Biggins (15 page)

‘The headline in today’s paper is what’s wrong,’ he told me. It seemed that his lead for Dick Whittington was in the news. He had been arrested on child pornography charges and his career was over. Billy, meanwhile, was left with a gaping hole in his panto cast.

‘Well, I’d better come up and take over,’ I said.

‘You don’t mean it?’

‘I absolutely do.’

‘Then you’re booked.’ And I was saved.

The money, of course, was desperately needed. But the performances themselves gave me just the boost I was looking for. Panto in Glasgow is like panto nowhere else in Britain. The audiences are wild and wonderful. The atmosphere is raw and it’s like being on stage for a pop concert every night. And that year’s
Dick Whittington
was the best ever. I was the only non-Scot in the cast, which brought plenty of extra laughs at my expense. All of which I milked shamelessly. I also hammed up the famous sketch
often attributed to Morecambe and Wise. Allan Stewart was Dick, his wife Jane played Alice Fitzwarren. ‘I love you,’ I tell Alice at one point.

‘I love you too. But I love you like a brother.’

We get a chorus of ‘ahhhs’ from the audience. Which I again milk for all they are worth. Then Dick and Alice sit on a wall and sing a love song. I come up behind, pull Dick off and sing his part. Then he comes back, pulls me off and repeats the trick. And so it goes on, until at the end we’re both on the wall, him on one side of Alice, me on the other – and we both push her off and sing to each other. The audience goes hysterical. Glasgow is my favourite city in Scotland, and pretty much my favourite in Britain for panto.

The best thing about that year’s production was that it had cemented my already solid friendship with Billy. We had enjoyed some real laughs that season. And it had been nice to do each other a favour: I had filled the gap in his cast, and he had filled a gap in my bank balance. The season ended in the third week of January in 1994 and I headed back south feeling full of optimism about the year ahead. If only I had known that I was about to get a visit from the VAT man.

H
e came to my house in Hackney. My accountant was with us and I fussed around getting the tea, coffee and biscuits ready as they spread all sorts of files and papers around the room. Pages of figures all over my lovely books on theatre and Hollywood stars. Piles of receipts and returns covering up all my framed photographs and little ornaments.

Amazingly, at that first visit, everything was in order. Crisis postponed, if not entirely averted. My real financial nightmare would come later. ‘OK, we're fine.' Getting three words like that from the VAT man had to be good news, I felt. But then there was something else. ‘Mr Biggins, can I ask you a personal question?' he said as he packed his case and prepared to leave.

Blimey, was I going to get asked on a date?

‘You sometimes have a lot of money and sometimes you don't. How do you survive?'

‘On the kindness of strangers,' I said, misquoting Oscar Wilde. And I never said a truer word. My VAT man had
got to the heart of the highs and lows of my financial life. As an actor it really is feast or famine most of the time. That's why so many actors have second or third jobs to fall back on when times are hard. We need to. Or at least they do. I break ranks with many of my peers in several unusual ways. One is that I have always loved being out of work – just as well, my critics might say. But it's true. When I didn't have a tour or a panto season or a television show to worry about I could get on with my life. More importantly, I could socialise. There are always parties to go to and people to meet. There are first nights to see, new restaurants to try. Champagne doesn't drink itself, as one dear friend often points out. And I have never worried about the future. I never sat and watched what jobs my contemporaries were getting and spat blood because I was jealous. I was too busy getting ready for a party.

In theory, the only problem was that when I was out of work I would carry on spending as if I was working. But for a long time even this didn't seem to matter either. For years I seemed to get one fantastic bank manager after another. If things got a bit dicey I could just take them out to lunch and they would agree to let me have even more lovely money. Why on earth, I used to ask myself, do so many people moan about their bank? Don't they know how easy it is to play them for a little extra?

I valiantly ignored them all. After all, less than 12 months earlier the VAT man had said everything was in order. Surely it couldn't all have gone pear-shaped so soon.

It had, of course. And one day I sat down in my living room to work out just how badly awry it was. I added everything up and slumped back in my chair. The figure
was shocking. How could it all have got so out of hand? I needed £50,000 just to stay afloat. It's a lot of money now. It felt an awful lot worse 15 years ago. How the hell had I allowed things to slip so far? And, more importantly, what could I do about it?

I gave my new bank manager one more lunch invitation. I was rebuffed again. The man must be a computer. More seriously, it was clear that overdrafts and loans were no longer being thrown around like pantomime candy, at least not to me. Beg, borrow or steal. If I couldn't borrow and as I wouldn't steal, I knew I had to beg. ‘The kindness of my friends.' I'd been laughing when I had made that comment to the VAT man the previous year. I wasn't laughing now.

