Pop stars don’t really write songs about their kids. I can think of a couple: Little Star by Madonna, Lullaby by Mel B… but, generally, they prefer to write about relatable topics like romantic love, heartbreak and feuds. Pretty much everyone will have experienced these things, but not everyone has a child.
For me, it was different though: my daughter Lily inspired my pop career.
On my 40th birthday, when she was nine, I was sitting by her bedside, looking at her tousled dark blonde curls as she slept, and I heard the line in my head: It’s a kaleidoscope of colour/I’m so grateful I’m your mother.
I immediately got up and wrote the song Kaleidoscope, about how she had made my bleak life so much better.
My daughter is quite amazing. She’s had to deal with a lot: I left her dad when she was 17 months old so, since then, she’s had to travel between two houses – his in the very North of London, mine in the very East, so two-hour journeys.
Her dad started a new family, which she found challenging. She also had to cope with seven house moves by the time she was 11, which she describes as her ‘house trauma’. And she developed hygiene OCD during Covid, washing her hands over and over.
And yet she’s kind and thoughtful and hilarious, bright and athletic and diligent, hardworking and compassionate and beautiful. She’s top of her class, has loads of friends and cares deeply about animals and the environment. Now nearly 13 years old, she’s a total force of nature and I’m so proud to be her mum.
The songs came to me almost fully-formed. As well as Kaleidoscope, there was Happy:
You could be a pop star
You could be a scientist
You could do anything
Why not make a big long list?
With its chorus:
All I want you to be is happy, is happy
All I want you to be is happy
And Tiny Girl:
I love you, tiny girl
You’re only four foot five
But you are by far
The best thing in my life
So innocent and sweet
So wholesome and so pure
Loving you completely’s
What my life is for
That was written four years ago.
Since then, my daughter has shot up in height and is now five foot two!
But the album isn’t all sweetness and light. There are also songs about my traumatic childhood such as When I Was Your Age and hiding my mental health problems from Lily, such as Demons, Not Normal and Well, Baby.
Well, baby
You know that I’m not well, baby
You know I’ve been through hell and back
And I’m scorched charcoal black
Though my soul is the colour blue
Well, baby
I’d catch you if you fell, baby
I’m trying to be well for sure
‘Cause you’re all I adore
So I’m sticking around for you
I bought a home studio – just a computer, interface, keyboard and mic – and began laying down tracks in the Apple audio program Logic Pro X, which is why I’ve called myself Ariane X.
It all felt like such a natural process – probably because I have a music production degree, though I abandoned the music world half my life ago to become a writer, deeming the thought of becoming a pop star ‘unrealistic’.
But who cares if it’s unrealistic? Yes, I’m nearly 44 – an advanced age for a debut artist – but the tracks are beautiful: melodic electropop songs with heart and soul. They’re all about the overwhelming love I have for my daughter. And the wonderful thing is that, when I’m gone, she will be able to listen to them and hear how much I love her.
Two weeks ago, she and I filmed the video for the first single from the album, Secret Asian…both wearing a kameez (long tunic), jutti (South Asian slippers) and Indian jewellery such as a maang tikka.
Despite being a professional actor and starring in a BFI-funded film last year, Lily was a little shy about doing Indian dance moves, but we both had great fun making the video.
My next three albums, which are already mostly written and recorded, are all about ex-boyfriends. But I’m glad that my debut album is about Lily. She’s by far the most important person in my world, and always will be, and I’m so pleased that my love for her is immortalised forever in song.
In the summer of 1981, Malcolm Hardee and The Greatest Show on Legs were appearing in London slightly off-West End (at the Bloomsbury Theatre) in The Mad Show – a collection of kinda eccentric speciality acts.
These included Anthony Irvine (later called The Iceman) who, at that point in his career, did an act where he crawled across the stage wearing a yellow souwester cape and Wellington boots, got up a ladder, put a chain with a hook on it between the two parts of the stepladder and picked up a bag. He then took a toothbrush out of the bag, cleaned his teeth, got down the steps and crawled off stage again. This took between 10 and 20 minutes depending on audience response.
It was a golden era of bizarre genre-crossing speciality acts.
Also on the show was musician/ performer/ actor/ comic Bob Flag (aka Bob Evans) with an odd act involving a saxophone. He had played with musicians like David Bowie, Ken Campbell, Thunderclap Newman and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
In The Mad Show, he came on stage several times dressed in various Army regalia for mostly unfathomable reasons.
Three years later, in 1984, Bob Flag was the face of Big Brother in the movie version of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
His other film roles included the ever-so slightly odd 1986 TV movie The Madness Museum, which also included comic performers Ken Campbell & Marcel Steiner, musical people Den Hegarty & Edward Tudor-Pole and the admirable David Rappaport. All of whom, I think, appeared on children’s TV series Tiswas during my time there.
In 1989, Bob Flag appeared in the movie Cold Light of Day. He played the central character based on notorious serial killer Dennis Nielsen. Comedian Eugene Cheese played Bob’s father in the film.
Uncategorisable performer Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein told me yesterday: “I think Bob got Eugene the part – I turned down ‘third rent boy’”.
In 1990, Bob and his wife artist Takae Horton took part in The Flip Show, the pilot for a Gong Show rip-off which Malcolm Hardee and I produced for Noel Gay Television/BSB. Their act was fairly indescribable and may eventually see the light of day on YouTube.
Yesterday, though, I heard from the above-mentioned uncategorisable Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein.
He wrote…
I received an e-mail from Takae Horton a little before 3.00am this morning informing me that her beloved husband Bob Flag had passed away on July 31st. She contacted me from Japan where it is eight hours ahead. Takae was the talented artist wife of the Bob in question.
I last heard from Bob in April this year and was about to send him an e-mail regarding Tony Allen’s recent pre-wake.
Bob, was 92 in June, had been far from well and had been living in Japan for around the last 15 years. Takae is Japanese and together they set up The Marufuku Gallery in a small village high up in the mountains of Okayama Province – for them a dream come true.
I first met Bob back in 1980 or 1981 along with John Hegley – when he and I were doing a double act. At that time, Bob was running his ‘totally off the wall’ Krisis Kabaret. I recognised Bob as a ‘fellow traveller’ and we remained friends from that time onward. Bob always put 150% into everything he did.
If you wanted something different you were sure to find it in Krisis Kabaret. Comic lunacy/inspired madness on a high level. Refreshingly, it was far removed from the school of ‘look at me aren’t I clever and just possibly funny too?’
Bob was a veteran even then.
He had turned down an offer to get involved with Tony Allen‘s original Alternative Cabaret. Tony needed acts who had sets of a known duration then – but Bob always hated repeating himself. Spontaneity was virtually his middle name. An early manifestation was The Riot Squad back in the early 1960s showcasing Bob’s (he was Bob Evans then) talent as a saxophonist with David Bowie on vocals. Bowie’s onetime wife Angie was later to become involved with Bob’s ‘Krisis Kabaret’. (Do, if you can, get a copy of Bob’s lavishly illustrated autobiography Drumshtick published 2017 – although I fear this will not be easy)
Bob was also one of the comics who appeared on the opening night of Peter Rosengard’s infamous original (London) Comedy Store featuring Alexei Sayle and the (dreaded) gong in 1979. He garnered much praise for stealing the show.
Regrettably, Bob was never going to pave a career as an alternative comic. The fact that he was a fair bit older than everyone else at the time didn’t really come into it. It just wasn’t what he wanted – he was always a maverick and would always go his own way.
The ‘trouble’ with Bob as far as I was concerned was that he had just far too many arrows to his bow. He was a talented all-rounder and he wasn’t going to concentrate in any one area.
He was a talented sax player – his preference was for alto, though I thought he was much better on tenor. Bob was proficient on many instruments.
Among other things, he was a hyper-polyglot – he learned his wife’s language pretty early – no easy feat.
He was incredibly quick at everything he did. Sometimes I thought if he hadn’t been so quick he would have got the kudos he deserved – but I don’t think that worried him too much.
I fondly remember him inviting me to dinner many years ago in his immensely cluttered King’s Cross flat.
“But Bob,” I said, “there’s nowhere to sit!”
“Of course, there is!” he replied.
And …yes… as if by magic (Bob could often be magical) he pulls out a table from somewhere and in no time there’s a bottle of wine, plates of well- cooked food and seating for the three of us.
