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I was starstuck by David Cameron

Steven Berkoff

Wednesday, 2nd July 2008

In the week of the Spectator Summer Party, Steven Berkoff recalls another of our celebrations at which he sought out the Tory leader and forgave his confusion of Brando and Dean

Lo and behold, surfacing briefly above the sea of faces is the unmistakable patrician head of Oz’s greatest export, Barry Humphries, elegantly attired in a tailored double-breasted suit. Barry’s wit has the qualities of those alien raptors whose acidic effusion reduces brave men to thick syrup. Yet, I feel I can call him a friend since we caught up with each other when I did my one-man show in Oz about 12 years ago. So he pats my head with fond recollections of my work and I introduce him to the journalist, but soon the tide divides us up again.

That was a lucky ‘strike’ but I must try to control that crude feeling rising like nausea, which is to impress my new friend. She pulls me into the champagne banquet for some refills and once replenished we once more punt into the maelstrom. There’s Michael Winner looking really dapper in his new slimline body and we splutter a few bits of gossip and what we were up to. Now I see the bushy hair of the Homer of the Jewish world, Howard Jacobson. With his thick grey hair and fulsome beard he would be central casting’s idea of an old testament prophet, if he were not already a prolific writer and formidable ping-pong player who once thrashed me, thus proving, if not shoving down my throat, that he is as adept with bat and ball as with pen and paper.

I seize a strangely exotic purple cocktail and yes, it flows down easily and who do I see in the distance striding the room while the crowd melts before him. Ah, this is an eight-point stag and really, I just want to meet him, since I have admired him greatly since he made one of the most outstanding speeches to the nation that I have ever heard from the mouth of a politician.

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David Short

July 3rd, 2008 11:29am

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