How bipolar struggle and drugs took toll, by comic Slattery, 59
COMEDIaN Tony Slattery has spoken of his daily battle to survive as he struggles with bipolar disorder.
The 59-year-old rose to fame in the 1980s, starring in british television shows such as Channel 4’s improvised humour show Whose Line Is it anyway? He also appeared in the 1992 film Peter’s Friends.
but his promising career was blighted by mental illness and an addiction to drugs and alcohol. Slattery, who has worked only sporadically in television and on stage in recent years, now lives in a rented home in Edgware, North London and says he cannot afford tickets to the theatre.
He told the Sunday Mirror that his only plan for his 60th birthday was to ‘survive’, adding: ‘You wake up and, if you’re alive, cool – go from there if you can.’
Speaking about the toll of bipolar disorder, he said: ‘I could write you a book on bipolarity. It’s one of those hidden things, it’s complicated. So many people have it – the spectrum is enormous. but it hugely helps to talk about it – to get it out, discuss it. There used to be a huge stigma. I get very annoyed when people talk about happy pills – because there’s no such thing. antidepressants can be really useful and effective, but they’re not a panacea.’
Slattery, who lives with his partner, actor Mark Michael Hutchinson, said he spent £4,000 a week on cocaine before he suffered a mental breakdown in 1996. In the 1980s he was a student at Cambridge, where he joined Footlights and became friends with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
Fry also has bipolar disorder and Slattery said: ‘Stephen is one of my heroes. He’s been hugely influential on my way of thinking. He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.’