He could be a harsh heckler, though.
On one occasion, he heckled Norby West (formerly The Brixton Bank Manager): “How come you have so much confidence and so little talent?” (Norby was being deliberately naff).
He then preceded to drag Norby off the stage.
Even I thought it was part of the act. But it wasn’t.
Bob could also be humble, though, and was not above apologising.
Many years later, Norby told me Bob had contacted him regretting his actions that night. Norby had forgiven him years before anyway.
I would book Bob on a number of occasions over the years (and it was likewise). He was always totally dependable and an absolute pleasure to have on board. He will be sadly missed and my heart goes out to Takae.
Bob really was a rare one-off and I know this has been said about departed people countless times before but I have not the slightest hesitation in saying it about Bob Flag…
In my last blog, a man with no settled name talked about his life in music, comedy and surrealism. One of his names was/is Wavis O’Shave and he became/remains a cult figure from his appearances on Channel 4 TV’s The Tube.
This is the concluding part of that chat…
WAVIS: When I used to do my stuff on The Tube – the surreal stuff – my intention was that people might not really laugh at the time but, three hours later, when they were on the toilet having a crap, they’d burst out laughing.
JOHN: Did you fit in at school?
WAVIS: The school I went to was like a male St Trinian’s. (LAUGHS) Honestly. The teachers didn’t throw pieces of chalk; they were throwing desks at you! They were all barmy with mental health problems.
I stood out because I had some promise. Normally, if that’s the case, you get bullied. I didn’t.
JOHN: The cliché is that, to avoid getting bullied at school, creative people get comedic.
WAVIS: No, I didn’t act the fool or anything; I was just me. But people loved the alleged charisma which I still have a bit left of. So I never got bullied. Bullies – rough lads – just kind-of took to me.
Fame: via an album about TV newsreader Anna Ford’s Bum.
I don’t feel I’ve ever had to act the fool to get by. But I have had to express whatever it is – the energy that comes out… It seems to come out as surrealism. When I was young I thought: Maybe something’s wrong with me.
When I was in my mid-teens, I was standing out like a sore thumb in Newcastle/South Shields. I didn’t want to work down the pit or in the shipyards or wear a flat cap or drink beer or all that. I thought: Is there something wrong with me? So I started reading psychology books.
JOHN: What was your ambition when you were at school?
WAVIS: Well, lots of them in my school wanted to be footballers or rock stars. I was never brilliant at football but I actually had a trial for Newcastle United on August 23rd 1973.
When I left school, the teachers had all these high hopes for me. “You’ll go to college… You’ll go to university… You’ll achieve…”
But, when I left school, I thought: That’s it! I’ve done my bit! I walked straight out of the system.
JOHN: You mentioned earlier in our chat that you’d been involved at the Buddhist monastery in Scotland. So your Buddhist inclinations…
WAVIS: I’ve never claimed to be a Buddhist. I’m non-religious. It just so happened that their system of Vajrayana felt natural to me, like I already had it innate.
Because of that Tibetan connection though, in 2012, there was a Tibetan lama who had found his way to Lincoln, where I was living. He didn’t have anywhere to stay. So I invited him to live with us. He had to keep going back to India for whatever reasons but, whenever he was in England, he lived with us.
This did not go down well with the missus.
The Tibetan lamas are very patriarchal, misogynistic and sexist. We had him living in a caravan. The missus did put up with him but in the end, after five years, I had to sack him. Things weren’t working out.
Every time I came home, it would be like: “You meditate… Meditate… Meditate…” The missus was not liking this and – fair do – there wasn’t the balance there.
The wife drives. I don’t. One day, she was driving the lama and me in our Jaguar. He’s in the front. I’m in the back. Suddenly, the wife lets go of the steering wheel and gets the lama in a headlock. They were struggling. He had never been in a headlock before. He’s not supposed to be touched by females.
JOHN: What was the outcome? I can’t help but feel a car crash may be involved.
WAVIS: Oh no, she wasn’t being irresponsible. She could be a stunt driver in a James Bond movie. Her talents are extreme.
JOHN: It was a brief headlock, then she put her hands back on the wheel?
WAVIS: Yeah.
JOHN: Somewhat surreal.
WAVIS: And it actually did happen.
JOHN: Why did she put him in a headlock?
WAVIS: I don’t know.
JOHN: You never asked?
WAVIS: I remember once, many many years ago, five of us were crammed in a car to go down to a Debbie Harry exhibition in London for the day. It was a long day. When we came back, one-by-one, everyone was going to sleep and then the driver nodded off.
We’re on the motorway.
I was sitting in the back and thought: I suppose I’d better wake him up.
JOHN: No car crash?
WAVIS: No.
JOHN: Vic & Bob took the surreal Geordie crown on UK TV. But you were about eight or so years before them.
Newspaper coverage of Wavis’ various exploits were extensive but his fame was cult not household
WAVIS: If you want to be a household name, you have to have people remember your name and identify your face. That is fame. I sabotaged both by changing my names when they were successful and masking myself in different disguises. I didn’t want to be a ‘household name’.
I actually gatecrashed the music business and television, but I didn’t want to remain in there.
I enjoyed being on the radio. I enjoyed being on the television.
But then I’d scarper.
JOHN: Why didn’t you want to be a household name?
WAVIS: Because then people want to be your manager, bleed you dry, tell you what you can do, tell you what you can’t do and stuff like that. I just wanted to be a cult cult cult. But it was always difficult to suppress commercial interests. Each time, it would snowball; it would get bigger and bigger; and I would think: I’ve got to retreat, because I don’t want to be a household name.
In 1983, Channel 4 offered me a six-part 30-minute series for my character ‘The Hard’, on the strength of my appearances on The Tube.
But I didn’t want to know, because I could have become a ‘household name’. I much prefer radio, where they don’t see you. I didn’t want to be part of ‘Celebrity’. I never set out to be a celebrity. I just shared what I could do and had a laugh with it.
People would say, “You’ve MADE IT in the record business… You’ve MADE IT in television.” They themselves would kill to be in those situations, but I didn’t want to be in either. I wanted to continue doing my sketches and songs and share them… appear for a time… then disappear.
JOHN: Under yet another of your many names – Dan Green – you were an author and researcher on the Wollaton Gnomes – In 1979, a group of children claimed to have seen about 30 small cars each with a gnome driver and passenger wearing yellow tights, blue tops and bobble hats. You researched what happened.
WAVIS: People want to put you in a shoebox. In the case of Wavis, it’s as an off-the-wall performer. But, if you say: “Oh, but I’m also a very serious writer and researcher and have had books published,” they’re kind disappointed. They always prefer the comedy. People would much prefer that I’m just this Wavis character they have seen more of.
But in my own private life – some of it possibly coming from the Tibetan mysticism – as Dan Green – I’ve written about world mysteries and tried my hand at being a bit of a British Poirot.
I – well, Dan Green – did a very controversial American DVD in 2011. I did a tour of American radio stations – I didn’t go there physically. I’ve appeared on Sky TV as Dan Green. There’s millions of Dan Greens, which is helpful for me as I just hide in among them.
Dan Green had a massive website, but I took it down last April. I was Dan Green from about 2005. I faded Dan Green out and retired him last April. He was too time-consuming.
Now I’m retiring Wavis. This chat is his last appearance.
JOHN: So what’s next?
WAVIS: What’s left of me?… I don’t know.
(AT THE MOMENT, THERE ARE CLASSIC CLIPS OF WAVIS ON YOUTUBE ON ‘THE TUBE’ )
So I have been talking to a man whose real name I do not know. He performed as Wavis O’Shave on the 1980s Channel 4 TV music series The Tube, often in bizarre comedy sketches as ‘The Hard’. But he has also appeared as Foffo Spearjig, Pan’s Person, Mustapha Dhoorinc, Mr Haggler, Howay Man and many more.
Before The Tube, in 1980, he had recorded an album called Anna Ford’s Bum referring to the TV newsreader and, in 2004, he recorded a CD single Katie Derham’s Bum referring to another TV newsreader.
In 2021, he wrote and recorded what he claimed was the world’s first palindrome song Mr Owl Ate My Metal Worm.
Nameless talked to me via FaceTime (in a theatrical wig)
JOHN: Because it was screened at an awkward time, I almost never saw The Tube, so I’m fairly unaware of your extensive fame.
