Easily Distracted

by Steve Coogan

‘No!’ I shouted. ‘You’ve missed something. I had this thing … my heart was going bang, bang, bang.’

  He said, ‘You’re fine, honestly. It was just a panic attack.’

  They gave me an ECG and told me they were going to keep me in overnight for observation.

  Jon Thoday came to the hospital to see me because he was producing The Dum Show. I told him I wasn’t in any shape to make the show that afternoon.

  Jon said, ‘You have to get out of your hospital bed and do the show.’ He made me feel as though I had no choice.

  He told me I had an hour and then he left.

  *

  I was scared of what might be written about me in the papers. I pulled the electrodes off my chest, got dressed, walked out of hospital and did the show that afternoon.

  And the next day I had another panic attack. And another. They wouldn’t go away.

  I started to think I was going mad. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

  I’d be having dinner in a restaurant, surrounded by people I did and didn’t know – or anywhere I felt I couldn’t easily escape – and I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out or I would start to hyperventilate. It was hell.

  I really thought I was losing my mind. I very quickly became depressed.

  I went back to hospital. They said there was nothing wrong with me. But it didn’t feel like this illness was a fiction. It felt horrendously real.

  When I came back from Edinburgh, I saw a therapist. He asked if I had a feeling of impending catastrophe. That was the perfect word: catastrophe.

  He then described a panic attack and I was immediately calmer.

  I wasn’t going mad. This was a condition. As soon as I could label it, I felt better.

  The therapist taught me breathing exercises. And then he taught me how to play a trick on my mind: as soon as I felt an attack coming on, I had to start a drill.

  He told me to breathe slowly and to think of a place where I was happy as a child. I had to imagine sitting somewhere calm and looking out at the landscape. I always think of Ireland, of the farmhouse where I used to sit as a child and gaze out of the window at the rain.

  Initially I thought I wouldn’t be able to make the drill work. Then I felt a panic attack coming on and I started to breathe slowly and think of Ireland. To my amazement, the attack subsided.

  Eventually he told me to try to induce a panic attack and then stop it, so that I would feel I had ultimate control. I induced an attack just once and managed to stop it, which was a great feeling.

  Anyway, as the panic attacks became less and less frequent, so I started doing cocaine again. It was always around, always on offer. I didn’t actually start to buy it until years later. In those early days it was all recreational and relatively controlled. I’d have a line or two and stop.

  Like everyone who took it, I liked cocaine because it gave me confidence when I lacked it. I always thought, ‘I’m not really one of those people who does cocaine, so I’ll be OK.’

  As soon as I could control the panic attacks, I quit therapy. It can be quite useful to talk to someone who won’t just tell you what you want to hear, but I don’t embrace the blame culture that is sometimes associated, however indirectly, with therapy – the notion that I’m like this because of my parents.

  I did a spell in rehab much later and I hated the idea that I was there because of my childhood or some incident of bullying at school. I was there because of my own selfishness. I had to accept personal responsibility.

  When I was in rehab I wanted to say, ‘I don’t take cocaine because I feel terrible about myself, I take it because I feel fucking great about myself and I deserve a reward for working so hard.’

  At the same time, I wanted to stop. Wanting and then needing some sort of constant stimulus becomes debilitating. I thought that maybe I needed a hobby as a distraction.

  I don’t take drugs or drink any more, but I am in no denial about my past: I will always be a recovering addict.

  The problem with all my excesses is that, unlike those people who reach rock bottom when they’re hooked on drugs, I could still function. Being a functioning addict is a curse; my life didn’t ever quite fall apart.

  My personal life had gone to shit, but I had maintained a certain quality in my work that almost gave me a licence to misbehave.

  It wasn’t healthy.

  I put a number of people through rehab at my own expense while I was still abusing drugs.

  I spent tens of thousands of pounds on everyone else’s addiction, but it took me a long time to face up to my own.

  CHAPTER 48

  WHEN I WASN’T in hospital or having a panic attack, I had a routine going in Edinburgh. I would do my two shows, get totally wrecked, get up at midday, get some lunch, do the next two shows, get totally wrecked.

