I Am What I Am by John Barrowman (white hot kiss .TXT) 📕

drizzle between takes, I’d taken to driving my rented SUV as close to the location as possible. I sat inside the car as the director set up the shot, and I kept my eyes on those llamas.

Now, I don’t know much about llamas, other than the whole ‘head on the can of polish’ thing and that they make a tasty sausage,15 but I thought this particular group looked angry and just plain mean.

When the director called for me, I walked across the grass and made my way into the herd. I swear I could hear them hissing and taunting me.

‘Can you get a little closer, John?’

I took two steps towards to the llama the director wanted in his shot. It turned and stared at me. I think I heard it chuckle malevolently.

‘A little closer please, John.’

‘This, Mr DeMille,’ I said, ‘is way close enough.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘MAKE THE DIRT STICK’

★

‘I want you all to know that I’m writing this … stark naked, with my knees behind my ears, and I’m using only one hand.’

A. A. Gill

A few good lessons learned from a really bad week

1 Sometimes going along for a ride can take you in the wrong direction (especially if it’s in a wheelbarrow on the radio).

2 Apologize first, analyse later.

3 Just because I have confidence in me, doesn’t mean my blues don’t get black.

4 Being ‘seen’ on the radio is an oxymoron.

When I was growing up in America in the late seventies and eighties, I adored TV series like The Donny and Marie Show, The Sonny and Cher Show and Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters because they had spectacle, surprises, banter and lots of music. Little-known fact: when I was performing at Opryland USA in Nashville in the eighties, my first TV gig was as a backing dancer and singer on Barbara Mandrell’s Opryland Special, and, might I say, she was a treat to work behind.

About two years ago, when the BBC and I first began serious discussions regarding a possible series for a Saturday night, even before we imagined Tonight’s the Night, I knew I wanted two things: firstly, that the programme hark back to those variety shows of my youth; and secondly, that the company set up by Gavin and me, Barrowman Barker Productions (BBP), be part of the production team.

Oh, I loved the style and tone and sheer razzle-dazzle of those entertainment programmes from the eighties, and lots of little details about them have stayed with me. I knew that I wanted every show to open with a big, glitzy, Busby Berkeley-style number; and towards the middle of the opening song, I wanted to cut in with that episode’s menu. To me, this small moment was a quintessential element of a variety show.

I imagined the opening for Tonight’s the Night to go something like this.

Big number. Big number. Dancers dancing. Music drops. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, on tonight’s show we have a Welsh woman who always wanted to perform as a Jersey Boy, four colleagues from Kent who can do amazing things with their flutes, plus … Chaka Khan!’1

On Tonight’s the Night, I wanted nostalgia, spectacle, audience surprises and compelling live drama. Unfortunately, the week before the show was officially commissioned by the BBC, my life was overwhelmed with more drama and controversy than even I could handle, and it sent me spiralling into a physical and emotional tailspin.

Big number. Big number. Dancers dancing. Music drops. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in this chapter we have the story behind the story of me flashing “my boys” on BBC Switch on Radio 1, plus … Chaka Khan!’

When I think about the events surrounding the incident that was quickly labelled ‘Ballgate’, I go from good humour to anger in less than sixty seconds flat. I’m not angry at myself much anymore, and certainly not at the DJs, Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac, their producer, or anyone at the BBC. Instead, what angers me most when I think about the episode is that much of the outcry in the days following the actual event was flamed by a couple of tabloid newspapers, and a handful of folks who had not witnessed the incident first hand.

How do I know this? Because the so-called ‘flash’ occurred on the radio – that’s right, on the radio, a purely aural medium, and one, in this case, without a live studio audience and with its web cameras turned off. I’m not saying that my outrageousness didn’t get out of control, it did, and I have taken full responsibility for any offence it caused those actually listening to the show, including making a public apology. But I’ve always felt that the incident got inflated into something bigger in the blogosphere than the actual act itself warranted. As a result, the flash of ‘my boys’ was heard, not seen – remember it happened on the radio – around the country.

Days later, the Times columnist A. A. Gill captured brilliantly what I believe was underpinning the consequences of the entire event. In a hysterically funny and politically pointed piece of satire, he wrote that ‘[t]he truth is nothing as salaciously vile as the imaginations of the prim’.

Here’s what happened. Gav usually travels with me to my scheduled appearances, but he left me to my own devices on this day and took a much-deserved break from what had been a hectic weekend schedule.

Would I have gone as far as I did in my outrageousness if Gavin had stayed with me? Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, Gavin went home, poured himself a glass of wine, put his feet up, and tuned his radio in to listen to the show from home, leaving me with Joe Bennett, my record-company publicity person, and Scott.

During this particular BBC radio show, it’s not unusual for guests to play games and carry on with the DJs – and you know me, I rarely need an invitation to do either. On this Sunday evening, the antics got progressively more out of hand as the show went on. At