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Andrew Duncan meets Tony Slattery
Radio Times, Nov 3-9, 2001
After mental illness and a huge nosedive in his career, the comedian and actor reflects on what he loathes and likes about himself and others.
"I worked too hard, and it sent me crackers"
The comeback continues, he says, after a miserable three years during which his formidable cheerfulness was transformed into a bizarre breakdown. Now nearly 42, he talks frankly about a bleak midlife crisis that, combined with his explicit descriptions of sexual activity and orotund mimicry of certain grand actors, dumbfounds the waitress in the cavernous dining room of a West End hotel we had commandeered for the afternoon. Thick-set and dressed in black, he has a camp friskiness with a dangerous edge. His haunted brown eyes dart hither and thither, making infrequent eye contact, and he mocks himself in a defensive way, using esoteric jargon acquired from the 50 medical tomes he accumulated trying to understand his illness. "I'm a DIY amature psychiatrist," he says, a confession that becomes increasingly obvious.
It's difficult to imagine that a few years ago he was everywhere: sitcom actor, talk-show host, star on Whose Line Is It Anyway? - the all-purpose dweeb. "One review of a play I was in said it was a masterful performance at the same time as a TV critic called me a porcine presenter of patronising trash and the most dysfunctional personality of the 20th century. I'm proud of that. At least I'm top of a different tree. I was also described as a ubiquitous light-entertainment tart, whose answerphone said only 'yes'. The fact is I worked too much, and it sent me crackers."
But it's not that simple: he is a prime victim of the fickle nature of television fame. He has a talent modest entertainment which, maybe, he thought overshadowed his true value as a serious actor - he received an Olivier nomination for his part of a man cracking up in Neville's Island, and it was during his warm-up act for that ceremony, in 1995, that some say the first public signs of his problems emerged.
Never one to lick the hand that feeds him, he insulted one critic in an obscene way and ridiculed others. "The next day a newspaper said that a 'clearly drunk Tony Slattery saw his ranting comments received in total silence with the odd embarrassed cough'. "That was a lie. I wasn't drunk, only trying to elicit a humorous Pavlovian response from a posh, crusty audience of directors and actors. There was a stunned silence followed by a standing ovation. I'm a personable chap. I enjoy making audiences laugh, not offending them."
His desire to please is, as usual, rooted in his childhood. The youngest of five, including triplets, whose parents emigrated to north London from Ireland after the Second World War, he was a bright student who went to grammar school near their home on the Stonebridge estate, Willesden. "I was conscious that my dad, since sadly gathered to God, layed bitumen on the roads until his knuckles bled, and I wanted him to be proud of me. The twinkle in his eyes when he saw me on TV told me he was, although he was too private to vocalise it - often the way with gentle Irish men from County Clare."
At nine he studied judo and at 15 was proficient enough to be chosen for Britain against the Netherlands. "We were beaten in every bout, but won an aesthetic victory because our squad was pretty, and they were acne-ridden."
Judo was relinquished after a school trip to Cambridge. "Having lived in a tenement skyscraper with urine on the stairs and worse in the lifts, I saw this hallucinatory architectural beauty and thought, 'I'd like to spend time here.' I worked hard, got an exhibition and specialised in early 16th-century Spanish love poetry of religious ecstasy. I planned to be an academic until I bumped into Stephen Fry, a tall intellectual with a booming voice, who seemed to be expert on everything from physics to coyote sexing. He said 'My dear boy, you must audition for the Footlights.' But I soon discovered laughter and applause are the second and third most addictive substances in the world, the first being cocaine hydrochloride [one cause of his downfall]. That's an opinion offered en passant, not a fact."
How about sex? "I'd have to go back a few years. Can't remember." He was engaged briefly at Cambridge but thought better of marriage when he discovered his fiancee in bed with another girl, and since then he has… well, let's ask. Are you a confirmed bachelor? "You mean homosexual? You old-fashion thing. I don't care if people think I'm bisexual, omni-sexual, homosexual, asexual. The only person who really knows is me and the piece of light-industrial machinery I may be performing with. Mind your own business. But if you want to be specific..." There follows a graphic and vernacular description of sex acts that sends the waitress scurrying.
