Friday, 13 March, 2009

To BBC to rehearse for this lousy Comic Relief dribblage. It was Bryan ’s idea – “O, Lord, I have to have some pleasures in life at me age! Otherwise you might as well lie down and die!” I corrected her firmly by saying it was “lay down and die, not lie down” but to little avail. Tennant ticking away like a worried timebomb. I said I’d like to tick off his ticks & send them to Gavin Bryars & see if he can’t construct a lamp oratorio out of it but he was behaving terribly. Couldn’t keep his paws off Davina. I said this was not how Gielgud plied his trade. I’m hard on David ‘cos he’s a v. talented actor & was v. good when I cast him as Contrabass Bullroarer #78 in my 1981 production of Entertaining Mr Sloane On Apollo at the Lyric but he needs to learn discipline. Wackiness will only get you so far in this business. Ask Graham Parker.

Said hello to this girl group called the Sundays or something – the name is unoriginal but they probably weren’t even born in 1989. They were all v. nice and kind even tho’ the racket they made – some old Vince Hill tune, whoever the hell he was, I must ring Trevor – sent me screaming from the studios. Still, they’re young; keep going & honing and they’ll become as stylish as the Four Degrees. We went on at thirty five after midnight and did 40 minutes of “The Bogus Man” with aerobics which threw them all, I must say. I grinned inwardly & must remember to tell Mike Oldfield. You can’t be doing Balearic all your life. Didn’t do Richard Wattis any good.