It helps to talk about my mental illness, says Slattery
THE comedian Tony Slattery has spoken of his daily battle with bipolar disorder, claiming his only plan for his 60th year is to “survive”.
The comic regularly appeared on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Have I Got News For You in the Eighties and Nineties, but has only worked sporadically in TV and onstage in recent years.
Slattery told the Sunday Mirror he now lived in a “tiny, not nice” rented two-bedroom flat with his partner because he had never bought a home at the height of his career.
In the Nineties, he was spending £4,000 a week on drugs, which led to a breakdown in 1996, when he did not leave his flat for six months.
He is now touring again, but speaking about his continuing battle with mental illness, he said: “You wake up and, if you’re alive, cool – go from there if you can. I could write you a book on bipolarity. It’s one of those hidden things, it’s complicated.
“That’s not to say, ‘Oh God, aren’t I special’. So many people have it – the spectrum is enormous. But it hugely helps to talk about it.”
Slattery’s career began after Stephen Fry invited him to join the Footlights theatre club at Cambridge University. For years he worked alongside Fry, Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie and their revue won the first Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1981.
But drugs and depression took their toll to such an extent that Julie Walters once intervened on the set of the 2005 film Ahead of the Class.
“She sat me down and said, ‘One, Tony, I think you’re a good actor, but there’s a darkness inside you. Two, you smell a bit of vodka. Three, take it easy’. I think there’s a capability in me to be really dangerous and sinister.
“I’m pleased mental health is discussed more openly now. 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.”