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Had the pleasure of popping into London to do a pilot ep of a new podcast hosted by the greatest of men, Les Dennis, who just happened to be on the front page of the Daily Star today, but unusually for an entertainer of his vintage he'd done nothing wrong (they used him in a funny Family Fortunes pastiche involving Suella Braverman). Last time he saw him I was failing to remember the name of Salman Rushdie and he was luckily remembering the name of a film he'd just seen and we won the Pointless jackpot - that was just before lockdown (maybe January 2020 when we had no idea what was coming).
He's a remarkable man, with a career that is going stronger than ever after over 50 years. As a young comedy fan I would no doubt have been outwardly sniffy about his output (whilst secretly watching and quite liking it) and as a cool comedian in the 90s I lightly mocked him when he turned up in the audience of our Edinburgh Fringe version of TMWRNJ that came before the TV show. I said "Can you do your Mavis impression?" and he laughed and said "No" and I said "That's right, you can't." Typically he took this in good heart.
Time has passed and I have nothing but respect for him. You don't have a career that long without considerable talent and versatility and Les has done it all. Some people never let go of their juvenile comedy (or musical) snobbery, but I am glad to say that as I've got older I now appreciate all kinds of comedy/entertainment, if done well, but it's even more impressive if the person who is doing well is also a nice person. There are definitely successful people who are difficult (at best) and bullies (or worse) and it amazes me that they continue to get employed. That's the power of the ability to make money I suppose. But given the vast amount of supply of talent out there, why do people employ cunts and sex pests - just give the jobs to the nice talented people.
Under this system I will still be stuck doing podcasts of course, but at least light entertainment would be a nicer place to work for everyone else.
The first episode of Top of the Pops that Lee and Herring presented was on BBC4 tonight and I let the kids stay up to watch it. They were not impressed to see the 28 year old Richard Herring, saying it looked like my hair had been pooped on. After a couple of links Phoebe delivered the stunningly accurate review, "You're not funny. You're like an unfunny side chef on a cooking programme." There was a bit more to it than that, but I couldn't get it all down. I have to agree I wasn't very funny and a couple of our jokes have not aged well. My excitement about being in a room of sweating teenage girls and Stew's take down of stuttering Scatman John seem a bit off. Though we were of course in character and as I told Bridget Christie in a recent RHLSTP the sweating teenagers were terrifying and smelled and so I continue to take my hats off to the disgraced presenters for their commitment to evil. I look genuinely over-excited and Stew looks genuinely pained to be there and we seem to genuinely hate each other. There's the controversial moment when I seem to call Stew a wanker - though I actually say wassock, people just hear what seems to be the more apposite word.
Fun to see it again. I remember the girls in the crowd screamed for Robson, but not Jerome and I chastised them for it. It didn't seem fair. Jerome did not seem to appreciate my cheerleading for him. But look at my career since then and where is he now?