WAVIS: A lot of people, if you mention my names, they say: “Oh yeah, The Tube! Oh yeah, Anna Ford’s Bum! Oh yeah, The Hard!”… and then the missing years. They think I’m either dead or in prison. They don’t realise that, sporadically, I just erupt and record a song or do something else that warrants attention, then I disappear.
JOHN: At heart, you’re basically a music person…?
WAVIS: Well, Wikipedia says I’m a comedian and a musician. People always ask: “What are you? Performance artist? This, that, whatever?” And I say: “I’m a Wavis O’Shave.”
JOHN: In 2004, Chris Donald of Viz magazine said you’re not a musician, you’re not a comedian, you’re “a sort of cross between Howard Hughes,Tiny Tim and David Icke”.
WAVIS: Well, Malcolm Gerrie, the producer of The Tube, said I’m a mixture of Arthur Askey, Charlie Chaplin and Lee Evans. That’s a bit more credible, isn’t it? And he knew me quite well. But, really, I’m a fat, skinny nowt, if that’s helpful.
JOHN: Nowt? Sounds like a plug for your own alleged autobiography I Felt Nowt. I typed that title into Amazon and it came up with ‘felt roll’ which was, indeed, a page for a roll of felt.
WAVIS: Yeah. I’m quite happy with that. It only goes up to 2013, I think, and I’ve had some amazing adventures since then.
JOHN: You think?
WAVIS: I haven’t read it for ages…
JOHN: You have read your autobiography?
WAVIS: I have. It starts at the beginning of my illustrious media ‘career’ – around 1975.
People wanted me to get it in book form but I thought I couldn’t justify it. The thing is, John, people wouldn’t believe it past Page 10. They would think it was made up. A fiction, because my life has been so ‘alternative’.
JOHN: You were very matey with Simon and Chris Donald of Viz…
WAVIS: Yes. I had quite a lot of interaction with Viz at the time and was their Patron Saint. They visited me at my mothers’ ‘bit of shanty’ once and she told them all about her visits from the god Pan whom I’d summoned. I can’t recall what he was being summoned for, maybe for not having a portable sheep pen licence.
JOHN: You have been called a “forgotten hero of the North East”.
WAVIS: I’m not forgotten!!! Those people! I’m not kidding. The name Foffo Spearjig has been nicked and used by so many people. There’s two Wavis O’Shaves on Facebook who are not me. It’s all out of control. Always has been.
JOHN: You have done ‘Celebrity Ambusahes’. You harried Debbie Harry. There’s a photo.
WAVIS: I’m living in the North East at the time and friends are watching their heroes and heroines on telly and I tell them: “Why don’t you go and meet them? You can!” And they didn’t.
It started for me with Debbie Harry; then it was Britt Ekland and so on.
At the time, Debbie Harry was the hottest pop act on the planet and you weren’t allowed to take photographs because they had their own photographer. So I asked Chris Stein: “Any chance?” And he went and asked her and he came back and said: Well, yeah. It’s fine so long as you promise you won’t sell ‘em.
So I was lucky to get those photographs, but I didn’t just want to stand next to her so, out of my back pocket I got something like a 5’9” polystyrene nose and we took the picture.
JOHN: You had a very big back pocket.
WAVIS: I do.
At the time, I’d released some vinyl and both theNME and Sounds picked up on it and were praising me and normally the NME and Sounds were deadly enemies like Celtic/Rangers. But they both loved Wavis, so I was getting lots of good press regularly and, when I took these pictures from what I called Celebrity Ambushes, they would appear.
Anna Ford’s Bum led to the Sunday People…
I ended up on the front page of the Sunday People with Anna Ford, which was quite a big thing. She was the gentleman’s top totty at the time and here’s this ragamuffin from Up North singing about her bum in a national newspaper.
My last celebrity ambush was only a couple of months ago – Harry Hill. I mentioned our mutual friend Gary Bushell and told him: “Gary said many years ago that Wavis was Harry Hill before Harry Hill was Harry Hill, but, mind you, you’re not a bad Harry Hill anyway.”
That was the last one. The next-to last one was Tyson Fury, the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. I laughed all the way home after that. What had I been doing? I’d been in the middle of all these really massive blokes, sense of humour not that prominent, and I’m wanting him to sign a poster of The Hard.
JOHN: How did Tyson react?
WAVIS: My success rate has always been 99.9%, catching people one-to-one. But he was surrounded by his bouncer folks and one of them just took one look at me with me ‘Hard’ poster and said: “He doesn’t do autographs”.
Then, as he went into the building, we exchanged glances… I have stared him out, technically… he went into the building and signed autographs for these VIP people who paid £320 to get them! That’s Showbusiness, folks!
JOHN: So you didn’t get one.
WAVIS: Well, I didn’t really want it. I just wanted to be there because it was ridiculous. What was I doing there?
Locally, up North, the first celebrity I ever mixed with was Spike Milligan around 1975/1976.
“The idea was to play anything that wasn’t music.”
I had a group I called the Borestiffers. We did a ‘world tour’ of two dates at our local hall in Southshields. I had to fill in a form. I said it was for ‘poetry recitals’. All the rival gangs came – they’d kill each other on sight – and the hall was quartered by all these rival gangs who had come to see what on earth was going on. They didn’t know what to expect.
I came out with an illuminated Subbuteo floodlight strapped on my head with my wacky little band and I’m doing my songs and I just managed to finish it before the chairs started getting thrown at each other from the rival gangs.
The idea of the Borestiffers was to play anything that wasn’t music. We had empty suitcases for drums, Bullworkers and we genuinely had a kitchen sink, because someone was having their kitchen done. We had everything and we freaked everybody out so much that they didn’t know how to react.
I thought: Right! I like this reaction!
JOHN: …and so you decided to do comedy?
WAVIS: People want me to be a comedy/haha person. But nobody’s one person.
WAVIS: He can’t stop laughing… Anyway, I studied there and had a lama teacher – a celebrated rinpoche – Akong Rinpoche. He was murdered in China in 2013. I had Akong as a teacher in 1977 and I seemed to already know the stuff. What I got into was a thing called Vajrayana – you may have heard of the ‘crazy wisdom’ of Vajrayana.
It kind of frees outrageous behaviour.
I thought: This is the way I seem to be. Polar opposites. I’m up here at the apex, sitting with the emptiness of the Vajra diamond and the supreme oblivion where you can really bamboozle people with your behaviour.
And this was the formulation of Wavis.
When I left the Community, that’s when I got into recording the vinyl.
The reason I ended up doing sketches on music shows is… They said “Come on in and sing your Don’t Crush Bees With the End of Your Walking Stick or You Think You’re a Woman Because You Don’t Eat Fishcakes… Come on and do one of your songs.”
And I thought: No. I don’t work like that. If you want me to do songs, I won’t do songs… “Can I do a comedy sketch instead?”… I kinda wrote one on the spot for them. Sketches and characters pass though my brain. It never dries up.
So I ended up doing sketches on The Tube. A national audience. Four million people a week.
JOHN: And it all goes back to the Samye Ling Temple? You wanted to bamboozle people with surreality?
WAVIS: Well, the crazy wisdom of the Tibetan teachings do allow for… Well, you gotta end up talking about the unconscious mind. Surrealism is like a bubble rising up from the bottom of the lake.
The origin of comedy interests me, John. I’m very into neurology.
My wife – we’ve been married 38 years – has very high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome. She worked for the Ministry of Defence. She has had to put up with me for 38 years. She says it’s like living with Zelig.
I know quite a few serious researchers into neurology. Simon Baron-Cohen is a friend.
I live with two people who have Asperger’s – my wife and her son – and there are other immediate family members on the spectrum as well. All quite clever. Cambridge University have studied the family. They actually came here and did DNA swab testing. That’s how I met Simon Baron-Cohen in 2013 or so.
Researchers have pointed out that when serious people like Oliver Sacks take psychedelics, they report back that – ooh – you see UFOs, you see fairies… BUT lots and lots and lots of people have also reported seeing circus clowns.
JOHN: And the conclusion is that they see clowns because…?
WAVIS: Well, yes, why should they see circus clowns? Is it indicating … Is it possible… that the origin of comedy resides somewhere in the unconscious mind? Or, certainly, on another level of consciousness? Very serious stuff this, isn’t it?
