Sincere form of Slattery
TV STARS come and go. TV stars have always come and gone. Some will disappear because they’ve had little to offer in the first place, besides a fleeting novelty value. Others will disappear because fashions and tastes have changed and they’ve refused to change with them.
But occasionally a star’s disappearance will be both baffling and bewilderingly abrupt.
One minute they’re everywhere, the next they’re nowhere to be seen.And we’re left to wonder what on earth’s happened to them.
Comedian Tony Slattery was one such star.To say Tony was everywhere in the late 80s and early 90s, TV-wise at least, really isn’t an exaggeration.
Well, all right, it’s a slight one: he wasn’t reading the news or presenting Countryfile.
But what I mean is he was forever popping up on sketch shows and panel games and, most famously at the time, Channel 4’s improvisational comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway? Tony’s ever-presence actually became something of a running joke in its own right. But few could deny he was a funny, talented man.
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH TONY SLATTERY? (BBC2, 9pm) reminds us of all this – and then reminds us what happened next. Namely, that it all went extraordinarily quiet.
In 1996,Tony vanished from our screens, seemingly overnight. For the best part of a decade he was then rarely seen at all.
Appearances since have been few and far between.And the explanation? A simple one is that it all got too much. “I think there was always a manic part of me,” he tells the programme.
“There was always a predisposition to mood swings. Then came being on telly a lot, and being in theatre, and having people laugh at you and trying to entertain.”
But obviously it wasn’t just that. Nor was it due entirely to his ill-advised coping methods. “Too much booze, doing drugs, I think that’s partly it.”
Tony was diagnosed with depression at the time, but now, at the age of 60, feels it’s time to have his mental health properly reassessed. Tony’s partner Mark, who’s been with him for more than 30 years, wonders if a childhood trauma may be to blame.
Will a new psychiatric analysis prove him right?
Elsewhere tonight, THE QUEEN: INSIDETHE CROWN
(ITV, 9pm) includes a look at how the Royal Family have been coping during the coronavirus crisis.
Seventy-one-year-old Prince Charles, of course, made a relatively speedy recovery after being diagnosed with the disease, but there are some who believe that Her Majesty, who turned 94 last month, also came perilously close to succumbing.