Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ben elton

Who here has seen Happy Families?

What? None of you??

…Anyway Guy Fuddle is Adrian Edmondson’s Kevin Turvey. And I’m not just saying that because of his anorak, or maybe I am, who knows, not me.

#adrian edmondson #ade edmondson #happy families 1985 #happy families #ben Elton #jennifer saunders #kevin turvey #guy fuddle

Blackadder the Third, 1987

#comedy #blackadder the third #blackadder #mandie fletcher #richard curtis #ben elton #rowan atkinson #hugh laurie #robbie coltrane

HES SO ITTTTYYYYY I COULD CRY 💔💔💔💔💔

happy families -1985

#ade edmondson #the young ones #adrian edmondson #ben elton #britcom #rik mayall #he looks like he wears those propellor hats 😞😞😞#give him one of those big rainbow lollipops please

#history of british comedy #stephen fry #hugh laurie #ben elton #emma thompson #uk

One of my few friends in the rock ’n’roll world is Paul McCartney, who I met through Ken [Russell] very early on. Ken always used unusual people in his films, people who weren’t trained actors, like Christopher Gable who was a principal with the Royal Ballet until Ken cast him in Song Of Summer. And he had come up with something he thought he could do with me. It was from a William Faulkner story called The Wishing Tree about a magician and a young girl and he wanted Paul to do the music, so he arranged for us all to meet over lunch. I was completely beside myself. I was still only seventeen and the Beatles were at the height of their fame. They were the biggest thing that had ever happened. Only four years before I’d been one of those screaming girls at Finsbury Park Astoria, the only time my Dad ever shouted at me, really shouted at me. Finsbury Park was a long way from Neasden and although Jennifer and I went on the train, Dad said he would pick us up. But after the show we’d gone through to the stage door, so I wasn’t where I'd said we’d be. So he just sat in the car out front waiting as these hysterical teenagers poured out, and getting frantic when he realised we weren’t there. When he finally found us, these simpering teenage girls all crying, he was so angry. It must have been so scary for him. Now I’m a parent myself I realise how frantic he must have been, and that his anger came out of fear.

So four years later and there I was about to have lunch with my idol. I was so nervous. Working with Avedon was nothing compared with lunch with Paul McCartney. All I kept thinking was I’ve got to behave properly. I can’t go gooey. I recognise it in [her daughter] Carly now. Having crushes on people is something everybody goes through. She’s had crushes on people who she’s eventually met through Leigh and me. Like Ben Elton who she’s always absolutely adored. By chance she had just finished reading one of his books when we invited him over for dinner. I suppose she must have been about fifteen. When he arrived I introduced her. She was her usual chatty, friendly self and didn’t show anything of what she was feeling, but half-way through talking to him she went down to her bedroom, screamed into a pillow and pinched herself just to make sure it was really happening and then came back, completely calm as before. When I told Ben that she was a fan, he was thrilled. The next day all his books arrived by special messenger signed ‘to Carly’. On television he can come across as quite caustic. But he’s not. He’s a gentle, nice man. And really talented, clever and funny.

Paul was the same to me that day. So kind. It seems stupid to call someone like Paul McCartney ordinary, but that’s what he is. Ordinary but extraordinary. Shortly after that meeting, the six of us arranged to have dinner. Paul was with Jane Asher in those days. We went to the White Tower, a very smart Greek restaurant, to talk more about the film and he just started thinking up songs while we were sitting there, tapping out tunes with a fork on wine glasses which he’d just filled up to various levels with water.

Twiggy in Black and White (1998)