JOHN: A lot of people find clowns very frightening…
WAVIS: That’s true.
JOHN: You must have had a career before the surreal stuff. You mentioned Zeus to me in an email. Everyone knows Zeus, but you also mentioned Hera. Now that’s relatively obscure.
WAVIS: Hera? Is she obscure? When I was a child, one of the first movies I saw was Jason and The Argonauts and that has got a lot to answer for. Life can be dull, mundane and boring. But I wanna be off! The other movie I saw that inspired me was Ursula Andress as She.
I went to the movies when I was ten. I wanted to walk into the screen. A search for the ultimate female. Ayesha (She). I have studied all that (Greek) stuff, but not as an academic.
JOHN: Ayesha and Jason: that’s all fantasy stuff. You were interested in fantasy?
WAVIS: Ah!… Ah!… Well, Wavis is a fantasy figure. How many times have I had to say to people that Wavis is just a fig roll ment of your imagination? I have no end of names. I was called Callum Jensen when I went on Stars in Their Eyes. Well, Steve Harley had been a friend, you see…He sent his own guitar to use on the show and let me keep it…
Over the years, he appeared in over 900 TV shows in 26 countries. He appeared in three Royal Command Performances and on five albums and eleven singles and his multiple West End appearances have included not just Jesus Christ Superstar but also The Who’s Tommy…
“Did everything go smoothly?” – (LAUGHS)
JOHN: Tommy was the stage musical based on the Who’s album…
COLIN: Yes. Tommy at the Queen’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. I played the Pinball Wizard.
JOHN: Did everything go smoothly?
COLIN: (LAUGHS) It was the previews… We’d been rehearsing all afternoon. I was in the dressing room with Steve Devereaux, who was playing the father, and I went to say something and nothing – literally nothing – came out of my mouth. I wrote down: STEVE – I’VE LOST MY VOICE!
He ran downstairs to the production office where Pete Townshend was and said: “Come up! Col’s lost his voice!”
So Pete Townshend came up.
Pete’s almost deaf from all the years of playing and I’ve got no voice. The understudy could not stand in for me. He said: “I don’t know all the staging of it yet.”
So Pete said to me: “Give me the script and I’ll go on in the wings with a microphone. You mime it all and I’ll sing it in the wings…”
So, on stage, I make my big entrance in my lovely huge outfit with flashing lights on it and everything, I grab the microphone and I mouth (COLIN SINGS) “Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve played the silver ball…”
Pete’s in the wings singing…
I’m miming (COLIN SINGS) “From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played ’em all…” and Pete is singing (COLIN SINGS) “Even on my favourite table…”
And we sang all the wrong words all through the rest of the song, because Pete had changed the order of the verses round for the stage show.
There was a very famous throat doctor named Norman Punt.
JOHN: Punt?
COLIN: Punt. They got him to the theatre and stuck a thing down my throat and he said: “You’ve got a virus.”
Opening night was three nights later.
He said: “The understudy will know it by tomorrow. You must go home. You can’t talk for three days, till you come to the opening night. Until you go on stage in three night’s time, you cannot talk to anybody or sing.”
So I didn’t do anything for three days.
“… with flashing lights on it and everything”
I go on stage after three days and off we go again. My big entrance in my lovely huge outfit with flashing lights on it and everything. I grab the microphone and… the microphone wasn’t on.
Luckily somebody managed to give me another one.
I thought: I’m doomed! I’m absolutely doomed!
But the show ran for seven months and Pete Townshend was there most nights. It was completely booked-out. Brilliant reviews. It would have carried on, but there was a play already booked in – Flowers For Algernon – with Michael Crawford. Pete Townshend was producing our Tommy and he couldn’t get another theatre in London to transfer it to. We did the cast recording, but I don’t think it was ever released.
JOHN: Why had Pete changed the order of the verses for the show?
COLIN: I have no idea, because it made no difference at all. Though it was longer. The overture was changed to call it the underture.
COLIN: Showbiz is all a matter of luck.
JOHN: Partly. But also talent. You’re a singer, dancer, songwriter. You can also write. Now you’ve written this astonishing book It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Zing!
There’s no money in writing books, though.
“The account was hacked in September…”
COLIN: Not only have I discovered there’s no money, I’ve discovered there’s less than no money… because I got hacked. I only just found out the week before last that my KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) account was hacked before this book was even released last October.
I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t got any royalties. Eventually a guy who was good at computers said: “Your money’s been going to a girl with a strange name.”
The account was hacked in September last year right up until now. It’s only now that Amazon Kindle have closed the account that was going to the hacker. All the money I made up till about three weeks ago was going to a hacker.
JOHN: You’ve also written a whole new musical: Paradise Lane.
COLIN: Yeah. Still trying to get that one on.
JOHN: It’s written?
“Written and all recorded. CD’s all done.”
COLIN: Written and all recorded. CD’s all done. Got a very good agent.
JOHN: It’s credited to Colin Satchell, not Colin Copperfield.
COLIN: When I wrote it a couple of years ago, I thought I should revert to my original name, which I did.
The Australian guy I wrote it with, Dave Mackay – the first record producer I ever worked with – said: “What’re you changing your name for, mate?”
I said: “It’s something new. I thought I might as well revert to my name.”
JOHN: Yes. You have a brand; you should build on the brand. What’s Paradise Lane about?
“It’s based on my dad… down Petticoat Lane”
COLIN: It’s about a market in the East End.
JOHN: It’s a tribute to your piano-playing father?
COLIN: Exactly that.
COLIN: It’s based on my dad, who worked on the stalls down Petticoat Lane Market, selling shoes. The one-size-fits-all shoes he flogged were so cheap that they didn’t fit anybody.
JOHN: So he was a dustman and a piano player AND a flogger of dodgy shoes…
COLIN: Yes, weekdays he was a dustman with some evening busking; at the weekends he was down Petticoat Lane; and, in the evenings, he was stooging at the Theatre in Stratford. That’s a helluva career, isn’t it?
JOHN: I’m surprised he had time to have two children. He lived long enough to see you succeed?
COLIN: Yeah. He lived till he was 80-odd.
Rave Stage review of Wall Street Crash at Talk of the Town
My mum and dad remained down-to-earth. When Wall Street Crash were starring at Talk of the Town (in London’s West End), the venue made a huge cardboard cut-out – huge – of the band – of us standing outside.
We played Talk of the Town a number of times a year: two or three weeks at a time.
My mum and dad came along a few times.
The last time we were there they came up on the train and asked the front-of-house if they could buy the cut-out. They were going to take it home on the train.
JOHN: They must have been so proud.
COLIN: So proud.
JOHN: Why did Wall Street Crash come to an end?
COLIN: It had just had its time, really. Television variety had finished. We’d been on all those shows – Morecambe & Wise, Cannon & Ball, Des O’Connor – and all the clubs had closed – Blazers in Windsor, Baileys, Talk of the North, the Night Out in Birmingham – all those.
Back then, we had been able to go from one club to another, but that had all finished and that was the end of the band, really. We had had 25 years out of it.
It had just had its time.
When we started off, our manager, who had managed Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck at the time… We did our first Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium and he was dropping me off at my little flat in Islington. And I said to him: “Jerry, how long do you think we’ve got?”
He said: “If you all behave yourself, I reckon you’ve got a good three years.”
We didn’t do any behaving ourselves but we lasted for 25.
In yesterday’s blog, actor, dancer, singer and songwriter Colin Copperfield talked about his time performing in London’s West End in Jesus Christ Superstar.
He started in showbiz aged 14 and, as well as multiple stage appearances, appeared in over 900 TV shows in 26 countries. His autobiography It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Zing!was recently published.
Colin was born in Forest Gate in the East End of London.
He told me: “I had a bit of a tough upbringing…”
JOHN: You did 25 years performing with Wall Street Crash but you’ve worked solidly all over the place as an actor, dancer, singer and songwriter because you’re a hyphenate. You can turn your voice and your feet to everything.
COLIN: I could do it all well enough. I was never the best singer; I was never the best dancer; I was never the best actor. But I could do it all pretty well – not bad.
JOHN: More than not bad, I think, given your career…
COLIN: You’re very kind.
Early band rehearsal – Colin is centre, behind microphone
JOHN: You started in a band at 14.
