Thefeature

determined to do a show in Edinburgh, but he’s entirely unstressed about it

40 minute painful bit,” he worries. “I am very lucky – I was never bullied at school and I am rarely bullied now. I can honestly say that. I have never been shy of my sexuality. I never discussed it with my parents who are no longer with us, sadly. I never felt the need to discuss it.” I wonder aloud if they might not have guessed.

“I think they guessed,” he hoots. “I mean they met boyfriends, boyfriends used to come and stay or they would come and stay with me when I was living with my partners… but it was not something that needed to be said.

“The only… thing… I ever had about my sexuality was when AIDS was very prevalent and all gay people were considered to be murderers. It was very difficult to be a children’s performer and that is what I was doing two children’s series – Rentaghost and On Safari – so you couldn’t go shouting from the rooftops what you were.”

Biggins was born to be a National Treasure. “When I was at Bristol Old Vic drama school, an MP called Maughm, or something, said to me, ‘One day your laugh will make a million.’ That million spills out across the Ivy, and again, heads turn. If you ask him nicely when you have a Late Lunch with Biggins, you might hear some of the outrageous tales I cannot share here… the worries of having nowhere to masturbate in The Jungle, how he took cannabis on a TV documentary and woke up in a cave, the wondrously potty mouth of Miriam Margolyes and a story about Michael Mcintyre that rocked me to my very core. I do my journalistic best to inject some jeopardy into a first foray on to the Fringe but the National Treasure is having none of it.

“I do not have a stressful bone in my body,” he smiles. “Nothing worries me. Not even doing an Edinburgh chat show. I am really looking forward to it.”