Biggins (7 page)

I walked down to the beach. I became a huge fish eye. We decided to go tenpin bowling. (Why? Why on earth was that ever going to be a good idea?) And it was a disaster. Everyone there was a fish to me. One handsome bald man was a seal. Someone else was a frog. They started to kiss.

It was all Disney’s
Fantasia
writ large. And even without the drug the whole trip was surreal. This fabulously wealthy man and me, his soon-to-be famously easy-living and theatrical friend, weren’t staying in some bijou boutique hotel or some five-star palace with hot and cold running waiters. We were camping. In one of Florida’s biggest electrical storms. My tent collapsed in the early evening but I didn’t even notice. Randy said all he could see was my not inconsiderable outline, tightly wrapped in tarpaulin-like clingfilm. Apparently I looked like a vast, oven-ready chicken. I could have been barcoded and sold in Safeway.

B
ack in Britain I was developing ideas above my station. Living in a gorgeous house in Fulham, then spending time with American millionaires, had been a very bad idea. That would be the story of my life. Most people get led astray by bad company. I was always led astray by good company. I never noticed when I was out of my depth.

Anyway, my old love of antiques and bric-a-brac had pretty quickly developed into a love of art. When I was on a brief tour to the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Berkshire – one of the most picturesque theatres in the country – I saw a painting at an art fair for £80. My weekly wage back then was just £40. But still I bought it. Pictures really do tell stories, for me. They trigger wonderful memories, because I buy them when I’m in a good place, physically or mentally. It’s a testament to how many good times I’ve had that I’ve got thousands of
paintings now, far more than I ever have room to hang. I really should stop buying, I know. But I can’t. After leaving the jungle, Neil and I bought a lovely Anne McGill picture of a couple dancing to remind us of those lovely days. The sad thing about life is that events can sometimes get in the way of these simple pleasures. When I was young and careless I could buy luxuries like paintings whenever I got a new job. Now when I get some good new work, all I think about is the mortgage and the taxman. Or at least that’s what I say.

I was still in Fulham when a group of us went to the first night of
Company
, easily my favourite Sondheim musical. It was a big night and the show had a huge American cast, hot over from Broadway. Clearly it was the kind of night you dress up for. So I did. I wore a vast, desperately ornate silver kaftan. And in the process I made an important (but fortunately temporary) enemy. Across the theatre Cameron Mackintosh apparently took an instant dislike to me. ‘Who on earth is that fat geezer wearing that horrible outfit?’ he asked his suitably stylish, black-clad friends.

‘Biggins,’ came the one-word reply. And my card was marked.

Meeting Cameron again in a professional capacity could have been a disaster. That happened when the director Veronica Flint-Shipman, a very important lady in my life, was producing
Winnie the Pooh
with Bob West. No prizes for guessing that I was Pooh. We toured the show, then Cameron took over as producer. And did he remember me as the fat geezer in the ridiculously gaudy kaftan? Oh yes. But this time we clicked. Soon we were the very best of friends.

Over all the years to come I would gravitate back to Cameron whenever I was out of work. I’d help him out behind the scenes on his productions or even in his makeshift offices. Those were his early days, when we had to transfer funds from one bank account to pay another if we wanted the shows to stay on the road. It was high-wire stuff, but it was thrilling. As usual, there were some incredible laughs. Some of the best came with
Rock Nativity
. I was watching the dress rehearsal in Newcastle – and everything, absolutely everything, was going wrong. At that time there weren’t any wireless mikes you could attach to your face or hair. This show had traditional rock mikes – all of which had long leads attached. By the end of Act One, there was a spaghetti junction of wires knotted up over the front of the stage. Some of the performers had to kneel down to sing because they couldn’t get any more slack to pull their mikes more than a foot from the floor.

‘At least it can’t get much worse,’ I whispered to Veronica. How wrong I was.

In a moment of sheer frustration the Virgin Mary let out a roar of anger and tried to throw the baby Jesus into the audience. She missed. The doll slammed against the proscenium arch of the theatre and fell, in pieces, to the floor of the stalls. As a moment of pure theatre it was hard to beat. And once we had all stopped laughing – and untangled the microphone leads and glued baby Jesus back together –
Rock Nativity
did go on to open well. Veronica and I looked after the show for quite a while. And looked after means doing whatever it takes to keep it on the road.

Up in Scotland we were in the middle of a flu epidemic and our cast fell like flies. By the time the evening’s performance was due to start we had a real problem.

