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Another great run of studio podcasts, starting with Mr Tarrant, who seemed less confused about what was going on that yesterday. We both arrived early so I popped out to get him a coffee to show deference to the Alpha male and rightly so.
I was finally able to challenge him about why he ran away when I saw him on the banks of Lake Geneva in the last 70s (though for some reason he didn't remember this incident and doubted that it was actually him - it was) Had I misremembered that he was with his family? Did I dream the whole thing? We made peace with it.
Anyway I was finally able to tell him what I wanted to tell him then. I love Tiswas.
I thanked him for Tiswas and the influence it had had on my life, though stopped short of asking him to pull me up from under a desk by my ears (though I would really have liked that to happen) [for people under 50 that was how they revealed competition winners on the show - ironically they apparently got some accusations of treating kids badly, but the journalists were sadly looking at the wrong 70s kids entertainers]
He had a bad leg from an injury he'd sustained in the Arctic (I wondered if he and Noel Edmonds were trying to get as far away from each other as possible) and my last guest Nigel Planer had his arm in a sling from a shoulder injury. Luckily middle guest Ian Smith seemed to be fully fit.
To talk to the host of Tiswas and one of the Young Ones on the same day was a dream come true for me, of course. Nigel was very open and honest, just like in his excellent book (out in September), and he's reached a place in his life where he is not only personally contented, but has perspective on how great his achievements are. Whilst Ade Edmondson is keen to point out in his also excellent autobiography, that the Young Ones was only 14 weeks of his life and shouldn't be focused on so intensely, Nigel has come to embrace it more, after having been prickly about it in the past. I understand both reactions, but it's actually cooler to embrace. To have created something that means so much to so many people is the kind of achievement that most comedians or artists are hoping for.
