I Am What I Am (38 page)

19
My Uncle Charlie died in 2001 and, sadly, no one’s seen Wee Jimmy since.

20
I didn’t say there wouldn’t be any political rants at all.

21
Kidding.

22
If you really squinted your eyes and used your imagination.

23
It was a deeply spiritual evening.

24
Happens all the time in Labour and Delivery, I’m told.

25
My dad was only seven when war was declared.

26
I know … that should have been a clue.

27
His bunion.

28
Andrew thought a brothel was a soup kitchen where tasty broths were served.

TABLE TALK #1

1
I lied, as you’ll discover.

2
An important detail for later.

3
Snore.

4
I loved this eighties version of
Brideshead Revisited.

5
She should use them when she’s marking students’ papers, don’t you think?

6
Huge, drooling sigh.

7
I was being helpful; it’s not about being in control.

8
Afterwards, I decided she was probably younger than Carole, who, I must add swiftly under pain of death, is absolutely nowhere near ‘auld woman’ status.

9
There’s something to the cliché ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ after all.

10
Of course I did the sound effects.

CHAPTER THREE

1
Scott loves to play ‘Doctor’.

2
Technical term for a small electronic explosive, not to be confused with a squid – which is neither small nor explosive.

3
Thanks, Danny!

4
Bet you were hoping for something naughty?

5
Okay, so maybe only three or four. It just seemed like a lot.

6
Which you can see played out on YouTube.

7
Think about it in Scottish as you say it phonetically.

8
Their ‘clinging’ was well within the health-and-safety definition of ‘clinging’. Trust me.

9
Russell usually read the stage directions, and he did so with great gusto.

10
Behave. Nothing kinky about this – well, in this context at least.

11
I’m so not going there!

12
Everyone had a nickname – or two – on
Torchwood
.

13
Says Molly Ivins, political columnist in the US.

14
Scott appeared to be choking on my word choice so I’ve added ‘professional’.

15
Carole is convinced that some day I’ll be scheduling my shites.

CHAPTER FOUR

1
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
,
Any Dream Will Do
and
I’d Do Anything
, if you need to know.

2
It’s easier to find stuff in my notebook.

3
Andrew Lloyd Webber, to be precise.

4
But I’d never yell at John Barryman. I love him!

5
It’s the BBC. No one gets rowdy and everyone drinks bitter lemon and Schweppes tonic water.

6
In the interests of complete disclosure, although the food was tasty, it would never have passed the standards of a real American BBQ.

7
He performed in a number of West End musicals, including
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
.

8
Van Outen, who joined me on the panel for
Any Dream Will Do
and
I’d Do Anything
.

9
I can only explain this to those of you over eighteen.

10
I like it in a man, too.

11
I mean this in the US sense of the word, of course.

12
No, I was not born that way!

13
My family still wants to know how to get me to do this.

14
Term I learned from another Mel, Mel Brooks, when I worked with him on
The Producers.

15
Fashion tips are free with the purchase of this book.

16
Hot! Hot! Hot!

TABLE TALK #2

1
It’s probably a good thing we hadn’t watched
Scarface
or
The Shining
.

2
Turnabout’s fair play, I figure.

3
Insert another evil laugh here.

4
Thank goodness my dad had done his poo chore for the day.

5
Scot is.

6
For a quiet night.

CHAPTER FIVE

1
A Scottish cuddle, not to be confused with a ‘Glasgow kiss’. Ouch.

2
And no, before you ask, I wasn’t cleaning the garage.

3
For those who don’t know, Scott is a fully qualified, creative and very experienced architect – and not just an extreme DIY enthusiast (though there’s a bit of that in him, too).

4
And I do mean
years
.

5
In 2009, the blue tarp bathroom, like the Berlin Wall, finally came down.

6
Probably a bathroom needing a tarp changed.

7
My mum calls this ‘yammin’. I have no clue as to the origins of this Scottish term.

8
They were not human.

9
You decide which one is which.

10
Both of us!

11
Scott has another name for the cat (and for me) when he recalls this story, so we shall speak no more of it.

12
You may have seen the Tim Curry/Michael Palin version on TV or read the book?

13
Let me clarify for readers under, say, sixty-five. Back in the day, this is what women used to get when they waxed their floors – and you thought a Brazilian hurt.

