Moranthology (8 page)

“Fame has killed more very talented guys than drugs,” he says, sighing. “Jimi Hendrix didn't die of an overdose—he died of fame. Brian [Jones], too. I lost a lot of friends to fame. There's that bit in the book, where I talk about how I cope with fame, and say ‘Mick chose flattery, and I chose junk.' Because I kept my feet on the ground—even when they were in the gutter. You know what? I bet George Michael is loving it. I say, ‘Stay in jail, George.' There's probably some dope, and some gays. He probably won't want to leave—it's the best place for him. He's playing around with fame. I can't remember a song of his. I don't want to knock the guy, but I'm an immortal legend, according to some,” he shrugs.

The implication is that, however wasted Richards got, he wouldn't have crashed into a branch of Snappy Snaps on something as lightweight as a joint.

Keith Richards is a man without regret. When I ask him if—given the chance to do it all over again—he'd start taking heroin, he doesn't pause. “Oh yes. Yes. There was a lot of experience in there—you meet a lot of weird people, different takes on life that you're not going to find if you don't go there. I loved a good high. And if you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses, because they're asleep. There's songs zooming around everywhere. There's songs zooming through here right now, in the air.”

He looks up, as if he can see them, hovering over the grand piano.

“You've just got to put your hand out, and catch them.”

During our whole chat, the only time he seems roused to genuine annoyance is when I ask him what I think might be the most amazing question of my entire journalistic career. Thanks to a meeting at a party last year, I am able to say to Keith Richards—one our greatest living rock stars—“Keith. I met Noddy Holder last year, and he's convinced you wear a wig.” (For American readers: Noddy Holder is the permanently beaming, costermonger-lunged lead singer of British glam-rock legend Slade. Imagine Robert Plant, but dressed like a glittery clown.)

“Not yet!” he says, looking genuinely indignant. “Hey man, what's his problem with wigs?”

“He thinks both you
and
Mick wear them,” I say, with mock disapproval.

“Get out of here!” Richards roars. He pulls down his bandana and shows me his hair—gray, a little wispy, but looking undeniably real. “Hey Noddy, you know, there more important things in life than hair. Mick definitely doesn't wear a wig. I KNOW! I've PULLED IT! What's Noddy's problem?”

“I think Noddy's just very proud he's still got a gigantic afro,” I offer.

“Well, that's about all he's got,” Keith says, sniffily. “Well done, Nod.”

Our hour is up. Keith is off to get ready for another day of shooting on
Pirates—
possibly the most high-profile busman's holiday in show business.

“Any plans for the future?” I ask, as he picks up his cigarettes—still eschewing the British ones on the table.

“Well, you know, we'll be on the road again in the future,” Keith says, pocketing his lighter. “Yeah. On the road. I think it's going to happen. I've had a chat with . . . Her Majesty. Brenda.”

And Richards leaves the room, laughing. He's at it again. Winding up Mick; doing what he wants; being Keith Richards, for the sixty-seventh year in a row.

“I had to invent the job, you know,” he said, earlier. “There wasn't a sign in the shop window, saying, ‘Wanted: Keith Richards.' ”

And he's done a bloody job of it.

 

I don't think I can hold out any longer: I think it might be
Sherlock
time.
Sherlock
blew my mind like I wanted it blown—hard, fast, properly, and while I was too busy laughing to notice that it was also, quietly, and at the same time, breaking my heart.

I loved the way it entered—kicking the door open shouting “BANG! And I'm in!” in such a confident manner that, twenty minutes into the first episode, people on Twitter were saying, “This really might be one of the greatest TV shows of all time.” After twenty minutes! That is one hell of a mesmeric aura for a show to be throwing off.

When people said, smugly, “Oh, it's just because you fancy Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock,” it was as if they were saying to a plant, “Oh, you only photosynthesize because of the sun.” Well, YES. DUH. That's what the sun/Cumberbatch does to me/a plant. Why are you arguing against the miracle of Nature? You might as well punch a tree. Just buy the box set.

Anyway. Here's my review of the first episode, written with a spinning head and a bursting heart, and a bid going on eBay for a deerstalker hat.

S
HERLOCK
R
EVIEW 1:
L
IKE A
J
AGUAR IN A
C
ELLO

O
h dear. That was bad timing.

In the week where Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt questioned if the BBC license fee gives “value for money,” the advent of
Sherlock
donked his theory quite badly. It's a bit embarrassing to be standing on a soap-box, slagging a corporation off as essentially wasteful and moribund, right at the point where they're landing a bright, brilliant dragon of a show on the rooftops, for 39p per household. And with the rest of the BBC's output that day—theoretically—thrown in for free.

