DIARY
BARRY HUMPHRIES During my season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket I had a pretty hefty post: adulatory letters, importunate postcards, pathetically grateful notes and the occa- sional missive from a member of the ratbag community. I'm not sure if English readers know what a ratbag is. It is an Antipodean term which has not been so enthusiastically appropriated over here as the Australian verb 'to whinge'. A ratbag, in Ozspeak, is a colourful crank; a crackpot, or at worst, an i obsessive loony. If you spend any time in the public eye, you're bound to get a letter or two from the odd ratbag. The ratbag let- ters I receive are among the most interest- ing items in my correspondence. Last week the stage doorman presented me with a let- ter from America which announced the arrival in London of a famous psychic. He had apparently been consulted by people such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, and he was strongly con- vinced that two of his former clients, Rex Harrison and Tallulah Bankhead, were making phantom appearances on stage while Dame Edna was performing. It was his hope to attend a performance with the necessary paraphernalia of psychic research in an attempt to materialise the Dames ghostly competitors. Were this to occur, it would certainly be an evening no audience would quickly forget, but an encounter between the Australian icon and the ecto- plasmic Tallulah might well traumatise the children from Hampstead, Islington and Blackheath whom enlightened parents often bring to unsuitable entertainments.
knew, of course, that the Haymarket I was haunted, and someone I know — Alec Guinness? Eileen Atkins? — has actually seen the ghost. Apparently, it hangs around the stalls in outmoded clothing, drawing attention to itself by not looking at what's happening on stage. Well, to be boringly sceptical, this could apply to a lot of sen- tient theatregoers, most of whom wear out- moded clothing — anoraks etc. — and rarely glance at the proscenium arch, since while I'm up there apostrophising the audi- ence, they are usually eating or looking at the person they are with to see if they're laughing or missing the point. When I was a young actor in Melbourne there was an old critic on the now-defunct Argus who was very easy to spot from the stage because he never seemed to be looking at it. He was either asleep or scribbling in his notebook, and not seldom, in.ghostlike fashion, would vanish halfway through the show, either to the pub or to his office, depending on his deadline. He was an amiable old soul who probably never saw a curtain call in his life, but he belonged to that school of provincial theatre critics who, in the case of a who- dunnit, told the reader who did it, or in the case of a comedy, repeated the jokes, only got them wrong. Perhaps he really was a ghost, since I'm pleased to observe that he has rematerialised, or some of his methods have, in the theatrical criticism of the Inde- pendent.
wonder why the Evening Standard hates Lord Archer? Of late, they have mounted a campaign of astounding vindictiveness against my recent patron. I have always found Jeffrey a man of loyalty, integrity and total commitment, and if his crime in the eyes of the Standard_ is that he has gilded the lily now and then, this is surely some- thing for which every politician in the land might stand indicted. Of course, when one reads attacks of such malice and vehe- mence, one sadly suspects that what lies behind them may well be those twin English vices, envy and snobbery. Is it con- ceivable that lanky, abrasive Max Hastings once wished he had written a series of num- ber-one best sellers, or that he lived in a penthouse overlooking the Thames, fes- tooned with Monets and Picassos? Never!
Ihave never had an operation in my life, though I've written constantly about illness and hospitals. As co-founder of the Prostate Olympics and Friends of the Prostate, I have long dreaded the moment when life, with a vengeance, begins to imi- tate art, but so far all clear. In the Sixties, a comic strip invention of mine called Barry McKenzie used to worry about his mother's veins back in Australia. Whenever his con- science stabbed him — and this was rarely — he would reflect: 'If this news gets back home, mum's veins will be a write-off.' Well, I'm soon to go into hospital to have some purple spaghetti deracinated from my right calf, and I'm not looking forward to it, especially since I'll only be in hospital for 24 hours and unable to receive the condo- lences of many visitors. I come from a hos- pital-visiting community, and the morbidly caring people of Melbourne rarely let a Sunday pass without visiting at least two infirmaries. If there is no one in hospital they know, it is not uncommon for them to visit total strangers, and the corridors of these institutions, which stand on almost every second street corner, are on Sundays thronged with the curious, the compassion- ate and the medically prurient dispensing crystallised fruit and acrid-smelling chrysanthemums to the bewildered patients.
One small, enterprising private hospital actually sells special family packages to members of the public and their loved ones wishing to embark on a weekend sympathy binge. This entitles them to a tour of Casu- alty, Maternity, Pathology and a quick, supervised glimpse of Intensive Care.
Are Londoners the worst-dressed peo- ple on the planet? Grey, humid days seem to emphasise the hideous apparel favoured by the metropolitan English, who make the denizens of former East Berlin look chic by comparison. The frumps and slobs draw attention to themselves with 'day packs' strapped to the backs of their invariably red anoraks and track suits, but what do they keep in these fluorescent purple and sulphur receptacles? Spare anoraks and track suits, perhaps, or noth- ing? The football hooligans in France seem better dressed that the average West End stroller. My friend David, incidental- ly, has suggested a very good and even profitable way of punishing football hooli- gans, and that is to reinstate the old Roman Games in some vacant stadium on the outskirts of town. Here, the yobs could be given a choice of 20 years in jail (at our expense) or an opportunity to fight each other to the death, with broken bottles of their choice, in the presence of a paying crowd. The survivors, if any, could be given £1,000 in prize money and a year's probation, and the crowd would have their taste for violence, no longer satisfied by the sissy spectacle of modern football, gruesomely gratified.
Previous page
