Opportunity to see how other half live

ILIVE in a very modest apartment. Why, I still have the same Habitat Basics range crockery, cutlery and glassware that got for my first studio flat over 35 years ago.

I was working at the Edinburgh Festival at the time and whenever I had an hour to spare I would go and browse in their store.

Then, when I got back to Bath, we took the Natural Theatre van to the Bristol branch and just handed my shopping list over to the staff.

They were about to close, so they were none too pleased. However, since I was purchasing the entire contents of my new home including sofa, chairs, bed, saucepans, towels and a work station, they had to grin and bear it.

‘Orf went the van with me home packed in it’ as the old music hall song goes!

True, my newly furnished flat resembled a set piece straight out of the catalogue and I looked scruffily out of place but I was very proud of my trendy bijou palace. And a friend soon ruined the illusion by leaving a large fag burn in my bright yellow armchair.

Although my place of residence has mainly been on the humble side due to pecuniary limitations, in my occupation as an actor I have on several occasions been required to pretend to reside in somewhat grander surroundings. As part of a very elaborate murder mystery event directed by none other than Sandi Toksvig I played a butler caught in flagrante delicto with the housekeeper in a very ornate bedchamber in a stately home.

The unsuspecting audience thought they were being given a guided tour and burst in on us.

From then on the story evolved, ending up with me dead under the grand piano in the morning room, while silver framed photographs of the (real) owners’ best friends, namely Charles and Diana, looked down on my prostrate body.

Another time I had to pretend to be the lord of the manor in a mansion near Bath as part of a magical mystery bus tour. All signs of it being a public visitor attraction, such as rope barriers and protective matting were removed so as to make it look like my home. As the audience listened in hushed awe to my welcome speech, an astute pensioner in the party asked very loudly ‘If he really lives here, how come all the Country Life magazines on his coffee table are years out of date?’

In Hampton Court Palace where we were part of a tapestry research project, I was passing an elaborate staircase in a part of the building that I probably shouldn’t have entered when there was a call from above.

To my surprise, a wicker basket came down the stairwell on a rope. Attached to it was Lady Baden Powell’s shopping list. I had wandered into an area reserved for grace and favour apartments and her ladyship had mistaken me for a tradesman. The very thought!

The story evolved, ending up with me

dead under the grand piano in the morning room, while

silver framed photographs of the (real) owners’ best

friends, namely Charles and Diana, looked down on my

prostrate body