  God knows how much I was drinking. But I was also taking notes from Patrick and making sure our show was good. I was, as I say, good at functioning while abusing drugs and alcohol.

  One morning I was lying in bed ill in the Edinburgh flat I shared with Patrick and John. No doubt I’d overdone it the night before.

  I heard Patrick in the hallway, talking on the phone. ‘I think the best place to give it to him would be onstage.’

  He thought John and I were both asleep because we were still in our respective bedrooms.

  He says he had this feeling of immense pride and power because he’d been given this wonderful piece of news which we were as yet oblivious to.

  After a minute, unable to contain himself, he knocked on our doors.

  He looked at us both. ‘You’ve done it! You’ve won the Perrier Award!’

  We all grouped together in a big manly hug and danced around the room, laughing, unable initially to absorb the news.

  We kept saying, in unison, ‘I can’t believe this.’

  We’d really come from behind.

  We were completely confident about the show, but we genuinely never thought we’d win. We’d come from nowhere in a really strong year.

  Everyone thought Jo Brand was a dead cert – Jeremy Hardy came up to me at one point and said, ‘I hear you have a very good show, but of course you do know it’s Jo’s year’ – and Graham Fellows had also been nominated for his brilliant show Guide to Stardom. John Thomson and I were huge fans of his comedy creation, John Shuttleworth. Graham was a kindred spirit, a big influence.

  Precisely because we didn’t think we had a chance, winning the Perrier was a truly magical moment. I felt as though I’d conquered the comedy scene and planted my flag on the summit.

  Only a year earlier I’d been sitting on my own in a box room in Rhodes overlooking an air-conditioning duct, reading about Frank Skinner winning the Perrier and feeling utterly irrelevant.

  But I had used my frustration to motivate myself and I’d let Patrick crack the whip. My plan had worked perfectly.

  I’d only done one impersonation, in the encore of the Edinburgh show, of Robert De Niro messing around. And I’d still won the Perrier.

  I was no longer just this lad from Manchester who was good at voices. I could create comedy characters worthy of a Perrier Award. I knew I was finally starting to get it right: I was finally being taken seriously not only by On The Hour fans, but by the comedy world.

  I thought, ‘They can say what the hell they like now. I don’t care. I’m a Perrier winner.’

  It remains the most exciting award I’ve ever won in my life. More than any of the BAFTAs, although the Oscar nominations come close. You can go from zero to hero in four weeks in Edinburgh; it’s like having a career in microcosm. If comedy was a game of snakes and ladders, winning the Perrier was the biggest leap up the longest ladder.

  Lucy Porter, who was not yet a comedian herself but who served as a lay member of the jury in 1992, later told me that it was a tie between Graham Fellows and me. She had the casting vote and she voted for me.

  I owe Lucy for what was without a doubt a life-changing moment.

  Tha
nk you, Lucy.

  *

  We weren’t allowed to tell anyone we’d won, because the Perrier was to be awarded to John and me onstage that night. It was so exciting doing the show and knowing that the audience would find out we’d won at the end.

  Nica Burns and Johan Magnusson came onstage and handed me the award, and the Gallery 369 filled with tumultuous applause.

  I think it was a popular win.

  Apart, perhaps, from the fact that I drove to the 369 in my British racing-green Mazda MX-5 with its tan seats and £4,000 of souped-up engine. You don’t really need a car in Edinburgh, but the flat had a private garage and so I kept the Mazda there.

  I know people sneered at me for turning up in a sports car. It just served to re-emphasise the fact that I wasn’t exactly the model of the struggling artist finally picking up the big prize.

  I could almost hear them whispering behind my back, ‘There’s that wanker Coogan in his stupid fucking car!’

  *

  That summer I was exactly where I wanted to be again. I had won the Perrier unexpectedly, and I had the Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge pilot in the can.

  When I was asked if John and I were going to take the Perrier show on a national tour, I politely declined. I kept saying I had this other thing to do, and people looked puzzled; surely I wanted to capitalise on my success?

  Sometimes they would ask what the ‘other thing’ was, and I’d tell them I was recording a series on the radio called Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge.

