They asked me back twice and I said No!
ANGUS DEAYTON
recreate their influential 1980s satirical Radio 4 show Radio Active, using the show’s original scripts, on a national live tour starting later this month following a run at the Edinburgh Fringe last year .
Missing from the original line-up is the late Geoffrey Perkins, Deayton’s close friend and cowriter on the show. The tour is dedicated to him.
The Radio Active cast met at Oxford University in the 1970s in the Oxford Revue, Oxford’s answer to the Cambridge Footlights.
It was “a purple patch”, as Deayton puts it, for Oxford comedy as many people swiftly went on to become famous, including Rowan Atkinson (with whom Deayton performed as straight man) and Richard “Love Actually” Curtis. Deayton recalls it was Curtis who recruited him to the troupe over a curry, even though his performing CV was practically nonexistent.
Radio Active, a satirical parody of radio programming which also features musical parodies of bands such as the Bee Gees, began at the Oxford Revue before it was taken up ON TOUR: With Philip Pope, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Michael Fenton Stevens by Radio 4 and later became TV’s KYTV.
Atkinson-Wood, best remembered as the eccentric Mrs Miggins in Blackadder, played the foodobsessed presenter Anna Daptor.
So is working with his ex awkward? “Not really, no. It was probably 30-odd years ago [that they were together]. We are good friends. Helen only lives round the corner from me. We remained in touch all this time.”
He has also remained close with the rest of the Radio Active cast: “We never split for artistic reasons or anything like that.” He misses Perkins, who died in 2008 aged 55 following a c a r accident. Deayton’s habitually ironic demeanour turns serious. “It’s slightly odd not having him there. We used to write the show together. “We were very close. After Radio Active he produced just about every comedy show on UK TV. I’m godfather to one of his kids. We holidayed together. “There is a large Geoffrey-shaped hole in my life and probably always will be. I miss him terribly.” For a moment Deayton looks close to tears. In Radio Active, Deayton played and created smug, sarcastic radio boss Mike Channel and admits this fictional character influenced his HIGNFY persona and even acting roles such as in One Foot In The Grave. “Most of the comedy characters I played have been extensions of my own personality and very similar to Mike Channel. It’s a weird eclectic mixture of your genuine character and the character you portray. “When I had to start presenting things as myself, the voice that I was using was pretty much the voice of Mike Channel. He was all those words that began with S, snide, sarcastic, supercilious.” Deayton is about to channel “all the Ss” again in a new Radio 4 sitcom Alone, which he calls “a sort of Friends for 40 and 50-somethings” about five single middle-aged people sharing the same building.
“They are in and out of each other’s flats. It’s about their professional life and their romantic life, how they get on each other’s nerves. It’s very funny.” What is his character like? “Oh, sardonic, supercilious,” he laughs.
Also in development is a semiautobiographical TV sitcom along the lines of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Deayton gets fed up with people claiming he’s making a comeback and points out he was back working on the BBC “within a week” of his HIGNFY sacking.
STILL in demand, he enjoys trips to music festivals and his house in Umbria to which he often invites friends. His only vice nowadays is “good wine”.
The one thing missing is a partner. Is he happy on his own? He smiles, as ever, enigmatically. “I’m not particularly on the lookout but,” he pauses mischievously and even a tad wolfishly, “if Sienna Miller wants to get in touch…” There’s life perhaps still in TV’s Mr Sex…
Angus Deayton appears in the Radio Active UK Tour from April 20-May 19. For information and tickets go to socomedy.co.uk