COLIN: Well, we did a lot more rehearsing than we did gigs. It was a good little band, though. A couple of the others went on to be session musicians.
JOHN: At 14, you wanted to be a rock star?
COLIN: I wanted to get out of school, basically. I was so bad at school academically.
JOHN: So was Churchill.
COLIN: That makes me feel better. I only found out about ten years ago I was dyscalculic (difficulty understanding or learning maths).
I can remember very long Shakespeare speeches but I can’t add anything up. Numbers are a complete blur.
COLIN: Before I was in Jesus Christ Superstar. I had done my bands and a solo cabaret act. I’d done the ships and then I was doing the clubs. I went and worked on the cruise ships and round the Mediterranean for three years. And I did the Superstar cast album before I went to Australia.
The ships were fantastic. We did one-hour versions of West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! As an actor, it was the equivalent of doing Rep. It was a different show every night.
The guy who directed the shows – Jeff Ferris – also worked for Cameron Mackintosh.
Colin’s inspirational mum and dad (at the start of WWII)
JOHN: Your family background was theatrical?
COLIN: My dad Wally worked at the Theatre Royal in Stratford (London) as a ‘stooge’. He was a dustman during the day and a stooge at night. When visiting comedians – all the top comedians – people like Max Miller in those days – used to come in… he worked with a lot of the top comedians just by being a straight-man – a ‘stooge’.
JOHN: The comedians didn’t have their own straight men touring with them?
COLIN: No. Especially the American comics who’d come over. He’d give them the local references to make.
JOHN: So your dad was a dustman who really wanted to be a showbiz star but he had to support a wife and two children…
The banjo uncles (centre front) with their East End mates
COLIN: Yeah. My dad was REALLY frustrated. My two uncles were very famous buskers.
By day, they were crane drivers around Silvertown Docks, Canning Town Docks, that area.
But they were also the most amazing banjo players and they played all the local pubs at night – often outside the pubs.
If they were playing inside, my dad would sometimes go along and play the piano with them… which would have been fabulous if he could have played the piano. (LAUGHS) He used to do this technique called ‘vamping’.
His fingers could land anywhere. There was no technique to it at all, but it seemed to work.
JOHN: So he wasn’t off-key, but he…
COLIN: He wasn’t OFF-key, but he wasn’t IN-key. It was his own way of doing it. I think my uncles (LAUGHS) played even louder just to drown him out.
JOHN: To play ‘badly’ but entertainingly is really difficult – You have to be a very good piano player, like Les Dawson.
“We worked (safely) with Rolf Harris a lot…”
COLIN: Yes. He was a lovely guy. I worked with him. I used to dance with this group called The Young Generation. We worked with Rolf Harris a lot – on The Rolf Harris Show. After us, with Dougie Squires, they turned into The Second Generation.
I was rehearsing the Les Dawson television showwhen he was massive. We were doing this dance routine and I was waiting for my cue to enter; the door opened and it was Les Dawson.
He went: “You a’right?”
I said: “Yeah. You awright?”
He went: “Naw. I got terrible diarrhoea.”
That was my introduction to Les Dawson. He was a really lovely bloke.
JOHN: He didn’t seem to have a big ego.
COLIN: I was so lucky to work with all the people I did, because I got to work with the end of ‘showbisiness’, really.
Lots of zingy gossip in Colin’s autobiography
The most miserable git we ever worked with was Dean Martin. Miserable sod. We were supporting him at the Victoria Apollo Theatre in London. We were there for ten nights with him. He never used the theatre at all. He would come up to not even the stage door; he would come up to a pass door in his limo and walk straight onto the stage. Afterwards – straight off the stage into his limo and off. He had a little bar made by the side of the stage with curtains round it with all the optics in it and everything.
JOHN: So he did drink a lot? I thought it was just his schtick.
COLIN: Well, no, I don’t think he did drink. Or, if he did, not the nights we were with him. We’d be waiting to go on first. We’d do 15 minutes, then it’d be Dean Martin. He went on straight after us and he never once went into this little bar.
Straight onto the stage. Sing. Mock drunk. And walk straight past this bar to his car.
JOHN: Your mother… Was she in showbiz?
COLIN: No. My brother THOUGHT he could sing and he REALLY wanted to be in show business but he was completely tone deaf.
JOHN: So, when you were 14, you were a music person. In the rock bands, you were the singer?
COLIN: Yes. I could play the guitar but didn’t: I just purely sang.
JOHN: But then you got into dance…
Young musical Colin with his encouraging mum
COLIN: Only because my mum – she was a real Cockney – said: “‘Ere. You gotta lose yer accent,” she said, “and you gotta ‘ave more than one string to yer bow if you’re gonna go into showbusiness.”
So the dancing is down to my mum.
I played with some show bands and dance bands. I did a bit of everything coming up. Then my singing teacher said: “It’s all very well doing all this but you need to get some theatre stuff… They’re auditioning tomorrow at the Prince of Wales Theatre (in London) for the Harry Worth stage show in Great Yarmouth.”
Summer seasons were big business then. They would last three or four months. You could almost go from Summer Season into (Christmas) Panto. I was singing with a show band at the time.
It was an open casting. Number One in the Hit Parade was Tom Jones: Love Me Tonight. I went along and didn’t really know anything and all these hundreds of guys before me in the audition, they were all singing (COLIN SINGS) “My boy, Bill! He’ll be tall and tough as a tree, will Bill. Like a tree he’ll grow…” (a song from Carousel).
At the audition, I gave my Love Me Tonight music to the pianist who was doing the accompaniment and he said: “Are you really gonna sing this?” and I said “Yeah…??”
So I started singing (COLIN SINGS) “I know that it’s late and I really must leave you alone…”
Immediately they said: “Thankyou, Thanks very much, Colin…”
The pianist told me: “Wrong type of song.”
I rang my singing teacher and told him: “One line and they said Thankyou very much…”
“What did you sing?”
“Love Me Tonight.”
“You prat; come round here now…”
And he told me: “Learn this… (COLIN SINGS) On a wonderful day like today, I defy any cloud to appear in the sky… Go back tomorrow. They won’t remember you.”
So I went back the next day. Same rehearsal pianist. “Thank God, mate,” he said. “You got more of a chance with this one…”
Harry Worth was a very big name in Great Yarmouth…
I sang: (COLIN SINGS) “On a wonderful day like today, I defy any cloud to appear in the sky…” and they said: “Do you want to do three or four months with Harry Worth at The Britannia Theatre in Great Yarmouth?”
JOHN: They didn’t recognise you from the day before?
COLIN: No. And that was my start in proper showbiz.
JOHN: Were you called Colin Copperfield at this point?
COLIN: Yes. Back in the rock bands I was still Colin Satchell but then I started doing my own cabaret act and, for that, I turned into Colin Copperfield. Everybody at the time was called something like that.
JOHN: You did 900 TV shows in 26 countries, 5 albums, 11 singles, 3 Royal Command Performances.
COLIN: Yes. I was almost as busy as my dad. I was so lucky. A lot of times I was just in the right place at the right time.
JOHN: Well, it’s talent AND luck, isn’t it? You can get just so far with luck. There has to be some talent to last. You have multiple talents and you’re still working. Your mother gave you good advice.
COLIN: Luck is so important in everything in life. Like after I finished on Tommy…
JOHN: This was the musical based on the Who album…
COLIN: Yes. Tommy at the Queen’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. I played the Pinball Wizard.
JOHN: Tell me more…
…CONTINUED HERE… with The Who’s “Tommy” and a brand new musical
Colin started in showbiz aged 14 and has spent his life as an actor, dancer, singer and songwriter – including 25 years in the vocal group Wall Street Crash.
He spent 3 years on cruise ships, 6 years on shows in London’s West End, including Jesus Christ Superstarand The Who’s Tommy, and he appeared in over 900 TV shows in 26 countries.
He appeared in three Royal Command Performances and on five albums and eleven singles.
He told me: “I’ve recently finished composing the musical Paradise Lane, fingers and eyes crossed coming to a theatre near you soon.”
He was born in Forest Gate in the East End of London.
“I had a bit of a tough upbringing. I’m 72 now… Now I write songs for other artists and I’m a dance teacher specialising in tap, modern and ballet. I also work as personal fitness trainer.”
