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Monday 8 September 2008

A morning cigar and a glass of wine with Sir John

At 84, John Mortimer is still thrilled by his latest theatrical success, appalled by the cult of ‘health and fitness’ and sorry that the Labour party he loved has vanished.

The pubs in Paddington open at 8 a.m. It was a glorious winter’s morning and though I was tempted I decided against a pick-me-up. I was on my way to interview John Mortimer, the socialist bon viveur who famously enjoys a glass of champagne at sunrise, and it seemed disrespectful to arrive with a sullied palate. Climbing soberly aboard the 8.30 for Henley, I sped towards Oxfordshire. At the station I hired a cab driven by an Indian who fed me titbits of local information as we threaded through the country lanes. ‘Rich area round here. Everybody is a somebody.’ As we passed Stonor Park he jerked his head. ‘There’s where Saint Edmund Champion had his printing press. He was attacking other religions innit.’ The previous night Sir John had dictated directions to me in his soft, frail, fluting voice. They were more effective as poetry than geography. ‘Go left past Jeremy Paxman,’ he’d told me. ‘Follow an avenue of tall trees and watch out for a “road narrows” sign. Whatever happens, don’t pass that sign or you’ll be lost for all eternity.’ Even before we passed the sign we were lost, but instead of eternity we found a friendly dog-walker who knew our destination. She pointed through the trees to a strange, fairytale structure with bright yellow windows and a pointy green roof.  

This charming gingerbread house, built by Mortimer senior, has been Sir John’s home since he was nine. His young assistant, a handsome blonde, ushers me into a modest study where he perches like a roguish old bird on a very well-feathered nest. He’s drinking, but it’s only coffee. While I grapple with the switches on my pygmy-sized tape recorder he waits patiently. His pale skin is taut and unwrinkled, his blue eyes a little misty. He wears oval glasses with dark frames that accentuate his air of owlish benevolence. And the famous underbite, thrusting pushily forth, discloses a henge of sooty teeth. His voice tends to drawl on final vowels. ‘What shall I saaaay?’ he asks when I suggest a sound-check. ‘Anything at all.’ With wily aptness he quotes Othello’s closing speech. ‘When you shall these unlucky deeds relate/ Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate/ Nor set down aught in malice.’

Then he starts to talk. First about his double bill, Legal Fictions, starring Edward Fox, which opens at the Savoy on 29 February (previewing from 21 February). The first half of the show, The Dock Brief, was initially written for radio. It transferred to the stage and opened at the Lyric, Hammersmith alongside Harold Pinter’s debut play The Birthday Party. ‘And later it was made into a film with Peter Sellers. So it’s had quite a long career.’ The second play, Edwin, is about a retired judge. ‘He’s very bored so he tries things, tries dogs, tries wasps for sitting on his marmalade, and he has a next-door neighbour whom he constantly suspects of having rogered his wife.’

More articles from: Lloyd Evans | this section

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