New blog about an exchange with the Independent's Johann Hari.

If you would like to read this blog, please click here and follow the link

Sorry I can't post direct - I lose all my hyperlinks if I do.

Thanks

David

If you would like to read this blog, please click here and follow the link

Thanks

David

I have long been of the opinion that the best way to neutralise your enemies is to make friends with them. World Peace would break out tomorrow if only everyone followed my advice but, since this is the first time I have given it, they might be forgiven for carrying on with their battles for now.

I know how difficult it is though, because I am as guilty as anyone of harbouring resentments and bearing grudges, usually against foes I have never even met and whose main crime is to be more successful than myself. Since this takes in much of the entertainment profession, the burden can at times be almost unbearable. Delicious though it is to wish ill upon those whose glory one covets, it is a self-negating indulgence: for if success is not good enough for them how can it be good enough for you?

I had an opportunity to relearn this lesson in an extraordinary meeting I had last Sunday.

I was boarding a train at York on my way home to London after a short run with Future Me at the Theatre Royal. Who should I see on the platform but my arch-nemesis, the actor Michael Sheen, the object of a futile grudge I have been carrying since the 16th of March 2006.

It was on the morning of that day that I had a call from the guest-bookers on Richard and Judy's Channel 4 show. Would I come on and talk about Kenneth Williams, as there was a film going out that night on BBC4 about his life called Fantabulosa.

As an actor one is obliged to grab any opportunity for exposure that comes your way and so there was no question of my refusing, though I deep misgivings about it and even nurtured a nagging feeling of resentment. How DARE they ask me to come on and talk about SOMEONE ELSE'S impersonation of the man I had spent the last ten years portraying in my own show Think No Evil of Us. Who was this Johnny-come-lately upstart, destroying all my years of work, taking all the praise that was surely due to me?

What's more, I had read the script in advance and knew what I thought about the play. The part had first been offered to my friend Reece Shearsmith. I have known the League Of Gentlemen boys since 1996 when we met at the Edinburgh Fringe, where we were launching ourselves on the world for the first time. We met on a guest-based show called Mervyn Stutter's Pick of the Fringe. I did the opening speech from Think No Evil of Us and they did their now-classic sketch about the three men in an Indian restaurant getting very upset about a badly-told joke. My first thought as I watched these young lads in dinner suits was, 'Oh dear. Another Monty Python-wannabe student sketch show?'
Within two minutes I had totally revised my opinion and decided they were brilliant and that they would do very well - though I could never have predicted the astonishing rise to fame and glory that they went on very soon afterwards. I didn't resent their triumphs, not only because I knew and loved them but because I didn't feel I could do what they did better. Nevertheless it was impossible not reflect on the very different trajectories our career paths had taken.

So Reece, for whatever reason, decided that Fantabulosa was not for him and very kindly sent me his copy of the script, advising me to tell my agent that the part might now be available. I knew it was unlikely by this point because when whispers had first been heard that the project was being developed, my then agent got in contact with the producers and asked if they would like to see me for the part of Kenneth Williams. He also sent a video of a performance of my show. That was as far as we had got. The next time he asked we got a firm, 'No thanks."

My chagrin was intensified as I started to read the script and came across a scene that seemed to me strikingly similar to one in Think No Evil of Us. In Fantabulosa, Williams leans out of his upstairs window and flirts outrageously with a group of workmen digging up the road below. There follow some lines reminiscent of the ones in my show, which go: "I was just admiring your hole, young man. Ooh, you've got a lovely big 'ole, haven't you dear! Etc." I remember vividly sitting in my flat in Edinburgh in early 1996, writing those lines and laughing as I imagined Kenneth saying them.

I was amazed to read such similar lines in the play but I did not know what to do about it: to complain would look like sour grapes and anyway, I cautioned myself, maybe I was wrong: maybe I had read the words somewhere else and was myself guilty of subconscious plagiarism. So I let it go.

So, there I am on Richard and Judy with, thank goodness, Barry Cryer on the sofa with me. He was utterly delightful and amazed me by telling me that he not only knew who I was but he had seen my show - I had no idea! I was in awe of him, the man who hosted Joker's Wild in the 1970s and who wrote for and knew Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, you name 'em.

Richard and Judy were... very professional. When the lights came on they talked to us; when the lights went out they talked to each other.

They played a clip from Fantabulosa and what do you think it was? Michael Sheen as Kenneth leaning out his window and braying on about the workmen's holes. The lights came up and Richard turned to me. What did I think?

The rest is a blank for me, I'm afraid. I have a vague recollection of forcing my lips into a rictus grimace and giving my blessing to the whole enterprise. What else could I do? To have demurred for a second would have betrayed my discomfort and made me look as bitter and dismayed as in fact I was.