Obviously I had to talk to him.
Colin in his Wall Street Crash days…
JOHN: So… Jesus Christ Superstar in the West End.
COLIN: It was just one of those flukes of showbusiness. I was around 28. I was doing singing telegrams to pay the rent.
Superstar needed rock singers for the stage production.
They couldn’t make rock singers out of the traditional people in showbusiness – they were all My Boy Bill singers. They needed rock singers so, when they started, they auditioned people who sang in bands, like I did. But most of the people who sang in bands had no theatre discipline. They could sing on television but couldn’t do theatre.
There was a big problem getting enough good suitable singers. So we very often used to do Jesus Christ Superstar – this is a top West End show remember – with seven disciples.
We had lots of Japanese tourists coming in and you could see them looking confused. Surely there were 12 disciples???
We – truly – sometimes used to dress the girls with short hair up as boys to sit round the Last Supper table, because you really HAD to have 12 disciples at the Last Supper.
At some points we were all round the table and we’d all link up hands and have to stretch a bit: different arm lengths.
JOHN: It must almost be relaxing performing in a successful, long-running West End show, though…
COLIN: Well, when I was in Jesus Christ Superstar, I was really busy. I was also working at the Stork Club in Piccadilly Circus – doing the midnight show and the 2 o’clock in the morning show. And I was also doing a television show at Teddington Studios with Tommy Steele.
I was doing the Tommy Steele show all day, which was really hard; we were tap-dancing down this staircase all day. Guys were breaking their legs going up and down. I only got the gig because of one of my friends, who was a proper dancer. I went along and it was quite a long rehearsal period – a 2-month rehearsal period – and then we filmed at Teddington.
I was doing that during the day and Jesus Christ Superstar at night and then I was working at the Stork Club after that. So I was a bit tired. I was getting about 2 or 3 hours kip a night.
Just before the interval, they did this song called Gethsemane
Anyway, one night I’d been tap-dancing during the day in Teddington and then I got to Superstar in the West End.
It was a Saturday night performance – I was knackered.
Just before the interval, they did this song called Gethsemane – everyone’s asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus sings this very long song.
It went on for about eight minutes about how he was going to be denied and all that.
At the end of it, Jesus sings (COLIN SINGS) “…before I change my mind…” – then BLACKOUT.
So, there’s a blackout and we all clear the stage – Interval – the audience buy their ice creams. Then, at the beginning of the second half – BLACKOUT – we all come back into our sleeping positions – Jesus is standing there.
So, at the end of the first half, I had got onto the floor; it was a really warm floor; perspex squares; I’m slunk down; Jesus is singing; I’ve fallen asleep. BLACKOUT. Peter and John have gone. Jesus has gone.
But I’m still fast asleep on the stage.
They were about to lower the iron curtain; all the lights are up and somebody saw me lying there, more or less under the iron curtain.
“Colin! Colin! Colin!!!”…
They had to send the stage hands on to wake me up.
All the audience have seen this. So, at the beginning of the Second Act… BLACKOUT… and, as the lights came up, the whole audience stands up and starts clapping and shouting “Bravo!” just as Jesus is about to be denied. Literally, a standing ovation.
I was in Jesus Christ Superstar for three years. I was in it three times.
JOHN: Three times?
COLIN: I had been in Superstar for about a year, then left to do a show at the Ambassadors Theatre – Let The Good Stones Roll, about the Rolling Stones. I played Keith Richards. That was on for about 8 months.
After Heaven, an unexpected encounter
Then I went to do another show called Leave Him to Heaven at the New London Theatre with Anita Dobson. That came off and I was meeting a mate of mine in town for a drink near the Palace Theatre where Jesus Christ Superstar was still on.
As I passed the Palace Theatre, suddenly Peter Gardner, the company manager, appeared out of nowhere and rushed over:
“Colin! Colin! You gotta come over, darling. We’ve got nobody to play Peter and Simon Zealotes!”
“Peter,” I said, “I’m going to meet my mate for a drink. I haven’t been in this show for a year.”
“Darling! You’ll remember it, darling! You’ll remember it! Come in! Come in! Go up to the wardrobe department!”
I went in. I went up. New people. Nobody I knew.
So I go on stage. It’s the Saturday Matinee and I’m on stage with this cast of 35 people I’ve never met in my life. They are all thinking: Who is this bloke?
I was on stage, singing all the relevant songs. And, at the end of it, bless their hearts, the whole company did the Who’s Best (EXPLAINED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW) and the whole company turned to me. I didn’t know ANYbody.
I never ever took time off when I was in the West End but, another night, I got Hong Kong flu. Loads of people were off sick. I think some theatres even went dark. I was living in Islington (north London), lying there ‘dying’ in my bed and Peter Gardner phones up:
“Treas, treas” – he called everybody ‘treas’ as in ‘treasure’ – “you gotta come in, darling. We’ve got nobody to play Peter, Simon or Herod and…”
I said: “Peter, I’ve got a temperature of 104, otherwise I’d be in there. You know that.”
“No, darling, you gotta come in…”
“Anyway,” I said, “I can’t play four parts, because they overlap!”
He said: “Oh, no no no. We’ll work round that, darling.”
JOHN: We’ll kill Jesus early?
COLIN: “We’ll change the story a bit… We’ll send a car for you. You’ve got to come in, darling. We’re in terrible trouble.”
So I get in this car and I really was feeling like I’m dying.
I got to the theatre and they put me in the first costume and threw me on to the stage. Then they put me into the next costume to play Herod. Then off into the next one… And I have very little memory of the whole thing. I was nearly dead when I did it! Four roles! They had a cab waiting to take me home and I slept maybe for three days.
JOHN: They were able to change your face by putting on different wigs?
COLIN: All of that, but I don’t think it was fooling anybody: Hold on, that short bloke was just playing Herod… Why is he playing the High Priest now? I guess people thought it must have some deep theatrical meaning.
Anyway, one night I played four parts in the same play in the West End, with a temperature of 104.
…CONTINUED HERE.. with the dustman, the buskers and Dean Martin
“Dan quite often found himself in rather bizarre circumstances while interacting with famous people – like having a staring contest with Barbra Streisand, twice; or smoking a joint in silence with Jill Clayburgh in Central Park; or talking with Billy Crystal about Chinese food at Sid Caesar’s funeral; or introducing his mother to Mel Brooks and finding out they both went to the same high school. Dan’s countless ‘close encounters of the celebrity kind’ are sometimes funny, sometimes touching, and quite often cringe-inducing.”
We chatted at the weekend…
Flirting and skirting but never hurting…
JOHN: FOUR books being published between now and next Spring? Why now?
DAN: Flirting With Fame was from Covid. Last Spring, 2021, I looked at the calendar and I was going to turn 65 and realised the very first celebrity I ever met was when I was 15 years old – Richie Havens, who was a famous singer from Woodstock.
During Covid, I was bored and had nothing to do. Wow! It’s been 50 years since I’ve been meeting and working with celebrities! So I took a piece of paper and just wrote down all the hundreds of celebrities I’ve met or worked with and there were so many of them that I thought: I should just write a book.
When I was in high school, I had really long hair, I played the drums and ran lights and stage crew for a little concert hall in Asbury Park – The Sunshine Inn.
Bruce Springsteen played there quite often; he was considered like the house band. Before it was called the E Street Band, he had a band called Steel Mill, one called Doctor Zoom and The Sonic Boom and then he had the Bruce Springsteen Band.
JOHN: You’ve known everybody.
DAN: It’s not that I know them, John. It’s like in the title of my book – Flirting – It’s like I skimmed with hundreds of very very very famous people. Most of my clients are behind-the-scenes people in the entertainment world. I’m FLIRTING with fame. I’m not famous. Only a few of my clients – like Jay Leno – were famous. But, over the course of time, I’ve been in situations surrounded by a lot of famous people.
JOHN: According to your own publicity for the book, you pissed-off some…
DAN: Arnold Schwarzenegger, sure. I was at an event in Beverly Hills in 1996. He wasn’t the Governor of California yet, but he was a big star. The event was for Milton Berle. You remember Milton Berle?
JOHN: Of course. A comedy legend.
Dan with Sid Caesar – semi-retired but still active in 1987…
DAN: I worked with Milton a few times. I represented Sid Caesar for a couple of years.