There was one dear friend, whom I will not name, who I knew would be able to help me. But how could I ask? I was on my way down to see him, out in the country, as I tortured myself over the conversation. I can't do it, I decided at the last moment. But then I thought of the consequences if I didn't have the money. I had to go through with this.

When I arrived, we gossiped and we laughed, as we always did. But there was something different in the air. I think we both knew why I was there. We both knew what was coming. And he didn't make it easy for me. Rightly so.

‘I need to borrow some money.' It was probably the hardest line I have delivered in my whole career. But it was the right thing to say. A cheque was written. An excruciatingly embarrassing situation did ultimately pass. And my worst fear wasn't realised: a friendship did not end. ‘I will pay you back,' I said at the end of that awful afternoon.

And a few years later, when I was struggling again and was unable to clear the debt, I renewed that vow. ‘I'll
make it a gift,' my dear friend said. ‘But with one proviso. You have to be a friend for the rest of our lives.'

‘Of course we will always be friends. But I will pay you back. One day I will pay you back.' I meant that statement then, and I mean it now. I just wish I'd known that my financial crisis was very far from over.

I'm in a fat, Club-class British Airways seat on my way out to the Caribbean. I'm pushing my money worries aside and going on another big theatrical adventure. The cast of characters here includes the fabulous interior designer and old pal Richard Hanlon, and Johnny and Wendy Kidd, parents of Jodie, Jemma and Jack. The family had a vast, stunning garden at their old plantation house in Barbados, as you do, but they had been using another garden, at JCB millionaire Sir Anthony Bamford's Heron Bay, for an annual operatic evening.

It was a magical event, in a magical place. But the Kidds decided they should do a Shakespeare and opera season in their own home, Holders House. The Holders Season was to be born. But who should put it together?

Richard had seen the
Midsummer Night's Dream
I had directed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park the previous season. It had been a good one. ‘And it was all due to my Bottom,' I liked to say, the old jokes being the best.

‘Would you like to go to Barbados to direct the show there? You can pick your own actors and…'

I had said yes pretty much the moment Richard got to the word ‘Barbados'. Who cared what the rest of the pitch was all about?

‘Barbados?'

‘Yes.'

Simple as that.

I took Berwick Kaler in that first year; he was a dear friend and a spectacular pantomime dame who I had worked with in Regent's Park. This was the start of a truly wonderful new phase of my life. It was quite wonderful for all my colleagues as well. We all got put up in hotels on the seafront. Some got very lucky with the most marvellous suites. Others just got lucky with magnificent rooms.

I, of course, went one step further. In my first year I stayed with the Kidds themselves. And one evening we had drinks with a beachside neighbour, a lovely Italian countess called Carla Cavalli. I was finding out, once again, that the rich are so very different.

‘Your house is absolutely beautiful,' I said. ‘Do you live here full-time or do you have another house elsewhere?'

‘Oh no, darling, it's a holiday home. I also have a house in New York, an apartment in New York, a place in…' and the list went on. And on. I think in total there were ten or maybe a dozen properties.

Tao Rossi, of the drinks company, was an equally gracious and generous host. In my second year I was offered her guesthouse – a three-bed, three-bath property with maids and other assorted servants. The fridges were stocked with a dozen bottles of wonderful champagne. And after a couple of days Carla accosted me to see why they hadn't been touched.

‘Why do you not drink it? You drink it up and I fill it up again,' she promised. And she was as good as her word. And so a picture of Barbados emerges. One of luxury.

The key hotel is the Sandy Lane. Renowned visitors
from yesteryear include Maria Callas, Aristotle Onassis and the Kennedys. There's Platinum Mile and billionaires galore. I loved it. One day I walked along that unique, white sand beach with Joan's boyfriend Robin. We were walking along the beach towards, as I now know, Heron Bay. We stormed the castle – or at least we climbed over the wall and joined the Bamford family around their pool. Robin's connections and easy charm made that sort of thing so simple. I was blissfully happy in his wake.

I was introduced to the matriarch of the Bamford family, and oh how I love a good matriarch. Her name was Meggi and I fell in love with her that first day. She had split from her husband but she had remained the lady of the family. We often had tea together over so many years. She had an amazing doll collection and made ornately decorated boxes as gifts for her confidantes. I treasure mine. I also love the fact that with Meggi, as with so many people in my life, I don't just make one friend, I make a whole family of friends.