  Nobody knew what I was talking about. It made no sense to them. They clearly thought I was mad.

  As often as not, they would say, ‘You don’t want to waste your time with that. You want to get your live show on the road.’

  But I knew I had something much better. Something that was going to be much bigger than anything else I’d ever done.

  Delighted as I was to win the Perrier, I knew that being accepted into the comedy club wasn’t enough.

  *

  I had only left college in 1988, and by 1992 I had risen and fallen and risen again.

  Rob Brydon bumped into David Walliams around the time Philomena came out and David apparently said, ‘Steve hasn’t put a foot wrong in his entire career.’

  It’s not true, of course, and I’m only in a sweet spot now because I learned to do the work.

  Whatever might be going wrong, do the work.

  And surround yourself with people who are bloody clever. Without Patrick pushing me to take Alan further, Partridge might only have existed on On The Hour and The Day Today.

  I suppose that, in some ways, by giving Alan my neuroses, I was also giving him my shiny Burton suit. It was rather bizarre that Alan’s distinct lack of cool made me cool.

  As a child I watched Fawlty Towers and said to myself, ‘If I can create a character that has the impact of Basil Fawlty, my life will be complete.’

  I fully realised my childhood ambition and of course my life wasn’t complete.

  In the years following Alan’s success, my personal life descended into turmoil. And I had no idea where to go with my career.

  I was lost.

  The two BAFTAs I’d won in 1998 sat on my parents’ mantelpiece, growing more and more tarnished. They seemed to mock me, reminding me of when I’d been good.

  It was to be more than a decade before I started to win another slew of BAFTAs for The Trip and Philomena, thanks to both Michael Winterbottom and an 80-year-old Irish lady from St Alban’s.

  And, of course, the character who had become something of an albatross had a renaissance against the odds.

  Thanks, Alan.

  Alan: ‘You’re welcome. Sorry, you don’t mind me interrupting at this late juncture?’

  Of course not.

  Alan: ‘Great. I enjoyed the book by the way. Not perfect, but pretty solid.’

  Thanks.

  Alan: ‘You’re welcome.’

  OK, well I’d like to have the last word. I suppose there is a corner of my mind that will be forever Alan Partridge.

  Alan: ‘Lovely.’

  INDEX

  The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.

  SC indicates Steve Coogan.

  Abba 213, 311

  Abbott, Paul 279

  Academy Awards (Oscars) 28, 33–5, 43, 65, 85, 164, 337

  Adoption Rights Alliance 40–1

  Agutter, Jenny 179

  A-ha 8, 85, 316

  Aherne, Caroline 324, 325, 329

  Allen, David 240, 284

  Allen, Jim 177, 178, 240, 284

  Allen, Woody 26, 174

  Allsop, Paul 171

  Alpha Papa 70

  Armando Iannucci and 53, 54

  Ben Stiller advice on 49, 54–5

  casting 51–2, 55, 248, 253

  cinematic influences upon 50

  director 51, 52, 55

  evolution of Alan Partridge character and 54

  financial backing for 47–9

  Neil and Rob Gibbons and 52–4

  origins of 46–50

  Philomena effects preparation of 51

  plot 47–50

  research for 56–7

  SC’s fame in England and 34

  SC’s necessary ruthlessness whilst working on 54–5

  SC’s pride in and regrets over 57–8

  SC’s workload on 52–3, 68

  script 51–5

  shoot 51–3, 54, 55–7

  success of 85

  title 50

  Anderton, James 117–18

  Apatow, Judd 52

  Archer, Jeffrey 272

  Arkwright, Ziggy 216

  Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester 97, 194, 205

  Ashdown, Paddy 272

  Astoria Ballroom, Plymouth Grove, Manchester 98, 99, 100, 101

  Auslander, Shalom 66

  Avalon 280

  Ayckbourn, Alan: Just Between Ourselves 247

  Baby Cow Productions 18, 280

  BAFTA 4, 65, 337, 340

  Bagpuss 171

  Ball, Zoë 274, 327

  Barclays Bank 250

  Barraclough, Roy 97

  Barrie, Chris 271–2, 273

  Barry, John 133

  Baynham, Peter 46, 47, 48, 49, 252

  BBC:

