20120619

Whoops

So caught up was in telling you my woes I forgot the reason I was posting. Having checked the job papers this morning I was amazed that my old pal Nigel Farmer was holding a reunion for the stars of the 1980s soap opera ‘Anglian Lives’. The show was local & never made it to network, the snobs in London felt anyone in the East Anglia would be of little interest to the rest of the populous, but oh! How wrong they were. This ignorance afforded us a certain cache, we could cover issues those in London would balk at.

Some of the subjects covered which those in London would have balked at.

Tractor maintenance
Fleas
Over cooked Puddings
Faulty pitchforks
Jamborees.
Ritual Devil sacrifice
Home made curtains

Yes, and even to this day those in London are woefully ignorant of such things. We also covered social and environmental issues

Oil
Water
Electricity
The Rainforrests
Bovril

The set up of the show was simple. Rob Wainright (Richard Griffiths) was a man who discovers a new fuel source in a field in East Anglia. He makes his fortune, millions (which today would probably still be millions) of pounds rolls in. It was truly the Dallas of its’ day, with Ron playing the head of a oligarchy of super rich people, and his cheating, unfaithful and duplicitous wife, whose evil was only out matched by her glamour and looks, Doreen. (Played by Penelope Keith). He had a son, two daughters and a dachsund, although the Dachsund didn’t seem particularly used to film sets, and was written out after biting a guest stars’ ears off mid scene. As the blood gushed from his wounds, Rickman continued to deliver his lines, and even as he lost conciousness he was still emoting like a good ‘un. Of course it’s not something he chooses to talk about, which is why so few interviewers ask him about his ears. I did hear the Radio Norfolk personality Nathan Wickham mention it to him in passing during a interview about Rickmans’ book, shortly before Wickhams’ mysterious disappearance.

Oh, the array of stars who queued up to be on the show. Sylvester McCoy. Bono. Dr Hilary Jones. A man who claimed to be Hartley Hare. It was halcyon days of invites, chat shows and controversy. I remember we did a story line, which, if you took a straw pole around some of the villages in East Anglia (or E.A., as we liked to call it) You would find almost 8% of people were talking about it. 3% positively. Yes, were were the flavour of the month in many ways, an intoxicating brew of talent, script and direction which assured us success. Such a shame Anglian Television decided to ditch it after the first show and put on repeats of sale Of The century.

I am back


Good day. Firstly I must apologise for the lack of updates. There are several reasons for this, the last of which is I had my fingers broken in a protection racket run by a certain television actor. For obvious reasons I cannot name the performer, I don’t Wannamaker angry, or risk My Family in any way.

I think I am correct in saying my last post was in April, just after the debacle of Dick Van Dykes’ pajama theft (something which the British Police seem totally disinterested in, and the only action they took in relation to this crime was an arrest and imprisonment for much of May under the Mental Health Act). At the beginning of June a letter sprouted forth from my agent, Mcallister and Thorneycroft,stating that because of my attitude, my relationships with fellow performers and indeed the standard of my work in general, they no longer wished to represent me.

I was shocked.

What had I done to deserve such detrimental treatment? I immediately rang the office to seek answers to the hundred or so swirling questions which moved through my mind like a hurricane. It was actually two questions, but with repeats…

I spoke to David, who was less than helpful. “Listen, love” he opined “we have people on our books, and with your exclusion we now have a 100% of them who have never smacked David Suchet in the face”. I was stunned. Was I to be treated thus because of an incident which both of us (myself and Suchet) had long since sorted*.

“I don’t need you” I shouted down the phone “Talent always wins. And I am talent. And you will regret doing this to me” I screamed, my anger as palpable as a strongly odourous cheese. But he had hung up.

As work seems to be thinner on the ground than Nick Robinsons’ quiff, I have decided to enter the work of the great unwashed, and currently I am to be found in the dish washing section of Harry Ramsdens’ in Gospel Oak. This may seem a step down from the world of showbusiness, but I maintain it is healthy to mix and undertake the work of the public; it keeps you grounded. And who knows, maybe a role will come up featuring dish washing in a television play, or maybe even a film. And then my experience here will pay dividends. To play a role, one must live it, and the ability to play a man who stubbornly refuses to stop until that pasta sauce is wiped from the dish, no matter what the cost to himself personally, is one which I think any director worth his sort would look at.



*The dispute was settled in a barn in Totnes, where Suchet and myself fought in hand to hand combat. Both of us had been working hard, and had both come straight from our respective sets. Suchet dressed as Poirot, myself as a large petunia (I had been filming a commercial for Rennie). Suchet took a beating that night, and his ‘little grey cells’ were well and truly shaken up, as for some days after he was convinced he was Folkstone.