‘Biggins, you’ve got to go on.’

Desperately trying to remember the lines I joined the chorus and had my Peggy Sawyer moment from
42nd Street
. I was going on a nobody, hoping to come off a star. Though not everyone really noticed. My old pal and dance legend Dougie Squires happened to be in the audience that night. He called me the next day. ‘Christopher, I don’t know who he was and I couldn’t find his name in the programme, but there was an actor in
Rock Nativity
last night who could have been your double.’

Going on tour with a show can be one of the most fun – and most gruelling – things any actor can do. It’s a hard slog. New digs, new theatres, new faces, week after week. Sometimes you play to full houses and feel like the king of the world. Sometimes you come off stage and cry.

I’ve done my share of both.

Playing Pooh, for example, was a surprisingly physical task. The show was adapted, with music, by the lovely Julian Slade. As Pooh my costume was hotter than hell. I had a tight hood, a vast thick suit and, unaccountably, a set of long johns to wear. At the interval I had to wring the sweat out of all of them into a bucket. Ah, the glamour of theatre.

To make matters worse, with
Pooh
our first theatre wasn’t a theatre at all. It was a tent. The Royal Ballet was about to use this supposedly mobile construction for its tour, but we were the guinea pigs to test it out down in
Plymouth. The whole structure was innovative and exciting. But it’s fair to say we had a few teething troubles.

‘Biggins, I need a word,’ Bob West, the company manager, called me over one night when the clouds above Plymouth were rumbling with thunder and alive with flashes of lightning.

‘Will the audience be able to hear us over all this?’ I asked as the rain lashed down on our canvas roof. But that was the least of our problems.

‘Just put the word out to the rest of the cast not to panic but not to touch anything metal during the performance,’ Bob said. During the interval he came up to me again. ‘I need you to make a short announcement to the audience.’ So I stood in front of the closed curtain.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, will you kindly take your seats as this evening’s performance will begin again in five minutes. Can we remind customers that this is a non-smoking venue. And in view of this evening’s inclement weather can we ask that no one touches anything metal for the rest of the evening. We hope you enjoy the show.’

Amazing to recount that we didn’t lose our audience and got through the night without any lightning strikes. Health and Safety would have had a field day.

We had a lovely company on that show. Verity Anne Meldrum was Christopher Robin, Norma Dunbar was Kanga, David Glover was Eeyore and Michael Staniforth, whom I’d meet again in
Rentaghost
, was Tigger. We had great fun on that tour. I’m proud that I’m a good company leader. If I’m playing the lead I love to lead a company off stage as well as on. I love being in charge of people’s welfare. In her autobiography
All of Me
the wonderful Barbara
Windsor says she told none other than Joan Collins, ‘Every actress should have Biggins in the small print of their contracts as an essential.’ I think I know what dear Barbara meant. I can make people’s lives more comfortable because I enjoy making nests.

When you’re on tour it can be hard, as you’re away for weeks and months at a time from the people you love. I try to replace all the families, all the people we’ve left behind. The camaraderie of theatre is so strong. It’s like no other industry in the world. When you work with someone for just three weeks, perhaps in rehearsal for a production that never comes off, you still feel the intensity of friendship. You may not see that person again for years and years. But there’s something about showbusiness. When you do meet again, in some green room or some theatre tour, you start right back where you left off. It’s as if you never went away.

Some tours can also enrich you in other ways. When the gorgeous Paula Wilcox and I were on the road alongside George Layton way back in
Touch of Spring
(one of the first plays Cameron Mackintosh did, before he gave the world the mega-musical), we made it a gastronomic tour. We would drive for miles each day to find great restaurants. We called it our great eating tour of England. We had so much fun and it’s amazing, bearing in mind how close I feel to Paula and George today, that this was some 30 years ago.

Of course, all those years ago the other thing that was very different to today was the quality of the accommodation. Sometimes we got lucky and found half-decent hotels. But most of the time we were in the long-lost
world of theatrical digs. It was a world of extraordinary landladies who offered rooms to all the touring companies. With these redoubtable ladies you never quite knew what you might get. You certainly never got bored.

My favourite story of the era – often told and probably apocryphal – is of the two actors who boarded together and shared a glass of dry sherry each night after the show. After a couple of nights they take a look at the bottle. Did they really drink that much the night before? A couple of nights later their suspicions are aroused again. Their precious sherry is disappearing far too fast. ‘The landlady must be drinking some,’ they agree. So they decide to take their revenge. They decant the sherry, hide the new bottle and pee in the old one.