  Alpha Papa plot ideas and 47, 48, 57

  Armando Iannucci and 295, 297, 301

  BBC Films and Philomena 20

  BBC Manchester, SC sketches for 251, 252

  BBC Scotland, SC sketches for 251

  BBC2 4, 180, 189, 296

  comedy heritage of 58, 186, 189

  I’m Alan Partridge filming in BBC TV Centre 57–8

  influence upon SC’s comedy 175–6, 186, 189, 190

  influence upon SC’s youth 99, 172, 175–8, 179, 180, 186

  Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and 306, 313, 314, 318

  On the Hour and 295, 297, 301

  Paris Studios 58, 297, 298, 312, 315

  SC’s straight acting roles for 15

  The Day Today and 317

  Wednesday Play series 177

  Bearcat Club, Birmingham 284–5

  Beasley, Miss 181

  Beatles, the 33, 189, 213, 218

  Bee Gees, The 90, 213

  Bennett, Alan 259

  Beyond the Fringe 236

  BFI 306

  Big Flame 177

  Blackadder 261, 272

  Blackshaw, Rosie 256

  Blake, Juliet 260, 262

  Blake, William 163, 230–1; ‘The Garden of Love’ 36

  Blondie 90, 213

  Bloody Sunday, 1972 130

  Blue Peter 151, 172

  Blur 71

  Boggart Hole Clough, Blackley 144

  Bolt, Robert: A Man for All Seasons 127

  Bond films 109, 133, 171, 175, 185, 195, 201, 202, 209, 225

 
; see also under individual actor and film name

  Bono 45

  Borat 49

  Borowski, ‘Guitar’ George 329

  Bouquet of Barbed Wire 179–80

  Bowie, David 125, 210, 213

  Boyle, Danny 174

  Bradley, Simon 160

  Brambell, Wilfrid 192

  Branagh, Ken 27

  Brand, Jo 11, 337

  Brighton 6, 56, 75, 158

  Brigstocke, Dominic 319

  Brooks, Rebekah 76, 79

  Brydon, Rob 61–3, 64, 65–7, 68, 69, 70–1, 253, 339

  Bryson, Bill: Notes from a Small Island 174

  Budd, Trisha 256

  Burns, Nica 338

  Bury Metro Arts 327–8

  Bush, George 229

  Bush, Kate 213

  Buzz, The 251

  Buzzcocks 90, 216

  Byron, Lord 29, 36, 69, 238, 293

  Caldwell, Phil 251, 252

  Calf, Paul (SC comedy character) 3, 131, 175, 253–5, 287–8, 289, 290, 304, 318, 319, 329

  Calf, Pauline (SC comedy character) 3, 118, 149, 209, 283, 289, 318

  Callaghan, James 203

  Cameron, David 76, 77, 82, 130, 265

  Cant, Brian 171

  Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School, Middleton 114, 163–4, 194–206, 207–12, 220–1, 230–1, 235, 236, 239, 240

  Carry On films 142

  Cash, Craig 15

  Castle, Roy 99

  Catenian Association, The 122

  Catholic Children’s Rescue Society, The 141

  Cathy Come Home 177

  Central School of Speech and Drama, London 236, 238

  Channel 4 260–1, 287

  Charismatics 210–11

  Charles, Prince 272, 321

  Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (Jones) 163

  Cheeseman, Gareth (SC comedy character) 286, 304

  Chow, China 17, 18, 20

  Christian Brothers 98

  Clangers 171

  Clark, Alan 229

  Clash, The 90, 213, 214

  Cleese, John 84, 173, 175, 188, 189, 190, 301

  Clement, Alex 243

  Clement, Dick 192

  CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) 228, 258

  Cock and Bull Story, A ix, 59, 60, 61

  Coffee and Cigarettes ix

  Cohen, Sacha Baron 70–1

  Cole, Anna 292, 293, 317

  Cole, Clare (daughter) v, 6, 35, 73, 75, 95, 148, 152, 221

  Coleman, David 259, 277, 303

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 62

  Comedy Awards 4, 336–8