In 1996 I took my life in my hands and went along to Cardiff's Student Union building to do a sit-down interview with Red Dwarf's Lister himself ....
A laughable showdown with Craig Charles
It`s not often that someone pulls a gun on me. Even less often does it happen in front of 700 people. And never has the other end of the gun, the bit that does the horrible `hammer-smacking-percussion-cap` bit been in the rock-steady hand of a famous comedian: Craig Charles, poet, comedian, star of `Red Dwarf', top radio jock. Who smiles. And says the magic words; "I hate the ****ing press." The audience thought it was hysterical. And it had all started so well.....
I had turned up on time, caught
up with the crew in their dressing room, checked everything was going to be
okay for later, and had double-checked that the security guards out front knew
that I was going to be taking pictures for the first five minutes.
Unfortunately this meant that
Craig knew I was going to be out there; an easy target...
Dead on time, Craig bounded out
on stage; an ebullient, wide-grinned character with exactly the same haircut
he always wears. Carrying a gun.
He aimed it at the audience,
fired off a few pretend shots, then saw me..... He pointed it at me, said those
magic words. Then.... Bang!
It's amazing how loud a blank can
be.
Luckily he ran off around the
stage then, launching into his stand-up routine while I frantically shot off
more pictures. His routine is a dazzling blend of off-the-wall comedy, weird
reminiscences about growing up in Liverpool with a psychopathic older brother
who used to cry if no-one would have a knife-fight with him on the way home
from kindergarten (he`s a police Inspector now), speculations on life, (why
don`t people who believe in reincarnation leave their money to themselves?) and
surprisingly sad, vulnerable poetry about women and his childhood.
He pulled a girl out of the audience,
(Babe alert! Babe alert!) then delivered an unexpectedly tender poem about how
he would love to explore the inner, as well as the outer, contours of her
being...
After the show he did a signing
session, and he kept up his good humour all the way through it, cracking up
when a girl pulled tip her shirt and said ‘sign this` (‘I never thought l`d
envy a pen ....’ he murmured) and putting his moniker on the various bits of
paper, video covers, books, bus tickets, pound of flesh, etc., put before him.
We spoke later in his dressing
room where he cracked open a can of beer and inhaled it in one motion.
Smaller than you`d expect, but as
they say, perfectly formed. He`s a rarity; a genuinely nice guy, one of those
types that are happier performing in front of 1000 students than sitting around
a table talking to one, er, journo.... He fiddled slightly with his cuffs and
looked all around the room as we talked but then quickly relaxed. I asked him
how he considered himself; poet, comedian, actor, what?
“A jammy ******* I reckon,’
laughed, leaning back against the scabby wall and gratefully throwing his heavy
crombie into the arms of a surprised roadie.
“No seriously, an entertainer. I
started out as a poet, got dragged sideways into stand-up, fetched up as an
actor and then got into presenting. But entertainer is what I see myself as.
“One of the problems with this
business is that you tend to get pigeon-holed and then they can’t see you in
anything else (NOTE: this was many years before Coronation Street). I spread
myself around a bit.”
Mention was made of a friend who
had come along because she loved his poetry.
“That’s great, because, like I
said, that was my first love. Thing is, I started using it as a vehicle for my
humour, then that took over, and the poetry got sidelined, and now I'm back
trying to get people laugh through my poetry; y’know, trying to get 360 degrees
of life in my poetry.’
The audience loved you and it was
a surprise the way you worked your rape case into your act.
“Aye,
well, the public, bless ‘em, knew it was all rubbish, and they've been behind
me all the way. If they thought otherwise. I wouldn't be here now talking to
you. It was the same with the convicts; they were fine about it. A rape charge
normally means that you`re in big trouble, but no, they were great. Even if one
big guy l thought was going to flatten me only came over and said. `‘ey; ain't you that Gary Wilmot!` I think I would
have preferred the beating!”
You definitely have reasons to
hate the press.
"The tabloids. certainly. I
mean, the stuff they wrote about me! One headline, `Craig Charles slept with forty strippers!` I thought, yeah, in your dreams
mate! I've just had my first holiday in two years, two weeks in the Caribbean,
and the swines followed me everywhere!"
Ahem. yes. Time to change the
subject. How did the acting come along?
“It all comes back to comedy; I was
doing ‘Saturday Live’ with Ben Elton, and the producer Paul Jackson came up to
me and said that there was this character he thought I could play in this
sitcom called ‘Red Dwarf’. Now, I’d never done any acting in my life, but I
went along, and because of that I've got lots more work, so people tend to see
me more as an actor now. Like I said; pigeon-holing you in what you did last."
What is next in the Craig Charles itinerary?
"Oh, I`ve got the next two
years pretty well bottled up. We finish this tour then it`s right into the next
eight episodes of ‘Red Dwarf`, followed by a sitcom of my own called ‘Captain
Butler’ where I play a pirate. Then it`s into a few months more of ‘The Governor`,
and back into eight more `Dwarf's`; I've a chat-show to do called ‘Craig’s Funky
Bunker’, and I intend to shoe-horn 120 live dates in there for sometime next year, so... After that, I
think I’ll have a breakdown as way of a rest."
So that was that. As we left a
pair of security guards stopped him and timidly asked for his autograph. He grinned
wickedly and went into a little routine for them about the run-ins he used to
have with their kind as a kid. When he finally left they were weak with
laughter.
That’s Craig Charles for you.
He`ll talk to anyone.
Even the Press.