Anyway, I was at an event in Beverly Hills for Milton Berle. I knew Arnold Schwarzenegger would be there and my 8-year-old son was a huge fan of The Terminator movies. So I took a photo of Arnold as The Terminator and a white marking pen.
During a break in the festivities, Arnold is at a table with two giant bodyguards and I just tapped him on the shoulder: “Hello. My name is Dan. My son is 8 years old. He loves The Terminator. Would you be kind enough to give a quick autograph?” I have the photo and the pen in my hand.
He looks at me and he goes (CONTORTS FACE) “GHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!”
I say: “Arnold, please. He’s 8 years old.”
“GHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!”
I swear to God. Steam virtually shooting out of his bright red… like he wanted me to burn in a fire…
“GHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!”
Arnold Schwarzenegger: GHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!
He never said a word to me.
So now I’m like shaking, right?
His bodyguards are looking at me.
I’m like: Come on, Arnold, you can do it!
It’ll take five seconds.
Come on, man. Please! Please do it!
“GHHHRRRRRRR!!!!!”
Really, it was a stand-off. And, eventually, he realised I was not going to leave without it… So, after quite a while, he finally grabbed the pen and did it and wrote: TO JORDAN – BEST WISHES.
My son is 34 years old now and he has it framed on his wall in his house in Alaska.
JOHN: The thing that most shocks me is that Arnold Schwarzenegger needed two bodyguards.
DAN: They had little earpieces with little curly wire that came out.
JOHN: Meeting ‘stars’ can be strange…
DAN: I was at a photo shoot with Kevin Costner in 1990… Kevin wasn’t a huge, huge star then, so he was very approachable. He couldn’t have been nicer. This was to promote an Earth Day TV special on ABC.
A lot of executives from Warner Bros and ABC were there and everyone was saying: “She’s coming! She’s coming!’
I didn’t know who. They didn’t tell me.
“It’s ten minutes till she’ll be here… She’s coming!… Ten minutes!… Five minutes!”
“Who’s coming?” I asked.
They said: “Meryl Streep!”
“Meryl Streep?” I said. “Meryl Streep is coming?”
Carla holding her Oscar for Sophie’s Choice…
She was very famous, of course, and, at the time, was just a few years out from her Sophie’s Choice Oscar. This is MERYL STREEP, you know?
So Meryl Streep’s coming! Oh my God! Oh my God!
I wasn’t a particular fan of hers. I don’t think she’s particularly… I was never a fan of hers ever, but everyone was scurrying around: “Meryl’s coming! Meryl’s coming!”
So I got caught up in it.
The doors open. It’s bright sunshine outside. She enters. She’s all in white. She’s like an angel from Heaven. It’s like Mother Mary has descended and we’re like the peasants in Guatemala or wherever. She comes in and there’s like 20 people in a line. ABC people. Warner Bros people. I’m at the very end of the line. Next to me is a friend of mine named Carla from Warner Bros.
So Meryl goes along the line like the Queen of England.
“Miss Streep, it’s such an honour”… “Miss Streep, it’s such an honour…”
I’m caught up in it.
It’s Meryl Streep! It’s Meryl Streep!
She gets to me and I’m at the very end of this long line and, by the time she got to me, I was so nervous I shook her hand and said: “Hello Carla, so nice to meet you…”
She looked at me like the RCA Victor dog, with her head on one side, thinking: “…What was…? Did he just…?”
I didn’t really know what was happening. She walked away and then my friend Carla told me: “Dan, you just called Meryl Streep ‘Carla’” and I said “I did?? Really??”
JOHN: I’m surprised you would be overawed by a star: you did stand-up comedy.
Dan stands-up on stage at Hollywood’s Improv
DAN: I did comedy much later – here in LA – 1998-2001. I only ever made $6 from it in total. Jerry Seinfeld made $6 billion. I made $6. I have it framed. I did it because, when I was in Sixth Grade, I had a teacher who used to make students go to the front of the classroom and give an oral report. She tortured us:
“Stand up straight!… You’re slouching!… You’re mumbling!… Speak louder!… Speak softer!… Don’t look at your nose!”… All she did was criticise. So I had a fear of public speaking from the age of 12.
And, for a publicist, it’s really not good to have a fear of public speaking.
So I took a class at the Improv in West Hollywood with one of the owners and the graduation of the class was to do 8 minutes on stage at The Improv. Next to my son being born, it was the most nervous I ever was in my life. I almost threw up before I went on stage. My mother was there; all my friends were there. 250 people. I was shaking; nervous; my heart was pounding; I was a nervous wreck. But I went out and did my thing and I survived.
I’m not a natural stage performer. I’m a drummer. I was in bands all my life. Playing in a band? That’s easy. No sweat. But to stand up on stage with a microphone and you’re saying your jokes?… It’s very, very scary.
JOHN: I suppose the drummer is at the back and not the centre of attention.
Dan not quite hiding behind his youthful hair and cymbals…
DAN: I suppose that’s right. I had really long hair and you have cymbals in front of you. When I played, my hair used to fly everywhere. My parents saw me play once and someone said to my mother: “That drummer, she’s really good for a girl…”
JOHN: But you weren’t interested in performing comedy as such? Even though you knew Sid Caesar and Milton Berle…
DAN: I represented Sid Caesar for two years, 1987-1989. He paid a monthly retainer to our PR firm to keep his name in the press. He was sort-of semi-retired but still active; he was in good health still; he did guest starring roles on TV. I got him many interviews: at the time he was re-releasing Your Show of Shows on VHS tapes for the first time.
Also he, Milton Berle and Danny Thomas did a live tour of the US in 1988 and I was the publicist – The Living Legends of Comedy Tour.
JOHN: That was when you got to know Milton Berle as well?
DAN: Around the same time. I spent a day with him at a TV station in Hollywood. He had written a book called BS: I Love You – an autobiography – and he was there to promote it.
So I’m at the TV station and there’s a knock on the backstage door and this little old hunched, shaking Jewish man with a hat and a coat and a cane came in.
“Mr Berle?” I said.
“Yes.”
“My name is Dan. I’m here to help you out.”
“OK. Very good.”
I took him to his dressing room. He closes the door very quietly.
Dan with switched-on larger-than-life Milton.
I wait about 10-15 minutes and then the door bursts open. He’s standing perfectly straight. Different clothes. Big cigar… “Hi kid! Here I am! Where do you want me?”
I almost asked him: “What did ya do with Milton Berle?”
The man who went in and the man who came out of the dressing room – Two completely different men.
JOHN: It wasn’t a joke? He had just suddenly ‘switched-on’ Milton Berle?
DAN: Yeah. He BECAME Milton Berle in that 10-15 minutes in the dressing room.
I led him out onto the stage and everyone was so excited.
But instead of shaking people’s hands and saying “Hello, how are you?” he goes: “Aaah… I don’t like that camera over there! These lights: these can be moved! I don’t like this set! That chair has to be over here! This spotlight has to be…”… and for the next 45 minutes all he did was re-arrange this entire studio that had been created just for him. Everyone was like: What is he doing? But it’s MILTON BERLE: What can you do? All you can do is obey his commands!
JOHN: What happened at the end when he left the set? Did he return to being the old man?
DAN: He did the interview. He was very funny. At the end, he shook hands and was very nice. I walked him back to his limousine and he remained in character. He has the cigar. He’s smiling. He’s not the man who walked in. Now he’s ‘Milton Berle’.
(… CONTINUED HERE… with Jerry Seinfeld, sex addiction and party night at the Playboy Mansion…)
Stand-up comedian and comedy club promoter Janet Bettesworth has published her first novel Mercenaries.
The blurb says it “plunges into the no-holds-barred dark world of Airbnb machinations” in which “Carla, a comedian, and Louise, an actress, are bribed by an elderly landlady, Alice to… extract revenge… A mélange of gruesome memories emerges as events unfold”.
And… “This plot line walks a tight-rope on a roller-coaster! And includes all you need to know about Butlins Holiday Camp Margate, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, racism, Airbnbs, #MeToo, bribery, the Royals, insects, coffins, croissants, failed comedians and revenge.”
Janet started creating the book by posting a series of her portraits of characters on Facebook (I blogged about it in 2020) and asking people to suggest their backgrounds.
So I had a chat with Janet and fellow comic Peter Stanford at her undeniably prestigious book launch in South London.