The casting was perfect. Benedict Cumberbatch—the first actor in history to play Sherlock Holmes who has a name more ridiculous than “Sherlock Holmes”—was both perfect and astonishing: an actor pulling on an iconic character and finding he had infinite energy to drive the thing. He is so good that—ten minutes in—I just started laughing out loud with what a delight it was to watch him.

He looks amazing—as odd as you'd expect The Cleverest Man in the World to look. Eyes white, skin like china clay, and a voice like someone smoking a cigar inside a grand piano, this Holmes has, as Cumberbatch described it in interviews, “an achievable super-power.” He might not have actual X-ray vision, but his superlative illative chops mean that London is like a Duplo train-set to him: an easily-analyzable system, populated by small, simple plastic people.

At one point, a suspect speeds away from him in a taxi. Holmes can call up the A-Z, and the taxi's only possible route, in his mind: “Right turn, traffic lights, pedestrian crossing, road works, traffic lights.”

By climbing over the right rooftop, ducking down the right alleyway, and running very, very fast while looking hot, Holmes can beat the taxi to its destination: as easily as if he were the size of the Telecom Tower, or Big Ben, stepping over the city laid out on the rug at 221b Baker Street.

Of course, this view of humanity's masses makes him a high-functioning Asperger's/borderline sociopath. Questioning why someone would still be upset about their baby dying fourteen years ago—“That was ages ago!” he shouts with the frustration of a child. “Why would she still be upset?”—Holmes notes that the room has gone quiet.

“Not good?” he hisses to Watson.

“Bit
not good, yeah,” Watson replies.

So this is why Holmes needs Watson—their advent into each other's lives managed with three perfect flicks of the script. Yes, Watson is impressed by Holmes: “That's amazing!” he gasps, as Holmes deduces he has an alcoholic sibling, merely from scratch marks on his mobile.

“People don't usually say that,” Holmes blinks, pleased. “They usually say, ‘Piss off.' ”

But this Watson isn't the usual, buff, conservative sidekick. In a role rivalling his turn as Tim in
The Office,
Martin Freeman's Watson is altogether more complex and satisfying. Yes, he's here as dragon-trainer—to whack Holmes with a stick when he starts monstering around, and climbing up on the furniture. But he's also as quietly addicted to “the game” as Holmes—it's Watson with the nervous tremors because he misses active service, in Afghanistan, Watson with the gun.

Sherlock
is so packed with joy and treats, to list them means bordering on gabbling: Una Stubbs as secret dope-fiend landlady Mrs Hudson (“It was just a herbal remedy—for my hip!”), Mycroft Holmes's mysterious, posh, texting, superlatively composed assistant, “Anthea.” The little nods to the possibility that Holmes might be gay. The insanely generous casting of Rupert Graves as DI Lestrade. The line “I love a serial killer—there's always something to look forward to!” And the perfect placing of what is, presumably, the series arc: “Holmes is a great man. And I hope, one day, a good one, too.”

“Value for money” isn't even the start of it. Every detail of this
Sherlock
thrills. Given that it was written by Steven Moffat in the same year he knocked off the astonishing, elegant and high-powered re-booting of
Doctor Who,
at £142.50
,
Moffat's scripts alone are value for money.

If the funding is ever called into question, I'll pay it myself. In cash. Delivered to his front door step. With a beaming, hopefully non-stalkerish, “Thank you.”

 

Then, two weeks later, it was all over: there were only three episodes in the first season. And I'd lost the bid on the deerstalker to someone in Leicester. I was gutted.

S
HERLOCK
R
EVIEW 2:
T
HE
F
RUMIOUS
C
UMBERBATCH

“B
ut why are there only three episodes?” Britain asked, scrabbling around in the listings, in case there was a
Sherlock
left they'd overlooked, at the bottom. “Only three? Why would you make only three
Sherlocks
? Telly comes in SIX. SIX is the number of telly. Or TWELVE. Or, in America, TWENTY-SIX—because it is a bigger country. But you never have three of telly. Three of telly is NOT HOLY. WHY have they done this? IS THIS A GIGANTIC PUZZLE WE MUST DEDUCE—LIKE SHERLOCK HIMSELF?”

But yes. On Sunday,
Sherlock
came to an end after a fleet, flashing run. Like some kind of Usain Bolt of TV, perhaps it finished so early, simply because it was faster than everyone else. Either way, it had left scorch marks on the track: in three weeks, it flipped everything around. Sunday nights became the best night of the week. Martin Freeman went from being “Martin Freeman—you know. Tim from
The Office”
to “Martin Freeman—you know. Watson from
Sherlock.”
Stephen Moffat had—extraordinarily—constructed a serious rival to his own
Doctor Who
as the most-loved and geekily-revered show in Britain. And Benedict Cumberbatch had, of course, gone from well-respected, BAFTA-nominated actor to pin-up, by-word, totty, avatar and fame: the frumious Cumberbatch.