At Cambridge he, Emma Thompson, Fry, Hugh Laurie and others performed a revue that became a 50-minute special for BBC2 in 1982. "An agent signed us, and my academic ambition went out the window." It's said the others attempted serious work while he opted for trivia. "They were focused in their career trajectory while I pinballed from job to job in a scatter-gun way. I was a workaholic largely through fear of unemployment, but also for sheer enjoyment of the work, fuelled by a genuinely sunny demeanour. I was raised by Jesuits, one of whose signature theorems is carpe diem. I'm not ashamed of what I did. The things to be ashamed of are despotism, brutality, vile abuse. My Catholic sense of guilt has been expunged completely."
Radio 4's Dead Man Talking is a comedy series in which John Bird interviews historical figures. Slattery plays Adam in this week's episode. "There was a script, but we had the odd moments of dipping our toe in the jacuzzi of improvisation. I'd like to get back into TV, but I've been away so long it's out of my hands." He'd be happy to do quiz shows. "A good one is better than a crap Hedda Gabler. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is presented with perfection by Chris Tarrant, but Weakest Link is artificial and tacky. Anne Robinson is like a transvestite Torquemada lording it over contestants forced to laugh at feeble 'ad libs' coming from a mouth that looks as if it's swallowed polecat dung with half a lemon. She can't help her face, but she's a powerful argument for a childless marriage. I say that with great love, of course. I'm sure she's very nice.
"What matters is that these shows are done on their own terms. A starry production of Titus Andronicus relocated to neo-Stalinist, post-nuclear Glasgow is worse entertainment than The Generation Game with Bruce Forsyth, who was wonderful in it, however disliked he might be by some people. I can't tell you because I've never spoken to him, but a lot of TV personalities become monsters. It's difficult to remain rooted in reality when your surrounded by sycophants who indulge your every whim."
Perhaps that's what happened to him? " No one indulged my whims." he says, archly, before becoming serious. "I fragmented. 'Dysfunctional' is a chic word used mainly by the cocktail set, but we all have our psycho-pathological baggage, some more disabling than others. Even the sunniest exterior can hide the bleakest of secrets. My illness had many causes. Exhaustion came first. I didn't look after myself, went to bed too late. I had a brain scan that showed an abnormality, so that was part of it. There was also substance abuse, drugs. During the psychotic periods I'd go through two bottles of vodka an hour, and it didn't have any effect. I don't consider myself an alcoholic because I could go for weeks without drinking."
For a year he didn't answer the telephone, open a letter, and paid bills only when bailiffs came to the door. The electricity was cut off. He threw all his furniture into the Thames and had a drunken car crash at 4am, for which he received a 15-month ban. "Occasionally I'd go back to my normal self and then I'd feel the hot breath of demons on the back of my neck, and they'd sink their teeth in. It was terribly frightening, and I developed disorders that are listed under the heading 'Unusual and potentially dangerous'. There was never a moment's suicidal ideation [sic], though, because I thought it was a very easy option, and there were far uglier demons to conjure up and dance with in my empty second-floor warehouse flat in Wapping. I isolated myself deliberately from my friends, partners, women, men, except my family, who I saw once a week. I adopted a concentrated persona, even in the depths of self-loathing and depression. I'm a good actor, and I pulled if off for a few years until they saw through it.
"I became a florid cocktail of maladaptive, abnormal traits. I'd hide under a car for three days without moving." What about bodily functions? "I hadn't eaten for weeks, so there were no bladder or faecal problems. Am I being helpful? I don't want to come across as a sanctimonious evangelist for the cause of mental health, but it is the Cinderella of the health industry, and causes such misery. Artistic people give the impression of being more vulnerable by their theatricality. You get Simon Callow [mimics deep, concerned voice] saying, 'The performance is like climbing a mountain with three dead huskies around your neck, a limbless open-shaft miner. Artists are immensely brave, dicing with death in every performance.' You want to say, 'If I could get a revolver I'd shoot you in the neck.' Acting is a job, like being a taxi driver."
He doesn't worry about descending into such gloom again. "I'm no longer slave to my demons. I've mastered them and if they return I'll know the warning signs and act quickly to kick them in the bollocks." Returning to work continues with performances at the Comedy Store (London this Sunday and Wednesday; Manchester this Thursday). "That really is throwing my hat back into the ring. There has to be a mood change as you go on stage - otherwise what's the point? Simon Callows of the world would say, 'You have to be utterly fuelled by adrenalin.' Bullshit. But it will be a useful trampoline to catapult me back, past the casting directors into the maelstrom of luvviedom because [deep voice] it is a tornado, like El Nino, in a sort of way."
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