One time back in London Anthony and Carole Bamford arranged for eight of us to be flown to Paris for lunch in a private plane. I was so stupid, thinking that because we were only going for lunch I wouldn't need a passport. So for a while it looked as if the table for eight would need to have one place setting removed. I waved everyone else off in the chauffeur-driven cars and sat in the sad little hut on the wrong side of the immigration line at a tiny French airstrip. At best all I could hope for at lunchtime was a baguette. But fortunately Anthony could pull strings. He found someone who could produce a form that would allow me the freedom of France for the rest of the day. So
a car came to whisk me to the Paris Ritz and join the others just after their starters had been served.

On another occasion we were put up at the Paris Ritz overnight. It is the most exquisite hotel in the world – and Carole had made it even more so. She had put special flower arrangements in all our rooms for a more personal greeting. So classy – unlike me. I took the flowers with me when I checked out the next day, and persuaded the others to do so as well. ‘Common as muck,' my dear mother would have said had she seen me sneaking out of the Ritz with my booty. But at least, for once, I was economising. Surely even my increasingly grim-faced accountant would approve of that.

The only downside to that first glorious season in Barbados was that it hadn't paid very much money. And I didn't have any hugely well-paid jobs lined up for my return in 1994 either. More sobering still was the fact that the £50,000 I had begged for the previous year hadn't been enough to clear more than my most urgent debts.

In my quiet months I had to ask other friends for smaller amounts to tide me over each new crisis. It was so awful to ask. And in my heart I knew I was barely keeping my head above water. I knew I couldn't go on like that. At the back of my mind was my biggest worry: what if I lose my home? Would any bank trust me with a mortgage again if I got repossessed? I was in my mid-forties, working in the most precarious, youth-obsessed profession known to man. Could I go back to renting a room from friends – or, worse, from strangers? Of course I couldn't. I'd had all those glittering years. All the parties, all the nights at the Paris Ritz and in the
Hollywood Hills. I couldn't – wouldn't – go back to living out of a suitcase.

Or at least that was my plan. I would find more work. A commercial. A new prime-time series. Something in America. But the jobs passed me by and the fear ate away at me, insidious, insistent and awful. Months passed and it was there first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It woke me up at 4am and didn't leave my mind all day.

So when would the nightmare end?

My accountant had a solution. ‘You need to declare voluntary bankruptcy,' he said after yet another grim meeting.

The process might be different today. But when I went through it everyone sat down to work out a figure for what I owed and then recalculated how much of it I could afford to repay and when. The final figure was still quite awful, but I worked like a dog so that I could clear it in a single year. Everything went towards that goal. I'd seen my dad go though the same VAT-inspired crisis and fight his way back when his garages collapsed in the 1970s. I was going to follow his lead. This wouldn't break me.

As a postscript, I think now that voluntary bankruptcy was the wrong thing for me to do, not least because it was all so crazily expensive to arrange. I had to pay £7,000 or £8,000 in fees to go bankrupt – how can that make sense? But whether the actual bankruptcy was the right thing for me or not, the perfect storm of a financial crisis was the making of me. It made me aware of money for the very first time. I was nearly 46. And I was only just growing up.

I had to say goodbye to my lovely bank, Coutts – having given them so many good customers over the years. The only
other bank that would take me was Allied Irish Bank. And I will always be loyal to them for that. I was only allowed one credit card, and today that's still all that I have. And I pay it off the very moment the bill arrives at my door each month. Now when my agent, Lesley Duff, gets my money her slice is taken off, the VAT slice is taken off, the tax money is saved and what's left is mine. I have never been in debt since. I've never forgotten how close I came to losing it all.

The one good thing that came out of this terrible period was that I met the love of my life, Neil Sinclair. Or, I should say, I met him all over again. The way we got together reads like a film script, or a love story, in itself.

I first saw him some 24 years ago in his native Scotland. I was doing
Dick Whittington
at the Theatre Royal in Brighton for Jamie Phillips and, as usual, I was having a whale of a time. Jamie, meanwhile, had another panto running in Glasgow and was in a state of crisis. His lead had left the show early and they were desperately seeking a replacement star. My gig in Brighton finished the next day. Could I hotfoot it up north and take over? Glasgow is a city I love, so that was one reason I said yes. Another, of course, was the money. But the final one was the challenge. What Jamie wanted me to do was theatrical madness – and I was mad enough to go for it.

I took the curtain calls in Brighton on the Saturday night – and then threw myself into the fun of the end-of-run party as normal. The next day I got the train to Scotland with the
Jack and the Beanstalk
script on my lap and lots of coffee at my side. On Monday afternoon I was on stage for the matinée at the Pavillion Theatre. I only made one
mistake. In one loose moment I turned to Jack and called him Dick.