Life & Society
Julian's Week
Published 09 April 2007
With my new live show I could finish a few careers in a mischievous moment - including my own
I'm enjoying The Underdog Show, which I'm presenting on BBC2 at the moment. It has celebrities training rescue dogs to perform feats of obedience and agility. My role is to introduce the contestants and ask the judges for their opinions. It's not a comedy show. My usual line of tired buggery and oral references is not required. That much has been made abundantly clear. Even my stylist's request for me to wear pink shoes was turned down, and when it was suggested that I might wear a flower in my buttonhole, there was a positive furore. So when doggy dancer Richard Curtis and his Portuguese water dog, Disco, cavorted to "Ring of Fire" I think I kept as straight a face as I could.
And it's live. God bless the BBC for taking a chance on me. At the back of everyone's mind must be the chilling thought that I might suddenly launch into an obscene routine about fisting. And, of course, I might. I could finish a number of careers in a mischievous moment if I wanted to, including my own. It all adds to the fun.
I have to watch out for Oxbridge types working as runners, mind you. I must try not to be snappy and come on like Wendy Richard. Best to be nice. They'll be commissioning editors for some dreary cable channel in about two years' time, sure as eggs - just when I'll be gasping for work on any old channel as I enter the Jilly Goolden phase of my career.
The stars of The Underdog Show, though, are the dogs. Selina Scott has a huge sofa of a hound called Chump, and Clive James a hairy terrier called Albert. They are such eager-to-please creatures. Think Claire Sweeney with facial hair. On second thoughts, just think Claire Sweeney.
It's filmed at Three Mills Studios, in east London. It's a primitive concern. There's only one "gents" between 50 men. That includes me, presenter of the show and housewives' favourite. I have no en-suite facilities, which you might have hoped your licence-fee money had been spent on. Oh, no. This afternoon I had to lower my celebrity bottom gingerly on to a toilet seat still warm from cameraman 4. He's no oil painting from any angle, I can assure you. Still, I suppose he'll have something to tell his grandchildren.
After numerous phantom pregnancies, I finally conceived over my editor’s desk. He promised to respect me afterwards. He locked the door and fertilised my idea with his king-sized chequebook.
I have, since that moment of recklessness, suffered morning sickness, high blood pressure and more than a little bit of leakage. My editor has been distant, and I know other authors have been given the Random House desk treatment. He’s a rogue and a swine. He’s my man, but he done me wrong.
Imagine my delight when the contractions finally began and my novel was born. He would look adorable in his hardback jacket, I thought proudly, as I presented him, still sticky from the birth canal, to his "daddy".
"Very nice. But where's the rest of it?" said my editor. How rude. But I know what he means. There is a central character - the love interest, no less - who is a trifle shadowy. To write him down, to describe my fictional (which of course means fantasy) lover, is bound to be an exposing task, and one I shirked. How does one go about describing Peter Duncan crossed with David Miliband?
I put a Vengaboys CD on soon after I moved into my house in Kent, and I swear the ceilings shook and the foundations rumbled. Now art, it seems, is another area where we disagree. Hanging modern pieces in a 16th-century dwelling that has rather gone in for the "ye olde beams" look is bold, I know. The walls were having none of it. One by one, my contemporary collection has crashed to the floor on consecutive nights at five minutes past three in the morning. Point taken.
Julian Clary
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