Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comic actor and musician who rose to fame in The Young Ones and co-created the slapstick sitcom Bottom.
On the island
Eight records
I like it even more in retrospect. I mean, it's just big and noisy and brash, but it's got a kind of sadness to it. And I wonder if my mum was sad.
The first track on side two... there's quite a rude word in it... 'bloody'... two grown middle class men and my dad and my mum all singing bloody. It was the first joke I heard.
It's The Serpent in the Garden of Eden. I was around twelve, thirteen and we'd only just found out... what sex was.
It really conveys the excitement of kind of walking down Walker's Court and going into the comic strip club. It was a moment of, yeah, it was when it was happening.
This one's about Jennifer, really. She introduced me to country music. ... this song has always been my song about her.
About the fear we had before every tour... that we no longer had the magic. ... we'd have a great playlist in the van because Rick didn't really like much music, but Saturday Gigs was our song.
The Bonzos have been a constant in my life. One of the things that brought me and Rick together as well. ... It's one of the funniest pieces of music there is.
Wide Open Spaces is a fantastic song. It's about kids leaving home. ... driving down the A303 with the three of them doing three-part harmonies, belting it out. It's one of the wonders of my life.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50Who were your comedy heroes?
Laurel and Hardy. Spike Milligan. Flanders and Swan. I think Laurel and Hardy have stayed with me the longest. I judge people by whether they like Laurel and Hardy or not.
Presenter asks
8:04How would you describe your father as a person?
He was not without a sense of humour, but he was essentially on the cusp of working class and lower middle class, 'cause grandad just had a stall in the market, and I think he wanted to be upper middle class. He didn't know how to get there.
Presenter asks
10:22What were you like at school, considering you moved schools every year?
I had this other problem, 'cause my name was Adrian. And in the sixties in Bradford and the other schools I went to, everyone thought it was a girl's name. ... I would have to have a fight at every school I went to about my name. So I wasn't very good at that. But I did know about the fun of violence.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Samuel Beckett
I'm going to take play text of Waiting for Godo. I was looking at it a couple of nights ago. trying to choose. And I worked out that there's a lot I don't understand about it. If I play Vladimir. So I'm I'm going to work on being Vladimir. I'll do all the parts, obviously, just like I did the goons. And I'd be excellent at all of them.
The luxury
I'd like to take a tab of acid. I've never taken any hallucinogen. ... I'd love to understand who I am. ... So the island is the place to do it because as I've said I'm not going to last so I'll do it.
Do you remember how it was explained to you that you alone would be sent to boarding school?
I don't think it was. ... I remember a lot of blubbing and when I first got there, but once all the tears dry up, we all became the same people. The school is just full of people who are emotionally repressed, lonely, unloved and feeling abandoned eventually get over it and sort of subsist within the world without causing too much trouble. I'm still incredibly high maintenance emotionally. There was a lot of beating, and there was no pastoral care of any sort, and absolutely no love.
Presenter asks
40:07What made you decide to call it a day with Rick and the live tours?
I think my main reason was I wanted to do other things. Rick never quite understood the decision. ... I'd had enough, and I thought we'd gone over the top of the mountain. I said I thought we were looking down. It would become increasingly sadder, and not in a funny way. ... Why would you get bored of a successful thing? It wasn't exciting me. ... I love everything we made. But I just didn't want to do any more.
“I judge people by whether they like Laurel and Hardy or not.”
“It is a cataclysm, a moment of... damaged, essentially. Did you feel abandoned? Yes, that's the only word.”
“It's about hysteria rather than comedy.”
“I'm bored, I'm bored With everything I touch and see, I'm bored With exposés of LSD I'm bored With France and Arch with new LP and so I roll I'm bored”
“Family is everything.”