character and the English character in show business. With us it’s a jaunty hobby, skylarking around: “What ho! Pip pip, tally-ho, let’s get some money and knock up a picture show.” The Americans make films methodically, industriously. They’re not overwhelmed by the “magic of the movies”, it’s a job. Adam Venit, Sandler’s Ming the Merciless-looking agent, who also looks after Sacha Baron Cohen and Dustin Hoffman, is exemplary of this mentality. “This ain’t my first rodeo, kid,” he once said to me when I complimented him on his fine work. Venit later told me that before Adam came off, Sandler’s entourage discussed the interview: “I wonder what Adam will make of that mouthy English oddball?” When they asked him he said, “He’s great, you should sign him, he’s got a future in movies.” They contacted the guest booker at MTV and asked him to tell me they were interested. I knew this was monumental. I’d always believed I could be a movie star, from the first time I spoke on stage it was my intention, but when those things materialise it punctures long-held fantasies with actual possibility and you have to make choices.
For this to happen I would have to negotiate with Nik and John and ensure cohesion without detonating Gelignite-John Noel, Nik’s dad and the man who Heimliched out my bellyful of demons. He is a man whom it is unwise to cross, especially as he’d just negotiated a fantastic deal with Lesley Douglas. I was to have my own show on BBC 6 Music, and if it went well it would transfer to Radio 2. John told me that Lesley had said they’d let me do whatever I want.
†
Chapter 5
Digital Manipulation
My quest for fame was so diligent and harrowing that it makes the Knights Templar and their millennia of endeavour in pursuit of the Holy Grail resemble a bunch of giggly divs scrabbling around a city farm for Easter eggs.
For a torturous ten stretch I hobbled through a steel and glass Hogarthian London with bandaged hands and bare feet, a destitute vagabond, and all the while within my ragged heart an agonised orb of white light hummed and sought its purpose.
I don’t want to worry you, but this journey has never been about Opportunity Knocks or a seat on Celebrity Squares, no. I have a fire in me the flames of which rage further than personal ambition. Even through the parched impecunity of my adolescence and the drivel of childhood I knew beyond the burr of words there lay a place of wonder. I feel it still, now that I have drawn comfort in around me, snug with wealth and chance, praise cosy, I hear yet the call of something higher. Of course there was no way I was about to go all quiet and Trappist, tending some garden within or without until I felt appreciated. So I quested on with jokes and shows, then telly and magazines and now films and arenas. I enjoy it but I know there’s more. I feel there is something wonderful we can do together.
Once in a while, after John Noel had dragged me from the mayhem of addiction, I’d meet someone who saw possibility in me. Lesley Douglas was one such. Lesley is a powerful woman, an old-fashioned impresario who rebuilt Radio 2 in her image as a modern, fun and relevant organisation without alienating its core listeners. Her and John appear trapped in some good-natured quarrel, like bickering siblings playing swingball with Dermot O’Leary’s head.
John coerced Lesley into seeing my stand-up in small venues around London. I was pleased with the work I was doing, a blend of giddy spontaneity and well-honed yarns. After seeing me for the fourth time and with the ever-growing swell of interest in my TV work, Lesley offered me a pilot on cool indie music station 6 Music. Initially I was paired with Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais’s savant-ish sidekick, who is an excellent comedic foil and hugely funny in his own right. I suppose Karl maintains the perspective of some articulate bumpkin, straight from King’s Cross, casting yokel wisdom
For this to happen I would have to negotiate with Nik and John and ensure cohesion without detonating Gelignite-John Noel, Nik’s dad and the man who Heimliched out my bellyful of demons. He is a man whom it is unwise to cross, especially as he’d just negotiated a fantastic deal with Lesley Douglas. I was to have my own show on BBC 6 Music, and if it went well it would transfer to Radio 2. John told me that Lesley had said they’d let me do whatever I want.
†
Chapter 5
Digital Manipulation
My quest for fame was so diligent and harrowing that it makes the Knights Templar and their millennia of endeavour in pursuit of the Holy Grail resemble a bunch of giggly divs scrabbling around a city farm for Easter eggs.
For a torturous ten stretch I hobbled through a steel and glass Hogarthian London with bandaged hands and bare feet, a destitute vagabond, and all the while within my ragged heart an agonised orb of white light hummed and sought its purpose.
I don’t want to worry you, but this journey has never been about Opportunity Knocks or a seat on Celebrity Squares, no. I have a fire in me the flames of which rage further than personal ambition. Even through the parched impecunity of my adolescence and the drivel of childhood I knew beyond the burr of words there lay a place of wonder. I feel it still, now that I have drawn comfort in around me, snug with wealth and chance, praise cosy, I hear yet the call of something higher. Of course there was no way I was about to go all quiet and Trappist, tending some garden within or without until I felt appreciated. So I quested on with jokes and shows, then telly and magazines and now films and arenas. I enjoy it but I know there’s more. I feel there is something wonderful we can do together.
Once in a while, after John Noel had dragged me from the mayhem of addiction, I’d meet someone who saw possibility in me. Lesley Douglas was one such. Lesley is a powerful woman, an old-fashioned impresario who rebuilt Radio 2 in her image as a modern, fun and relevant organisation without alienating its core listeners. Her and John appear trapped in some good-natured quarrel, like bickering siblings playing swingball with Dermot O’Leary’s head.
John coerced Lesley into seeing my stand-up in small venues around London. I was pleased with the work I was doing, a blend of giddy spontaneity and well-honed yarns. After seeing me for the fourth time and with the ever-growing swell of interest in my TV work, Lesley offered me a pilot on cool indie music station 6 Music. Initially I was paired with Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais’s savant-ish sidekick, who is an excellent comedic foil and hugely funny in his own right. I suppose Karl maintains the perspective of some articulate bumpkin, straight from King’s Cross, casting yokel wisdom
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