More Fool Me (46 page)

^†
Director of two series of
Jeeves and Wooster
, also now sadly no longer with us.

^*
Charles directed
Brideshead Revisited
at some preposterously young age and married Phoebe Nicholls, who played Cordelia (quite brilliantly).

^†
Producer brother of actors James and Edward.

^*
Just the Diet Coke would now keep me awake for hours, let alone the Naughty Coke.

^*
Astoundingly prolific and successful lyricist, often in collaboration with John Barry.

^*
See earlier.

^*
Which he has comfortably done. Well on his way to thirty now. Still a poppet.

^†
i.e. Write a sketch.

^*
Ian Brown, film producer friend.

^†
Alfredo Fernandino, Peruvian founder of the club situated in the almost unbelievably narrow passageway next to the Coliseum Theatre in London’s St Martin’s Lane. From a powerful Peruvian family, he introduced Perudo to Britain and marketed it with his friend Cosmo Fry. Cosmo Fry, elegant playboy, distant cousin, chocolate heir.

^*
The fatwa still very much in place then.

^*
I think I’m right in saying that the student Derren Brown was in this queue and that I encouraged him to work hard at practising his magic. Oh dear. Condescending or what?

^†
The screenwriter daughter of Joe Slovo, a leading anti-apartheid voice. As a Communist Jew, Joe Slovo was one of the Afrikaner right wing’s most hated figures. He became a minister under Mandela and died in 1995.

^*
Spanish for a quiet Sunday, but you knew that.

^*
Polish-born but British couturier, whose frocks were much favoured by Princess Diana.

^†
Where the headquarters of the Labour Party were then situated.

^*
BBC producer (yes he does spell his forename like that) best known for his collaborations with Dennis Potter and Simon Gray.

^†
The actor who played Uncle Mort in
I Didn’t Know You Cared
, way back before you were born. Also the narrator in
Tales from the Long Room
. We had both been in the happy West End flop
Look, Look!
the year before.

^*
In its old-fashioned sense of ‘gargle’ or ‘snifter’. A drink in other words.

^†
Novelist wife of Maurice Saatchi, now sadly deceased. Known for powerful, rather shocking short novels with one word titles:
Damage
,
Sin
,
Oblivion
 …

^*
Christopher Wood, designer. Now attached to Johnnie Shand Kydd, the photographer.

^†
BT chief, chairman of endless boards – BBC Governors, Royal Shakespeare Company, etc. Good egg.

^*
Head honcho at W. H. Smith as mentioned earlier: the last family member to lead the company.

^*
A stage musical, not the peculiar television event.

^*
I meant James Dreyfus, unless he subsequently changed his name. Later to achieve fame in the immortal
Gimme Gimme Gimme.

^*
I was Rector of Dundee University: by this time I think I was partway through my second three-year tenure. The honorary post, unique to the ancient Scottish universities, involves looking after the interests of the students, who vote for their rector. I would come up by train to attend meetings of the University Court and hold ‘surgeries’.

^*
PR and editor respectively at Heinemann, publishers of
The Hippo
.

^*
Director of series 3 and 4 of
Jeeves and Wooster
, sadly snatched from the world way before his time.

^*
The magnificent James Villiers (pronounced the smart way to rhyme with ‘millers’). In the 1960s he was apparently twenty-somethingth in line of succession. John Osborne was said to have produced a typed list of the nineteen from the Queen downwards who came between Villiers and the throne. He had this list mimeographed and distributed to friends: ‘If you meet anyone on it,’ he ordered, ‘kill them and before we know it Jimbo will be King and it will be Gin and Tonics for everyone for ever.’

^*
Made Up (to protect identity).

^†
English National Opera Company, resident at the Coliseum Theatre, when not on tour with their English-language productions of the great opera repertoire.

^*
Lloyd’s, the insurance organization, had suffered catastrophic losses, which were passed on to the Names who subscribed to various underwriting benches, in their jargon. Henry Blofield the cricket commentator (brother of the man after whom Ian Fleming named his most infamous Bond villain) sadly came out a loser.

^†
Simon is the much-praised founder and leading light of Théâtre de Complicité, a hugely successful company that has won more awards than any other of its kind all over the world. Annabel now mostly directs opera but collaborated many times with Simon McB.

^*
Adorable old-fashioned English don at Cambridge. Great expert on those marvellous Powys siblings, John Cowper, Llewelyn, Philippa and T. F.

^†
Queens’ College’s drama club.

^*
Who turned out not to be gay at all, for the record.

^*
Not the same person as Vic Reeves.

^†
Comedian and writer, sadly taken from the world by cancer in 2004.

^‡
Fellow Cantabrigian: she directed our 1981 Footlights show
The Cellar Tapes
, voiced for
Spitting Image
and starred in
Dead Ringers.

^*
Better known as Marilyn Coles. Highly intelligent and deeply charming, she married Victor Lownes, the American boss of
Playboy
’s British operation.

^†
Ben’s long-time manager. Still ‘in post’.

^*
The immortal Captain Peacock in
Are You Being Served?
, of course.

^*
Alan Rickman was cast as Colonel Brandon, and Hugh made do, hilariously, with Mr Palmer.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Chapter One

Catch-up

Very Naughty, but … in the Right Spirit

Moral or Medical?

The Early Days

Notes from a Showbusiness Career

Living the Life

Dear Diary

Postarse

Illustrations

Follow Penguin