It was hard for me to accept that it was time for me to give up the self-appointed mantle of The World's Greatest Kenneth Williams Impersonator that I treasured so long. It was impossible for to me look with any objectivity at Michael Sheen's performance, soon to be feted with the very epithets that had once been mine: 'uncanny', 'has the voice to perfection', 'Kenneth Williams reborn'. Until now I have only been able to watch the first few minutes, before turning off in anguish.

To make matters worse, this Sheen impostor has built his career into one that any actor would wish for himself, triumphing on stage, on television and recently in a series of top-rated movies: The Queen, Frost/Nixon and his new one about Brian Clough. Nothing he touches has the least hint of failure about it. He triumphs time and again. I decided he had to be killed.

So there I am on the platform at York last Sunday morning, girding my loins for an arduous journey ahead with severe disruptions thanks to engineering work, and there on the platform with a nice-looking young lady (his PR person, I surmised) was Michael Sheen, movie star - totally unrecognised by anyone on the busy platform except myself.

I blanched. Should I ignore him?

Yes. I decided if I approached him he would look me coldly in the eye and say, 'Look mate, you do your show and I?ll do mine. If you'd been good enough, they would have cast you. Now excuse me, I have a new blockbuster movie script I have to read.'

The train pulled in, I hustled forward to board by the nearest available door, turned round to find him right behind me. I had to say something, so I quipped, 'Unusual to find two Kenneth Williams impersonators on the same train!' He laughed, immediately realised who I was and mentioned a mutual friend he had seen recently. The ice broken, we clambered on board where his girlfriend (not PR agent) Lorraine Stewart had bagged a table. Just in case it got nasty, I told them I had to do some reading (which is true: I have a massive biography of Samuel Johnson I have to get through, research for a performance I will be giving at the British Library in June about the great lexicographer - more soon!) but would sit with them for a few minutes and until the train got going.

It soon became apparent that Dr. Johnson would have to wait his turn because I have to tell you, we got on like a house on fire. I found both Lorraine and Michael totally charming, open, friendly and quite unaffected by the extraordinary lives they lead. I was astonished that they were travelling in a second-class carriage with scum like me. I would have hired a helicopter.

We spent the entire three-and-a-half hour journey together, during which we were kicked off one train and onto a bus for a ninety-minute ride to Hatfield (I had to turn round in my seat to continue my monologue and was soon overwhelmed by waves of travel nausea which continued for the rest of the journey) and from there, in scenes reminiscent of the exodus from Kosovo, we headed for a tatty little commuter train which we just managed to board before the doors suddenly closed, bisecting an entire family. I shall never forget the anguished cries of dismay from the ladies left on the platform as we pulled out, nor the tears that filled the over-made-up eyes of their hysterical, perma-tanned, too-tight white-trousered lost daughter, cleaved forever from the bosom of her family by an over-zealous First Capital Connect operative.

Michael watched all this from a standing position wide-eyed with wonder. It was the only time that day that I felt like I was actually in a Michael Sheen movie.

When we finally arrived back at King's Cross Platform 10b, we were friends. It felt like a huge relief, to have given up an enmity which had poisoned only myself. I shouldn't have had to meet the man and find him so good-hearted to have got to this stage, but now I have I wish only good things for him.

In the meantime, what do I have to complain about? I am busy at the moment, thoroughly enjoying my work, making enough money to pay the rent and get by without threat of imminent starvation, which must be cause for wonder rather than dissatisfaction. I am on my own path, doing it my own way and grateful to be doing so.

Writing this account, I was reminded of some words of Samuel Johnson's that I came across in my reading, which I imagine have brought solace to generations of self-pitying, neglected artistes. In this case Johnson is referring to writers but it is the same for anyone who tries to make a living by pleasing the public:

'... though it should happen that an author is capable of excelling, yet his merit may pass without notice, huddled in the variety of things, and thrown into the general miscellany of life. He that endeavours after fame by writing, solicits the regard of a multitude fluctuating in pleasures, or immersed in business, without time for intellectual amusements; he appeals to judges prepossessed by passions, or corrupted by prejudices, which preclude their approbation of any new performance. Some are too indolent to read anything, till its reputation is established; others too envious to promote that fame which gives them pain by its increase. What is new is opposed, because most are unwilling to be taught; and what is known is rejected, because it is not sufficiently considered, that men more frequently require to be reminded than informed. The learned are afraid to declare their opinion early, lest they should put their reputation in hazard; the ignorant always imagine themselves giving some proof of delicacy, when they refuse to be pleased: and he that finds his way to reputation, through all these obstructions, must acknowledge that he is indebted to other causes besides his industry, his learning, or his wit.'
Rambler No. 2, 24th March 1750


Photo: Lorraine Stewart, Kings Cross Station 15th March 2009


More at my site - please register for updates!

