a Sony Television and Radio Industries Club award, or TRIC, handed over on an evening of lounge-suited pomp and circumstance at the Shepherd’s Bush Hilton. What an occasion that was – the unforgettable night on which our show, which was just beginning to enter its real prime, received the boost of its first official endorsement from the industry. If only I could remember the first thing about it. Actually, I can remember the first thing about it; it’s the things that came later, after the first thing, that I struggle with – the second, third and fourth things. (Don’t bother going back to the tapes, by the way: the ceremony wasn’t televised, which is probably just as well.) I do recall the presence at our table that night of Nick, John Sullivan and Ray Butt, the producer and director of the first five series of Only Fools. I do recall a certain amount of boys-together giddiness taking hold, from the off. I do recall thinking, ‘Ooh, look – a free bottle of wine,’ and then, subsequently, ‘Ooh, look – another free bottle of wine.’ I even more or less recall scrambling onto the stage with the others to receive our award in a mood of high amazement.

  And then there was almost certainly some more free wine, followed by some more free wine, after which I just about retain an image of the four of us – me, Nick, John, Ray – departing the venue and heading off in a taxi into the London night. My memory vaguely insists that there was a somewhat ungainly kerfuffle on the pavement at that moment, as three of us contrived to stuff Ray Butt through the taxi’s door, Ray being by that point afloat on a considerable sea of gin and tonics and therefore having some temporary difficulties aiming himself in the right direction. However, beyond the clunk that then announced the slamming of the taxi door, my memory has nothing whatsoever to offer, squeeze it as I may.

  That was thirty years ago, though. I was a far younger man, with a far younger liver – and, clearly, a far younger man who was led astray in his innocence by a group of equally far younger reprobates (viz. Messrs Sullivan, Lyndhurst and Butt) under whose influence that far younger man had unfortunately, if only briefly, fallen. Or that’s my version of it, anyway.

  But the truth is, that, while by no means averse to the odd glass, I’ve never been all that inclined to use alcohol as a support system – and certainly not for performing, where it wouldn’t work for me at all. In a similar vein, deliberately and with forethought, using alcohol as a crutch for an awards ceremony wouldn’t have seemed quite right, either. The conscientious part of me couldn’t help feeling that turning up at the door of the National Film Awards in a state of advanced refreshment would be somewhat unprofessional, not to mention rude, and certainly unfair to the people who had been kind enough to invite me. It would also hardly constitute conduct becoming a knight of the realm, like what I am. That’s quite apart from the fact that I was intending to go to this ceremony in the company of my wife and our sixteen-year-old daughter, Sophie (her first time at this kind of event), and having to be carried out of the car and into the venue by my dearest spouse and offspring, one at each end … well, it wouldn’t be a particularly good look, would it?

  Mind you, I can well understand why people decide to put a few lightly spiced drinks between themselves and the reality of those occasions, because there’s a truly strange atmosphere at awards ceremonies. The set-up doesn’t automatically make for a comfortable room. It follows logically that for every winner in each category there’s at least three or four losers, plus all of the people who came in support of those three or four losers, so just think of the amount of disappointment and resentment and thwarted ambition throbbing hotly around those ballrooms at any particular moment. It’s a wonder the wallpaper stays up.

  Trust me here, because this is an area I know about from deep and lasting personal experience. During the Only Fools years, I was nominated for Best Light Entertainment Performance at the BAFTAs four times before I eventually won it. Four times I went along to the glamorous West End of London in my best bib and tucker, four times I had to sit there under the chandeliers and quell my beating heart during the agony of the envelope-opening, and four times I had to compose my ‘so happy for the winner and not at all disappointed for myself’ expression. Four times! I started to feel like Charlie Brown trying to swing his leg at Lucy’s football, only for her to whip it away every time and him to end up flat on his back staring at the clouds.

  That said, let’s be fair, I lost out to some quality names in those years. In 1986, the winner was Victoria Wood. No shame in coming second in a laughing competition with Victoria Wood, God rest her lovely soul. In 1987, my fellow nominees were Julie Walters, Victoria Wood and Nick Lyndhurst, and we all lost to Nigel Hawthorne for Yes, Prime Minister. Again, no great reason to feel the sting of ingratitude there. In 1989 I lost to Victoria Wood again, and in 1990 I lost to the incredibly funny Rowan Atkinson for his role in Blackadder, in a year when Barry Humphries was nominated for playing Dame Edna Everage, who is a creation of comic genius. When, to my enormous relief (and especially to the enormous relief of my facial muscles which seemed to have been frozen into an attitude of selfless delight for half my flipping life at this point),
I finally won the damn thing in 1991, I had to see off Rowan Atkinson, Dawn French and Nick. Say what you like, those were pretty tough times in which to be trying to go home with a Light Entertainment BAFTA.

  What was it Bing Crosby used to say? ‘A singer like Frank Sinatra comes along only once in a lifetime. So why did he have to come along in mine?’ At the BAFTAs in the 1980s, I was left feeling something very similar. ‘Comic actors like Victoria Wood, Nigel Hawthorne, Rowan Atkinson and Barry Humphries come along only once in a lifetime. So why did they all have to choose my lifetime?’

  Anyway, having ruled out buckets of alcohol as a potential remedy for my bout of foreboding in the long and increasingly anxious days leading up to the National Film Awards of 2017, I just had to live with it. It was, accordingly, a troubled me who joined his wife and daughter in the car which took us from our house in Buckinghamshire to London on the appointed night. Gill and Sophie were resplendent in their finest finery, and I was wearing, as per the invitation, black tie, albeit with, at my wife’s suggestion, a rather jaunty and even possibly ‘fashion-forward’ chequered bow tie, added to the outfit in the hope that it would make me look cheerful and at ease, at least from the chin down.