Gay Times Interview I
JULIAN CLARY
Julian Clary peered around the office door of International
Artists (the top PR people for Jeannette Krankie, Billy Pearce, Hale &
Pace and Shane Ritchie) seeming as if he had just tumbled out of bed. It
struck me he nearly always appears somnolent. He was to allow me thirty minutes
to talk. Clary is gearing up to appear as a gangster called Bravo in the
first adaptation of the Jean Genet play, Splendid's. Neil Bartlett (who
translated and directs the play) tried to woo Clary to play Bravo for some
time.
"Well, I like to play hard to get. It had been going on for ages. He asked
me about 18 months ago, when he'd heard about the play and got his hands
on it. I said it was interesting and I'd see what I was doing. It all sort
of came together at the one time." Clary doesn't know much about the part
yet.
"No, so it will be an interesting interview," he assured me. "I've read it,
but I don't know how it's going to be done or how I'm going to do it." But
Genet? A gun-totin' gangster?
"I'm doing it because I was asked to really. It would never have occured
to me to offer myself as an actor in this particular part. But when someone
comes and asks you, you'd say that it never occured to you, but it maybe
it would be quite an interesting experience."
Clary plays the "poet" of the eight-strong gang. Described as 'lighter, bitchier,
stronger' and 'not at all a macho gangster, but the toughest' in the PR blurb,
Bravo is calm, elegant and an opera lover.
"He's a gay character. It's quite a shady area with Genet because nothing
is overstated and everything's contradicting everything else." Splendid's
has been described as 'low camp' but it's obviously not the kind of camp
Clary is renowned for. It beggars the question: would he have to tone it
down?
"Yes. I'll do whatever I'm directed to do. I'm quite looking forward to it,
to working with Neil, because he is very specific, he has a very clear vision
of what he wants. So as long as he tells me and directs me, I shall be putty
in his hands."
Splendid's marks Clary's departure from sequinned stand-up comedy and sit-coms
but (despite whatever publicity you read) it isn't really a move into 'straight'
acting.
"I didn't ever say it was. It's certainly a far cry from putting the slap
on and prancing around with the front row. And I think it's quite a challenge
personally, but I'm not playing a character that I've absolutely no idea
how he speaks or goes about things. It's quite a different kind of performing,
to interact with other actors. And I mean, in this play we're all gangsters
and we're all quite ruthless in a way but at the same time we're all terrified
of dying, which is the tension in the play, that we're all about to die
effectively a violent death."
Speaking of painful departures, rumour has abounded that Clary has 'gone
straight' in order to revieve a flagging TV career. Could this really a change
of direction? "Oh, I don't know. I mean, one's getting on. I'm 35 and you
can't keep slipping into lycra and prancing round. And it seems that I used
to have to dare myself to wear lots of make-up for TV. After a while, it
becomes daring to take it off again. It could be a disaster, I really don't
know. The press will tell me."
Having been pilloried by the tabloids for (among other things) Clary's infamous
comment on fisting Norman Lamont, it would be perfectly understandable if
he were a tad apprehensive about their reaction to Splendid's.
"Well I think I would be lying if I said no. I hope that people would enjoy
it. I hope I don't ruin the whole thing. But it is a leap in the dark, and
I can't pretend to be ever so confident about how I'll fare at this stage.
I don't know. That's the truth. Erm.. no, I wouldn't say apprehensive. I'm
nervous. I get that sick kind of feeling."
Clary once said he wasn't upset at being described as 'the Larry Grayson
of the 80's' but it seems less relevant, particularly in the light of the
play.
"It's only a bit of naff journalism, isn't it? It does always happen
with gay entertainers that you're then compared to other gay entertainers
because of this one thing you have in common. It doesn't happen to straight
performers. As it happens I was an admirer of Larry Grayson, so I was flattered
by that. But I don't think it's very meaningful for me as a
description."
Neither is is useful to depict Clary as someone following the tradition of
comedians treading the "straight" West End boards. "I don't think I find
that a tradition. What do you mean when you say straight? There are two different
meanings of the word, aren't there? Straight as in serious acting, not comedy,
and there's straight as in heterosexual. Who do you mean?"
Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Maggie Smith, Roy Hudd, Max Wall...
"So what straight acting did Charles Hawtrey do then? Refresh my memory.
They always pretended they were straight somehow along the way. In all those
films, Kenneth Williams would be after the Matron or something, just to make
it all okay."
And now for that routine last question, with the grapevine buzzing over Clary's
new role as the host of The Generation Game in mind: anything coming up?
"Nothing I can tell you about. There are a few things, but most things I
can't tell you about now."
We had reached the end of our half hour. And not a moment too soon."Well,
I've got nothing much to say," Clary admitted. "I don't like interviews either."
I thought I might have to pad it all out. "Oh well," he sighed. "You can
just lie. Just make it up. I don't care."
©MRadclyffe Publ. Millivres June
1995