Thought you might be interested in a battle I have been having with the forces of darkness on an Alex Jones' Infowars comment thread.

http://http://www.infowars.com/?p=1594

The article is now off the front page so search in the World News Archive on the front page for:
Traditional Terminology Under Attack by "Gay Lobbyists" in New South Wales


In case you don't know, Alex Jones Infowars is one of the first ports of call for those of us seeking alternative news to the mainstream media (MSM). He is a vocal proponent of the New World Order 'conspiracy theories', many of which seem perfectly plausible to me when backed up with verifiable evidence. One aim of the site is to expose disinformation by the MSM and its techniques of disinformation and black propaganda.

What a hideous surprise then, to find him publishing an anti-gay smear story concocted by a Murdoch rag (the Australian Daily Telegraph), a story whose only aim was to stir up anti-gay righteousness. As the comments pages below the article show it was wildly successful in this, provoking a terrifying howl of homophobic protest from Infowars readers.

I am afraid that in my frequent contributions to the ensuing debate, I sometimes used intemperate language, something of which I do not usually approve of on comments pages. But really, these people just had to be told.

I have now officially bowed out of the fray, in disgust and dismay, so will not visit it for a while.

But I invite you to - and to leave a comment if the urge grabs you.

Let me know what happens...

David x

from: www.waynemadsenreport.com

February 28, 2008 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Diana inquest reportedly a smokescreen

WMR has learned from informed sources in Britain that the current inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana, her friend Dodi al Fayed, and driver Henri Paul in a Paris auto accident is an attempt to obfuscate the actual details of Diana's death, reportedly an assassination carried out not by British intelligence agents from MI-6, but an American hit squad.

The inquest into Diana's death has featured tirades from Mohamed al Fayed directed against Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the Queen; Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles; and other members of the British royal establishment.

The assassination of Diana, a crusader against the proliferation of WHDs (weapons of human destruction), i.e., land mines, may have had more to do with knowledge she obtained about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) smuggling, particularly nuclear weapons.

Diana made banning land mines her personal cause and as a result of her work she obtained detailed information concerning the legal and illegal proliferation of land mines in all their forms, including chemical and nuclear mines. The knowledge of who and what were behind this proliferation may have earned Diana a death sentence.

British Ministry of Defense WMD expert Dr. David Kelly was also knowledgeable about the same weapons smuggling loop that Diana had discovered. However, in Kelly's case, he knew of nuclear weapons proliferation involving three South African nuclear bombs assembled with the help of Israeli nuclear scientists at the covert South African nuclear weapons facility at Pelindaba nuclear research facility, near Pretoria. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors who visited Pelindaba and the state-owned Armaments Corporation of South Africa (ARMSCOR) Advena nuclear facility near Pretoria in 1990 and 1991 were tricked into believing that South Africa's nuclear weapons had all been dismantled by the outgoing apartheid regime. However, three South African nuclear weapons were reportedly sold to "private investors" with the up-front money coming from British government coffers.

Reimbursement for the ARMSCOR nuclear weapons was made to Britain only after the three weapons, spirited out of South Africa in three 20' ISO standard containers, arrived at a private storage facility in Oman for safekeeping. The containers had a special seal on the lock of the rear door of each container along with a temperature gauge in the front of the containers that was connected to the core of the bombs to indicate that the bomb was not overheating inside the containers.

There are indications that one of the bombs was eventually sold to North Korea.

WMR has also learned that the nuclear smuggling operations involved top members of the British Conservative Party, including individuals close to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Tory party soon received a mystery donation of £17.8 million. The donation was filed with the Tory party's Fiscal Year 1992 Annual Accounts filed with Companies House. An insider at the Tory party's Central Office tipped off a Labor Party Member of Parliament, Doug Hoyle, about the mystery donation. It turned out that the Tory MP in question was Tim Smith. Smith had been an MP for Beaconsfield since 1982 when he defeated a little-known Labor candidate named Tony Blair.

Smith was forced to step down in 1997 after he, along with fellow Tory MP Neil Hamilton were accused of accepting payments in return for asking certain questions in the House of Commons in 1994, a scandal known as the "cash for questions" affair. In July 1997, a month prior to Diana's death in Paris, a parliamentary report authored by senior civil servant Sir Gordon Downey cleared lobbyist Ian Green, Smith, and Hamilton of the original allegations that Greer had paid the two MPs to ask questions. However, Downey did find it as "compelling evidence" that three individuals processed cash payments to Hamilton. The three individuals were employees of Mohamed el Fayed.

Apparently, Smith and Hamilton were snooping around on the source of the mystery donation to the Tory party and certain circles were afraid where that investigation might lead. Therefore, it was incumbent on these parties to frame Smith and Hamilton, thius ending their political careers.