‘That’ll teach her,’ they laugh.

They laugh even more when they see that the subterfuge doesn’t stop her. Every night the level on the new bottle has fallen just a little bit more. So when they leave at the end of the week they decide to confront her. ‘I’m afraid we have something to ask you. Have you been drinking our sherry while we’ve been at the theatre?’ they say.

‘Oh no, dearies, I haven’t drunk any. But I did mean to tell you that I’ve been putting it in your trifle every night,’ she says.

While I never suffered quite such an indignity I do remember plenty of other horrors, including the time my digs were next door to a huge poster in an Essex churchyard that screamed out: ‘Our God’s Alive. Sorry About Yours.’ I had a few sleepless nights thinking about that one.

Then there was the time when Maev Alexander and I joined a company called the Portable Theatre. The clues were all there in the title. Everything was done on a shoestring. Our set, props and equipment were all moved around in a van and we set up in whichever hall we were booked for and then packed up again afterwards. Which was when the fun began. Each night the company members had to go to the bar. We then stood around, like Roman slaves, while the locals looked us all up and down and decided which they wanted to look after for the night. Maev had a low point when she was selected by a pair of lesbians who chased her round their house all night. My low point was a bit different.

It came on the night I was the last to be chosen. Oh, the embarrassment. It was sports day at school all over again. ‘Well, I’ll have to take him, then,’ said my charm-free host with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I followed him sheepishly to his home. What was I letting myself in for?

We had a drink, then I admitted I was exhausted. ‘I really must get some sleep. So where is my bed, exactly?’

‘Right there,’ he said. And he pointed to a patch of worn carpet in front of the fire.

Unfortunately, even if I did get a bed it wasn’t always Savoy standard. One time I slipped right off the mattress and on to the floor because of the nylon sheets in a guesthouse in Brighton. Now it’s cotton sheets only for me. I’d sleep in linen, if they weren’t so expensive. Whatever tour I’ve been on, the big dream has always been the same: a transfer to the West End. I love travel. But London felt like home. And in 1975 I was about to move right to the heart of things.

Veronica and her husband Gerald owned the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road. It’s a theatre that’s somehow easy to overlook – though it had just the kind of pedigree I loved. It opened in 1930 with Noel Coward playing alongside Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier in the premier of
Private Lives
. Noel and Gertie were back again later that decade with
Tonight at 8.30
and apparently they referred to the place as ‘our theatre’. I wanted to make it mine.

I had the chance because what very few people knew was that above the theatre were 25 small studio flats, all available to rent for just £14 a week. I had to have one. I’d moved on from Ifield Road and tried living with a fellow actor and his girlfriend in a flat in Oxford Circus. But it was a tense, tricky little household, and I soon realised that love triangles really aren’t my thing.

I begged Veronica to let me know if any of her rooms ever became available – and I moved in the moment one did. It was just wonderful to be so close to the heart of London – and for an actor it was amazing to live, quite literally, above the shop. I loved my Phoenix rooms – well, room. I had a sofa bed and put throws over the tiny kitchen area to hide the fact that my whole world was in one single space. Overall I was convinced that I had created theatreland’s most glamorous room. It seemed that word had got around.

We had a wonderful old prostitute in the building, living in the flat above me. She was in her fifties and had a gammy leg, but she was a game old bird. Off she went to work every day and she always wanted to see the inside of my flat. ‘They say it’s beautiful. Let me look,’ she’d say.

‘Come in, then, and have a drink,’ I said one night.

She could hardly speak when she looked around. ‘Oh, oh, oh, this is gorgeous. You see, my flat’s all bed.’ She said. Occupational hazard, I suppose.

Opposite I had another wonderful character, the mad woman across the hall who worked on the markets. Her tiny flat was chock-a-block with rubbish. She stacked up anything and everything she could sell – my dad would have loved her. One of my new pals, the actress Georgina Simpson, heiress to the Simpson’s of Piccadilly clothing fortune and the woman who would marry Anthony Andrews, certainly fell under my neighbour’s spell. She was round one evening and didn’t have anything to wear for a party. So we went across the hall, knocked on the door to see if my neighbour had any dresses. Georgina got one for £3 – and she looked a million dollars.