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Chutzpah Pals |
"You never apologise for chutzpah" - Maureen Lipman
It took me a long time to recognise that "celebrities" are no different from everybody else, in that they are rarely celebrities to themselves, and very often are more lacking in confidence, and more desirous of reassurance, than we "lesser mortals". Having determined that, mainly as a consequence of attending first-night parties at the Churchill Theatre (q.v.) and hob-nobbing with "names" in the course of my commercial career and extra-curricular activities, I took much delight in approaching people I might otherwise have been reluctant to engage in conversation. It was a good example, to my mind, of what is known in Yiddish as "chutzpah". But just take a look at the comments devoted to Maureen Lipman.
Jane Asher
My dear friend Lynn McGregor invited me to take a boat trip on the Thames in aid of some charity. It was heavily spiced with show biz personalities, one of whom was Jane Asher. My daughter Emily is a big fan of Ms Asher and, in fact, a variation on one of her wonderful cakes, in the form of a typewriter, with a birthday message to me, was produced by Emily in the box at the Royal Albert Hall, which I used to hire each year for the prom nearest to my birthday, and entertain seven of my family or friends. The cake is shown here
I let Jane Asher know that I would appreciate a note from her to my daughter, encouraging her cake-making activities, and she graciously obliged.
On the same boat trip I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to (and listening to readings by) Andrew Sachs (best known as Manuel in Fawlty Towers), and Janet Suzman. I met Janet Suzman altogether three times. Once more thanks to Lynn and once thanks to my grand-daughter Jessica who was performing on behalf of JAGS (The James Allen Girls School) with which Janet Suzman is involved. I approached her to remind her that we had met on that charity boat event, and that I was a friend of Lynn's, whose family were involved in the anti-apartheid struggle together with her mother Helen. But I guess it was the wrong time and the wrong place to trouble her.
Mention of "wrong time, wrong place," is particularly appropriate, because the third occasion I met Janet Suzman was when Lynn McGregor took me backstage after we had attended a performance of Another Time at, I think, the Wyndham's Theatre, in the late 1980s, and spoke to the leading man Albert Finney and Sarah Kestelman with whom Lynn had attended the London School of Dramatic Art.
James Galway
Now this is another piece of "chutzpah" on behalf of my daughter Emily, who is a very talented young lady. In addition to baking wonderful cakes she can also entertain marvellously with voice or flute. And her abilities in design and production of tapestries, curtains, lampshades, quilts, and furniture coverings simply demand to be seen.
I knew that one of her "heroes" was James Galway, so I booked a couple of seats for one of his concerts. I think it may have been at the Barbican Centre. When we took our seats I told her she should go backstage during the interval and try and arrange to meet him. "I can't do that," she said. I told her the story of my meeting with Maureen Lipman (see below). And with a certain amount of nagging she was finally cajoled into making the move backstage.
The second half of the concert started. It did not involve James Galway. Emily was not to be seen. It was the second item on the programme, and shortly before Galway's own next number, that Emily reappeared. Stars in her eyes. She had arranged to go back at the end of the show, and would tell me all about it afterwards. What had transpired, apparently, is that a friend of James Galway, a music teacher from Hampstead, was in his dressing room, apparently took a shine to Emily, and invited her back to discuss meeting up later for some help with her flute.
"You see, Emily", I repeated, "you never apologise for chutzpah". Emily still regularly plays flute.
The My Music performers:
John Amis
Frank Muir
Denis Norden
Steve Race
Ian Wallace
I was travelling first-class Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Singapore. It was in 1980 or 1981. It was a trip I made frequently while based in Hong Kong and, as a consequence of my frequent flyer membership of Cathay Pacific's Marco Polo Club, I was regularly upgraded from business to first class. On this occasion I seem to recall only five other passengers in the first class cabin. They were the five stars of the BBC's quiz programme My Music: Steve Race, Denis Norden, Frank Muir, Ian Wallace and John Amis. I loved the programme and admired all five performers tremendously. I thought it would be an exciting two-hour flight. Alas, with the solitary exception of John Amis, they became boringly drunk on the free champagne and, after a terse response to my statement of how much pleasure they had given me, proceeded to ignore me and enjoy a riotous conversation that seemed to me - in my seat a bit removed from theirs - to be far from the cleverness they demonstrated in the media. This was probably just "sour grapes" on my part.
For once my chutzpah deserted me!