“The Great Game” opened with Holmes—slumped in a chair, legs as long as the TV was wide—bored, shooting at the wall without even looking. Popping holes in that lovely 1970's wallpaper at 221b Baker Street; lead-like with torpor.

“What you need is a
nice murder,”
Una Stubbs's Mrs Hudson clucked, sympathetically, in the hallway. “Cheer you up.”

So when Moriarty came out to play, Holmes's glee at the oncoming chaos was inglorious, but heartfelt. He received phonecalls from weeping innocents, parceled up with TNT. Moriarty told them what to say: they give Holmes a single, cryptic clue about an unsolved crime, and tell him he has twelve, ten, eight hours to solve it, or they will die.

With increasing dazzle, Holmes busts each case. On the foreshore by Southwark Bridge, with London frosty and grey behind him, Holmes looks at the washed-up corpse in front of him, and in less than a minute concludes that because this man is dead, a newly-discovered Vermeer—going on exhibition tomorrow—must be a fake. His torrent of illation is extraordinary—his mind has anti-gravity boots; he bounces from realization to realization until he's as high as the sun.

Ten minutes later, and he's in the gallery, staring at the Vermeer. He knows it's fake but doesn't know how to prove it. Then Moriarty's latest, TNT-garlanded victim calls him. The voice is tiny.

“It's a child!” Lestrade, Watson and the audience horror. “A child!” The child starts counting backwards from ten—Holmes has ten seconds to prove the Vermeer is a fake. The tension is insane—I was biting my wrists with distress—but when the answer bursts on Holmes, he almost doesn't shout out the answer in time: the pleasure he's had from smashing the case has him high as a kite. He is wired.

But the whole season has been building up to Holmes meeting Moriarty and, finally, in a deserted swimming pool, here he is: Jim Moriarty. Young, fast, Irish
.

Sherlock seems oddly—
relieved
at finally meeting Moriarty. Yeah, he's completely evil—but he's also the only person in the world who doesn't, ultimately, bore Holmes. He's made the last week thrilling. Moriarty makes Holmes come alive—even when he's trying to kill him. And Moriarty knows this.

“Is that a Browning in your pocket—or are you just pleased to see me?” he asks.

“Both,” Holmes says, during a scene that had an undeniable undercurrent of hotness.

But things suddenly turn. Moriarty knows that Holmes is bad for business. And—oh yeah—Dr. Watson's still standing in the corner, covered in TNT. Moriarty's threatening to explode him. I'd forgotten about that, during the hotness.

“The flirting's over, my dear,” Moriarty says, warning Holmes off.

Holmes is in accord. “People have died.”

And suddenly, the awfulness of Moriarty comes roaring out. “THAT'S. What people DO,” he screams—eyes dilating so huge and black, I wondered if it might have been done with CGI. “I will BURN the HEART out of you,” he continues, warning Holmes off his patch, boilingly insane. It was like when Christopher Lloyd shows his evil Toon eyes in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?—
truly startling. Andrew Scott has some serious chops.

And there, five minutes later, we left them, on a cliff-hanger. Moriarty's snipers shining their laser sights on Holmes's and Watson's hearts; Holmes pointing his gun at a pile of TNT, telling Moriarty he's happy to blow them all sky high;
The Great Game
ended in checkmate. Not quite as amazing as the first episode—which was the televisual equivalent of someone kicking a door off its hinges, screaming, “I've COME to BLOW your MINDS!”—but a different league from Episode Two; and still the best thing on all week by several, palpable, indexable leagues.

Sherlock
ends its run as a reekingly charismatic show, flashing its cerise silk suit lining in a thousand underplayed touches: Holmes watching
The Jeremy Kyle Show—
“Of course he's not the father! Look at the turn-up on his jeans!” The neat one-two of, “Meretricious!” “And a happy New Year!” A myriad of amazing moments from Cumberbatch, who will surely—surely—with his voice like a jaguar in a cello, and his face like sloth made of pearl—get a BAFTA for such a passionate, whole-hearted, star-bright re-booting of an icon.

No one can be in any doubt that the BBC will re-commission
Sherlock
, and that—so long as Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are in charge of the scripts, as they were for the first and last episode—it will continue to totally delight anyone who watches it.

But next time, in sixes, or twelves, or twenty-fours, please. Not threes. Threes are over far, far too quickly. Now Sunday is just . . . normal again.