14
Actually, after a fit of laughing, Carole said both.

TABLE TALK #3

1
You’d be surprised how easy it is to get lost.

2
If Scott’s not around …

3
In truth, there are always cables everywhere.

4
Really not as much fun as it sounds.

5
Notice I’ve said ‘professional’ ’cause I know myself too well.

6
A place where no woman has gone before.

7
Children, cover your eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

1
Puhleeze. In any other context, with my eyes closed.

2
I said ‘went to school on him’. Clean out your ears.

3
Well, new ones anyway.

4
There are still one or two.

5
Young people back in the day really knew how to hurt a kid, didn’t they?

6
If you need this spoiler explained, put the film on your movie rental list and discover the pleasure for yourself.

7
Heard that one, two or twenty times in my career …

8
Really. That’s what we called it. I had a pink ring, a green ring, a red ring …

9
And a few men.

10
Just call me Henry Higgins.

11
I admire him in others, too, of course.

12
Go, Binny Bots!

13
I know. Hard to imagine.

14
Read
Anything Goes
if you want to know more.

15
The final was in two parts.

TABLE TALK #4

1
Made perfect sense to him … to me, too.

2
Carole and Scott had to arm-wrestle for the last pair.

3
I signed across Jack’s back.

4
Try teaching that to your cat.

5
Seriously. As if a warning sign was all you bloody needed to protect yourself from wandering lions.

6
I wouldn’t have been surprised to find actual bees in it.

7
Trust me. I’ve seen a lot in my day.

8
Yes, only two.

9
I’m rubbish with details like this.

10
Did I mention I was a proper celebrity?

11
Sounds like a nightclub I went to once.

12
Which I couldn’t make myself eat.

13
And good chocolate, if you’re lucky.

14
Who could blame them?

15
Aw, shit. That’s an emu. See? I know nothing.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1
This became a ritual. During rehearsals for
TTN
, I’d always introduce Chaka Khan as a guest. She never was.

2
In the interest of full disclosure, I grabbed all of them.

3
Not just my habit – a family, and a Glasgow, tradition.

4
More than once.

5
Which Scott attests to.

6
Not easy to do when their morality is so rigid.

7
Nothing worth writing about.

8
Even his famous fish sticks didn’t help.

TABLE TALK #5

1
Because she’d never expect such silliness from me.

2
Carole took a picture – see the illustrated section.

3
Scott may even have kicked me a little with his foot.

4
At least this time, I told him which ones.

5
And even when we don’t.

6
Feet rubbing is usually Scott’s job.

CHAPTER EIGHT

1
I used to pretend to be her in the playground at primary school.

2
Relax. No ‘life is a box of chocolates’ here.

3
Yeah, like you’ve never done it.

4
Careful.

5
The dog was created from the likeness of a stray that Gav and Stu, his husband, befriended while on a holiday.

6
Because this gay man gives so many ‘beer mats’ as gifts.

7
Oh, my.

8
You can.

9
Insane … I know.

10
Um, forty-something and still very youthful …

11
Mo – as we called her.

12
Mel, stop shouting at me!

13
Remember Mel? I made her buy high heels.

14
Well, a TV version: Mum, Dad, Scott, Carole and me.

15
Long time since those words have been in a sentence together.

16
And without dropping her, of course.

17
I did and they performed a short piece for me.

18
It serves the best soups.

19
Or VTs, as they’re known in the biz.

20
It’s all me behind the curtains.

21
Am not! I don’t meddle.

22
A ‘greet’ means ‘a good cry’. As in, ‘Ach, son, have a wee greet. You’ll feel better.’

23
And quite a few women.

24
Ouch – they’d been taped on.

25
Minus the gun sound effects, though.

26
Imagine that!

27
A football! Honestly, people.

28
I was the host – three notches.

29
I worked hard to get where I am. Of course I watch my own shows.

CHAPTER NINE

1
Keith Richards, eat your heart out.

2
Eeew! Don’t go there. They’re my parents!

3
I’ll stop that now, now, now.

4
Like most days.

5
Stop it. On stage.

6
It is.

7
Bob Firth is my uncle, not yours. His wife, Ruby, from Sandyhills, has been my mum’s friend since childhood.

8
I’m serious. It’s a traditional Scottish reel; I’m especially good at it.

9
That does not make me the Panto Queen.

10
I’m donning my tights again with Paul and playing Robin Hood in Cardiff in 2009 – and more exciting surprises to come after that.

11
Oh no, I’m so not starting that …

12
And sometimes with Scott, too.

13
Or ‘dunch’, as Clare and Turner called it when they were kids.

14
Next time.

15
There was still some of that.

16
That’s why I’m out working so hard … to pay for the remodelling.

17
Nespresso, anyone?

18
Oh, man, that was difficult to do.

19
Ah, who among us didn’t? She’s twenty-two now, if you’re keeping track.

20
That has to be the only thing they have in common.

21
Okay. Not one of the very first things.

22
Ah, the power of the web, the radio and fans.

23
I was so bummed that I couldn’t go.

24
I’m so there – schedule permitting.

25
Sounds like a naff buddy movie – or the sign you’d be looking for after drinking
way
too much.

26
The recording word for ‘headphones’.

27
Sometimes this track stays in my head and keeps me moving outside the recording studio.

28
‘Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!’ T-shirts available.

29
Thanks to all my mates at BBC Radio 2: Elaine Paige; her producer, Malcolm Prince; Steve Wright; and Jonathan Ross.

30
Please, it’s me.

31
You know what I say: ‘If life gives you lemons, make a vodka tonic.’

32
I said ‘hoofer’, not ‘woofter’ …

TABLE TALK #6

1
Yes. With the capitals.

2
I blame Clare.

3
I mean that phrase in all that it implies.

4
I have to say, the Comic-Con world is pretty balanced in its gender geekiness.

5
Except for the cats. Emily loves cats, Carole not so much.

6
Almost. She does not own a lightsaber.

7
Note not Storm …

8
It was the Bionic Woman!

9
Really not an excessive amount of alcohol, given there were six of us at dinner.

10
In these situations, Scott is usually bringing up the rear …

11
Not my fault. Just because they didn’t know the plan when we left the restaurant.

12
In the interests of health and safety, I’m noting here that it’s naughty.

13
I made up this number to protect the innocent. Plus, I can’t remember the real one.