I’ve been head down for the past few weeks, preparing for my one-man show. The title is catchy – Nigel Havers Talking B*ll*cks. I’m not sure this was a good idea because in every interview that I have done, I’ve been told that we can’t use this word on air. I seem to hear nothing but four-letter words on the TV these days, so I hadn’t realised that people would mind the bollocks. It seems to be more offensive than the entire four-letter cannon. I am obviously not down with the kids.
I have never done anything like this before and have been worrying about three things: will anyone come; will anyone find it amusing; why am I doing it in the first place? I remember Dawn French wailing down the telephone, saying: ‘Why am I doing this?’ ‘Because you’ve got a massive ego,’ I replied. ‘Oh yes, of course, that’s the reason. Phew,’ she said. I am telling myself the same thing – that it is my ego (and, I hope, not hubris) for why else would I take to the stage on my own and sit for an hour and a half telling stories about… me? For about the millionth time in my life I’m thinking I must be insane. Mind you, it has been fun delving into the past and remembering a simpler time growing up. Everyone had less money, food was plain, we all knew the name of our doctor, no one was living on benefits, consumerism was restricted to essentials, and everyone seemed happier with one very small telly and a telephone on the table in the hall.
When I emerged from a studio last Friday, it suddenly became apparent that spring had sprung. It is a wonderfully British moment when we all start to smile again, the dawn chorus wakes us up, and the garden begins to change colour. I have a daphne bush in my garden and it is a highlight every year when we can bring some flowers inside, and for several days, the scent fills the house. Like all the best fragrances, it is disappointingly fleeting, but all the more precious because of it.
I have been pondering the issue of phone mugging and my question to Apple and the rest is this: when anyone but the owner tries to get into a phone, why can’t it immediately lock down, making phone mugging pointless? I’m sure they must have thought about this and decided against it, but I would like to hear the arguments against such a simple solution.
Does anyone still watch the Oscars? I only ask because like most people I know I find out the results on the news the next day, and increasingly the whole thing seems to be entirely about clothes. I love clothes as much as the next person, but the films are becoming somehow secondary to all that sparkly and eye-poppingly expensive window dressing for the designers. When it comes to the films themselves, I’m one of the lucky few who receives all the entries online well in advance, in order to vote. This is, indeed, lucky as I haven’t been to the cinema in years. The last time I did, a couple arrived in the seats next to me and proceeded to consume an entire takeaway curry. The smell and accompanying bodily soundtrack ensured I left well before the end and haven’t been back. We’re constantly being informed of the benefits of intermittent fasting on television, but it seems no one can last through two hours and a half hours of entertainment without a shopping trolley full of snacks and fizzy drinks.
Mind you, most films and even some television these days seem to have dispensed with the services of an editor. All seem to be at least half an hour too long, sometimes more. Of course my hero, David Lean, was guilty of an epic or two back in the day. Who can deny that those daffodils came up once too often in Doctor Zhivago, but I forgive him anything.
And while we are on the subject (am on a roll now), I see that at that glorious British film institution Pinewood Studios, home of Bond, James Bond, and so many more fabulous films, some of the studio spaces are being turned into centres for AI. While everyone understands that the present owner has to turn a profit, it is in danger of putting actors and all the other creatives out of work. The original actors’ and writers’ strike in the USA was staged as a protest against AI in all its forms, and the film industry is still recovering, so it is rather an irony that we are now at risk of being completely sidelined by AI. This is, of course, a much larger debate as it is starting to affect all aspects of life, so more another day. For now, it’s back to… me.
Nigel Havers Talking B*ll*cks is at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on 30 March and then touring.
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