JOHN: So why write this book?
JANET: The genesis was when I won £1,000 in a writing competition.
JOHN: From whom?
JANET: The Oldie magazine. The topic was The worst job I’ve ever had.
JOHN: Which was?
JANET: Being a waitress at a Butlin’s holiday camp in Margate. I had to go to the Garrick Club where The Oldie held their Award thing. I went with (comedian) Will Franken.
The evening dragged on and they hadn’t told me when the presentation was going to happen. I really needed to go to the loo and thought: When on earth is it going to be time to give out the prize? Everyone was drinking away so I thought I’ll quickly just nip to the loo and the next thing I knew there was a banging on the door of the toilet and it was Will Franken…
JOHN: This was the Ladies toilet?
JANET: Yes.
JOHN: Was he dressed as a lady?
JANET: No. But, by the time I got back, they had lugged (comedy icon) Barry Cryer on to fill the gap because there was no Me to be seen anywhere… Barry Cryer was in the middle of one of his parrot jokes but they kind of wheeled me on and I looked a bit shamefaced… When they wrote it up in The Oldie, it was all my fault this had happened: the person who didn’t really know what they were doing.
PETER: One would have thought they would have checked you were there before making the announcement…
JANET: Exactly! OR told me when it was going to happen.
JOHN: … or done the presentation in the toilet.
JANET: Before all that, I had been going round the room talking to various people who didn’t know anything about me. But, after the presentation, everyone was incredibly much more friendly. So I talked to Maureen Lipman and also to this really nice woman called Elizabeth Luard and she said: Have you ever thought of writing a book? And I said I genuinely felt it was beyond me.
I’d read hundreds of books and quite often I would be so full of admiration for the writer but I would think it was one step too far: I wouldn’t be able to do it.
JOHN: So why did you do The Oldie competition if you weren’t interested in writing yourself?
JANET: Well, I could write short things. Like for comedy writing….
But Elizabeth Luard said: If you can write something like the short Oldie piece, all you need to do is get ten more bits of that length and sew them all together.
JOHN: So the book is not so much a novel, more like a series of vignettes.
JANET: You’ve not read the book, have you?
JOHN: No.
Former art teacher Janet’s portrait of Peter Stanford…
PETER: Do you even own a copy of the book?
JOHN: I was hit by a truck in 1991 and can’t read books. I can write them, but I can’t read them.
PETER: You could always buy it and not read it…
JOHN: When is the audio book coming out?
JANET: Actually, a blind friend of mine asked the same thing. But I’ve never had anything published before and I’m completely new and it’s a strange world to me. My husband reads to me every single day, usually in the afternoon. I love being read to and he loves reading things out loud. We’ve read the Diaries of Alan Clark and…
PETER: Does your husband do all the voices?
JANET: Yes. He always does the voices. I have actually had part of Mercenaries read out loud by a voice artist: Seanie Ruttledge.
He read out the very first bit, which is quite pornographic.
JOHN: That’s a good start. If they read the first five pages, they’ll get some porn.
JANET: Oh, there’s plenty more after that.
JOHN: Why is the book called Mercenaries?
JANET: One of the themes is the difference in outlook between the generations. You have two women – the slightly younger generation – who are tangentially in the comedy or acting worlds. One of them is a vegan and she is very Me Too; and the other one is an elderly woman called Alice. So it’s the way she is viewed.
JOHN: Autobiographical in some way?
JANET: I am 77 at the moment. When I was about 68, that’s when I started doing stand-up comedy and, in a way, going to all these gigs was a bit like going back to my youth. The kind of atmosphere of going to all these gigs was like a kind of renaissance, in a way.
Janet’s impression of me as an East End street trader…?
JOHN: It gave you a new lease of life?
JANET: Yes. And it gave me a sort of different prism to see the world.
JOHN: And the relevance of that to the book is…?
JANET: Well, they’re both aspects of me.
JOHN: So, if you’re describing different aspects of yourself, did it make you understand something more about yourself?
JANET: (DUBIOUSLY) I suppose so, yes. The hard part was trying to put it more together so there was some sort of plot.
JOHN: The easy bit was the pornography?
JANET: I dunno.
JOHN: You are an arty person as opposed to a wordy person. You were an Art teacher…
JANET: (DUBIOUSLY) Is it not possible to have both interests?
JOHN: Yes, but I thought maybe you were a fulfilled arty person and an unfulfilled wordy person.
JANET: I suppose.
JOHN: Have you an idea for another book in your brain?
JANET: I did have the other day, but…
JOHN: I know. I can’t remember what happened yesterday.
JANET: All the proceeds are going to the Ukraine, by the way.
PETER: The book was published after the Russians invaded Ukraine.
JOHN: So the profits go to Ukraine charities for how long? Forever?
Janet checks the Ukrainian song’s lyrics…
JANET: Why not? Until Ukraine stops needing it, I suppose.
JOHN: So, if it’s all going to Ukraine, you’re going to earn nothing from this.
JANET: Great.
JOHN: So are you going to write another book?
JANET: I don’t know. I just have to wait for…
(AT THIS POINT, PETER PULLED OUT A PIECE OF SHEET MUSIC…)
PETER: We can sing. Here’s a song in Ukrainian. 19th century.
(JANET, WHO CAN READ MUSIC, STARTED SINGING “A PRAYER FOR UKRAINE”…)
I thought he was a very very good performer and singer and I enjoyed his work when I heard it, but I was never a massive fan of his music.
What he was like as a person – now that is another matter.
I only encountered him once, when we watched television together, back in 1995.
He was one of the guests on a peaktime ITV series called Jack Dee’s Saturday Night.
It was recorded at the New Wimbledon Theatre in London.
The New Wimbledon Theatre, like most London theatres, is very ‘vertical’. You have the stage at, I think, ground level and multiple storeys above the auditorium and at the back. My memory is that the ‘green room’ for the show was right at the top of the building, at the back. It was certainly quite a climb, so you did not move between stage level and the green room unless you had to.
Meat Loaf was not one of ‘my’ acts; I was not looking after him. But we ended up at the top of the building in the green room alone together. I think I may have made us a cup of tea and we sat and watched television together.
It can’t have been broadcast television; it must have been a feed from the stage, where rehearsals were happening. So we just sat there – in two comfortable armchairs, if my memory serves me right – intermittently watching what was happening downstairs and chatting about nothing in particular.
Earlier, I had seen him rehearsing on-stage with his backing group. I don’t know if this was his regular band or if he had just picked them up for his European gigs. He was very much in command, directing them how to ‘perform’ the music, how to add swagger and dramatic movements to their performance.
“You did not move between stage level and the green room…”
It was not just them playing music; it had to be a ‘performance’. He was this grandiose OTT rock star and they were his dramatic backdrop.
But the man I was watching television and drinking tea with was just an ordinary man. No airs and graces and drama and false superiority. No ‘I am a star’ stuff. No acing out a persona. Just an ordinary amiable human being relaxing, whiling away some time in a room with a passing stranger.
Of course, most ‘stars’ are like that. Alas not all. But he seemed particularly ‘ordinary’ (I say that as a big compliment). Particularly comfortable to be with.
I have no idea what he was like with other people the rest of the time. But I have always remembered him as amiable, gentle and relaxed. Not at all the loud, OTT, self-centred ‘performer’.
The first time I was really aware of him was when I saw his Meat Loaf-type performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He commanded the screen. But I was also very impressed with his gentle, vulnerable performance in Fight Club. Two totally different performances.
And that’s what I remember from that afternoon in 1995.
A great, rip-roaring on-stage performance by Meat Loaf and his band.
Meat Loaf interviewed by MTV, 2009 (Photo: Christopher Simon, Wikipedia)
And a quiet, soft-voiced ‘ordinary’ and very very likeable man drinking tea and chatting with me about nothing in particular while waiting to be called downstairs to perform.
I am, of course, too sensible to say that he has now been called upstairs.
But I have always remembered him as a nice man. For me, that is a big compliment.
In 2003, while reporting on Meat Loaf’s support for Hartlepool United football club, the BBC claimed that he was thinking of buying a house in Hartlepool.
Today, Ariane X – aka Ariane Sherine, writer of multiple books, newspaper & magazine columns and music – has released a pop album entitled Better.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 