Monday 16 February 2015

The day Craig Charles pulled a gun on me...... with 700 witnesses....


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.