Fast Show fans, assemble. The star cast of the fast-paced comedy sketch show, which became a hit in the 1990s, will reunite for a national tour this year.
Simon Day, the 62-year-old creator of beloved characters like Competitive Dad, Tommy Cockles, and eco-warrior Dave Angel, will be in the spotlight. Given that the actor claimed the show featured one of his favorite characters (any guesses as to who), even the likes of Johnny Depp, who also appeared on the show, and Amy Winehouse, will be pleased to learn the news. ).
Simon’s open confession that, in his teens, he was addicted to fruit machines was shocking to fans, but an unfavorable development from his first addiction, which was to fruit machines.
“It seems like it’s not a real addiction, but it’s exactly the same”, he says. “I was obsessed with fruities, I would play them all the time. If I wasn’t playing them I’d watch people play them, I’d steal money to play them”.
Now a dad himself to two teenagers, Lloyd and Evie, fortunately Simon can’t imagine them growing up the way he did.
After splitting up with his parents as a teenager and having left without any qualifications, Simon soon grew dependent on playing the fruit machines in the pub.
Petty theft followed, which spiralled into shoplifting on demand, and Simon was caught twice and put behind bars.
“I remember the judge went, ‘ I’m going to give you a chance: borstal training (reformatory system designed for young people aged 16 and 21), six months to two years, ‘” he says. “I just can’t imagine my little boy going through that kind of emotional trauma,” said one.
Young Simon was released after three months in Borstal and moved on to a number of short-lived minimum wage positions that he would eventually quit.
Comedy was something of a life-saver. He joined them on tour, where he developed his Tommy Cockles character, after having a chance encounter with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer while working at the fireplace shop under their office.
“I think you have to be quite mad to want to do stand-up comedy”, he reflects. “You’re essentially stepping onto a stage and saying, ‘ love me’, aren’t you? The way I did it, stand-up is like I need something more. It resembles an external validation process a little bit. It was a way of earning money, too. I was potless: I had no money, no skills, I’m dyslexic. Because I have chronic ADHD, I had little chance of ever being able to work anywhere. In those days they’d just say, ‘ you’re an idiot'”.
In 1994, Simon got the call to say he’d been cast in new BBC2 sketch show The Fast Show. Joining him were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Arabella Weir, the late Caroline Aherne, Mark Williams and John Thomson. Simon, who had spent his early 20s people-watching during his heyday as a successful person, found the character work to be extremely appealing.
“I’d had a whole life and I’d done a whole load of ‘ McJobs’, as they call them now”, he explains. Character comedy is not so much about making people laugh by beating them as it is about watching people, according to some people. However, I’d try to talk to someone if I used to meet them and discovered they were a little strange or off. And Paul would go, ‘ ooh right, good one today, eh? ‘”
Competitive Dad, who challenges his on-screen kids with every effort, was partially influenced by his own father.
“There’s a bit of my dad there, the sandals and socks”, Simon smiles. “He was a nice fella, my dad, but he could be a bit competitive. Many of those dads, in my opinion, were. He would enjoy beating me when he played squash.
One Competitive Dad sketch guest-stars a 14-year-old Amy Winehouse, who Simon remembers as being “miserable”. “She didn’t really speak, she sat at the back and was a bit miserable, looking around like ‘ what am I doing here? ‘ Which is probably right, because she’s a superstar so she was right to be thinking that”, he says.
Johnny Depp, who also cameoed on the show, cited Competitive Dad as one of his favourite characters. “Don’t tell Paul Whitehouse that, he’ll get very upset”, laughs Simon. “He’s quite competitive in that way. He’s constantly crying about Steve Coogan’s BAFTAs. He and Coogan used to have a BAFTA-off”.
Much of Simon’s comedy was shaped by his own childhood, growing up in south-east London in the 1970s.
He reveals that he attended a troubled secondary school and that he would make impressions of Fawlty Towers to prevent beating himself. “All comics did that. Most of my comics’ generations would claim that they had no way of stopping their impressions of contemporary comics from getting sucked round the earhole. It’s just a way of surviving, isn’t it”.
Simon has been determined that his own children, with wife Ruth, wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did growing up. He says, “I find it extraordinary that I’m still here someday. I have to stop myself and my son. He’s the loveliest kid, he’s obedient, he’s kind. He’s got a great sense of self, he’s not needy in any way.
Although I was 16 years old when I had a job and was ironing my own pants, I do sometimes feel like going. I once worked as a machinist at the JobCentre on Deptford High Street.
“They are living in a bubble now – which we’ve created. Perhaps the other way around has been too far. I think there has to be some form of hardship”.
A friend said something that stuck with Simon: “bring back 1970s parenting without the shaming”.
He explains: “You’ve got to wash the car, you’ve got to do your chores, but there’s no: ‘ you are absolutely useless. ‘ There’s no need for that. That was probably why there are so many comics of my generation because we had way too much of it when we were young.
Simon is honest about his own shortcomings, admitting that, just as he was finding fame, he was secretly struggling with his spiralling drug habit.
Dope and ecstasy turned to cocaine, which then led to crack, as he chronicled in his 2011 autobiography, Comedy and Error.
And the cast of the Fast Show didn’t realize how disastrous things had become. He claims that he was running with a small crowd when I first watched TV. He was suddenly given some cash to spend.
After England beat Spain in a football match, he refused to apologize to his support act, Dave Gorman, and did not show up for one of his own standup shows. Luckily, meeting waitress Ruth in 1998 changed his law-breaking ways, and through her tough love he got himself sorted out.
“I grew out of it”, he says now. “I don’t really go to pubs anymore”.
Although much has changed since The Fast Show’s 1997 ad, including specials from 2000 and 2014, Simon is eager to reunite for the show’s November national tour. “All the old gang together again, it’ll be fun”, he says.
Fans won’t, however, see their favorite characters becoming adults or, as in Paul Whitehouse’s Rowley Birkin QC case, becoming sober.
“Charlie]Higson] insists we keep it the same as it was, because it’s meant to be a greatest hits, so he doesn’t want jokes about fashionable things”, Simon smiles.
During his downtime, Simon has been working with long-term friend James Ohene-Djan, professor of Computer Science at Goldsmiths University, on MiCode – a QR code that keeps vital medical information and contacts stored in case of emergencies.
“It’s incredibly simple, so much so that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been invented before”, says Simon, who has experience of caring for his father-in-law with Alzheimer’s. “Our emergency services are so overrun. A&, Es are stuffed, they’re at full stretch. Is a person drunk if you spot him lying on the ground on a Saturday night? Is he on drugs? However, you can determine whether he needs glucose or something else if he has a MiCode.
For more information, go to micode. co. uk.
Source: Mirror
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