Life & Society
Julian's week
Published 17 April 2008
I was seconds from a full Gwyneth Paltrow. My applause was tumultuous
I'm not quite with it. I’m uncentred and really should be asleep, not squeezing out vaguely understandable sentences from my poor, scrambled brain. So don’t expect anything too insightful, please.
If this column was written by hand, the words would be jumbled and spidery, expressing a subtext that is lost in the printed version. You, the reader, would only have to glance at the page to know that Julian was having a strange old week. You'd shake your head compassionately, I expect, and turn back to the arts section or some gripping article about Chinese emissions or that rascal Berlusconi. Don't let me stop you.
I'm sorry to announce that my get up and go has got up and gone. I'm not ill, nor have I been smoking grass or popping downers. More's the pity. I'm just having a dreamy, out-of-body experience that I've decided to embrace and give in to, that's all. In other words, I'm knackered. If I were a brain surgeon or a coach driver the consequences of my tired and emotional state could be serious, but luckily I'm a camp comic. In that arena, it turns out, my malaise just adds depth to a traditionally shallow profession.
Here is the explanation. I've been in Cabaret for seven months now (someone with more energy than me could work out how many performances that is: 200-odd, I'll wager). Now I'm in the last week of my contract. And I'm thrilled to announce that I have, at last, managed to cry in the final gas chamber scene - something I've been straining to do since my first night. It wasn't that I had no empathy for the Jews - of course I do. I just didn't know how to access the relevant emotions on cue. (I think it's called acting. Too late to worry about that now.) But last night hot tears streamed down my cheeks like lava, and I had to rein myself in lest I start blubbing uncontrollably. It was award-winning. I was seconds away from a full Gwyneth Paltrow, I'm telling you. The audience was impressed. My applause during the walk-down was tumultuous. Several people stood up - so what if it was only to put their coats on? But the truth is - and I tell you this in strictest confidence - it was nothing to do with the Holocaust. I was crying tears of relief: next week I get my life back. I can stay at home and watch The Apprentice. Maybe I'm shallow after all.
The final word on Cabaret goes to an old lady who was overheard discussing my performance with her friend. "I preferred him in EastEnders," she said.
An earlier career highlight of mine that you might remember was Strictly Come Dancing. I believe I was a finalist. My dance partner was the lovely Erin Boag, so last Thursday, after my endeavours in the gas chamber, I popped in to her engagement party at Century. Everyone who was anyone in the dance world was there, including Colin Jackson.
Looming out of the shadows came a familiar female figure I recognised.
"Remember me?" she said. It was Strictly Come Dancing's "celebrity producer" (a title that always put me in mind of a queen bee giving birth to Jade Goody). It was her job during those ten difficult weeks to keep us celebs in check. I didn't make it easy for her, as I recall.
"We had a love-hate relationship," she said. You're half right, I thought. "You were hard work," she reminded me.
Despite my languid state, I sensed chickens coming home to roost. "You refused to travel in a yellow people-carrier with Aled Jones," she said accusingly. "You demanded a private limousine!"
"Seems reasonable," I said, pleading guilty as charged. We all have our breaking point, after all.
In fact, it's a measure of my impaired state that I accepted a lift home with her in the aforementioned yellow people-carrier. If that's not enough to get me admitted to the Priory I'd like to know what is.
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