Hamilton later sued Fayed for libel over comments made by the wealthy Harrod's owner on television. Hamilton lost that trial but he soon discovered that Fayed had obtained a cache of confidential documents stolen from the offices of Hamilton's lawyers' office. Hamilton lost his appeal of the libel suit when the Appellate Court ruled that Fayed's possession of the documents would not have materially affected the outcome of Hamilton's libel suit.

The involvement of key Tories in the South African nuclear smuggling case was a direct violation of the Nuclear Explosions Act, which also applies to foreign jurisdictions like South Africa and Oman.

The investigation also led to Tory politicians Jonathan Aitken, a junior Defense Minister between 1992 and 1994 and MP. Aitken became a director of BMARC, a subsidiary of the defense contractor, the Astra Group, which was linked to arms smuggling to Iran and Iraq, including the "Supergun" affair involving Gerald Bull, the Canadian engineer who variably worked with Saddam Hussein's regime, Israeli Military Industries (IMI), ARMSCOR, and the CIA, and who was assassinated by Mossad in Brussels in 1990. Astra's Chairman Gerald James, a longtime supporter of white rule in Rhodesia, had criminal charges dismissed against him in the Matrix Churchill arms smuggling scandal involving Saddam Hussein's government after Alan Clark, the Tory Minister for Defense Procurement, interceded with the court. Clark died of a brain tumor in 1999.

Aitken, who was jailed for perjury in 1999, had been linked to an arms smuggling scandal involving Saudi Arabia. It was later discovered that Aitken fathered a daughter with the ex-wide of Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi is the brother-in-law of Fayed, his sister being the mother of Dodi Fayed. Khashoggi lives in Monaco and remains on good terms with a nearby part-time resident of southern France, Richard Perle.

It is noteworthy that Aitken later became enamored with the UK Independence Party, a group that also attracted the interest of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent who was allegedly poisoned with polonium by Russian government agents, but as previously reported by WMR was likely involved in a nuclear smuggling operation involving the Russian-Israeli mafia and certain of its tycoons who reside in Britain.

The long involvement of British and American firms, businessmen, and politicians with weapons smuggling, including nuclear weapons smuggling, has left a long paper trail, including files held by the United Nations on behalf of the IAEA in the UN Secretariat building in New York. WMR has learned from a former British Defense Ministry source that the assassination team that dispatched Diana and Dr. Kelly were not MI-6 but a US Navy SEAL team that operates abroad to target individuals who have been sanctioned for assassination. It should also be noted that Blackwater USA was largely formed by ex-US Navy SEAL personnel.

Tell me if I am being over-sensitive. God knows, I don't want to be anybody's victim. But today I was sitting on the bus flicking through London Lite, one of the free papers, and I came across an article headlined: 'The Costa del crime is to go back in time'.

It is about this BBC series Life on Mars being remade in Spain. The paper printed a column of supposedly hilarious translations of phrases presumably popular from the series. The one that caught my eye was: 'You great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man United-supporting poof!' Translated into Spanish! Apart from the bits about Man United and being French, oddly. It reminded me of the worst days of the AIDS scare in the mid-1980s when you would see people on trains reading the most vile gay-hating filth in the tabloids.

There was always going to be a reaction to so-called political correctness and I suppose now the pendulum is swinging firmly back. It is now politically incorrect to object to a gross insult, whether you are female, Muslim, Eastern European, homosexual, old or, worst of all, a 'liberal'.

As one who was recently thrown off BBC Radio London at midnight for saying 'buggery' (a word most commonly used by lawyers) it is all rather dispiriting and perplexing.

Here is the only footage of Clayton and I doing our Leslie bit at the House of Homosexual Culture/Polari event Between The Covers.
The camera ran out of gas a few minutes in, so this is all we have.

I have just added to my Home Page a podcast feature on which you will find a selection of recordings, old and new. I will be adding lots more to the list in the next few weeks.

Thanks to Clayton for the tutorial




Happy New Year!

D x

Thought you'd like to know about a lovely radio job I did recently, to be broadcast on December 22nd on BBC Radio 4.

My old friend Mark (League of Gentlemen) Gatiss wrote a good, funny part for me to play alongside a stellar cast. The BBC press release (below) fails to mention me for some strange reason - my obscurity probably. But I have a great part and I was delighted that all my scenes were with the brilliant Julia Davis, whose BBC4 series Nighty Night was one of the funniest, cleverest things I have seen on tv in years. I also had scenes with that man who plays Dr. Who, and I am happy to report that he was not only superb in the role but very, very nice to work with. Oh, if only jobs like this came along every week. One grabs them when they do and makes the bloody most of them!

Hope you enjoy. You should be able to hear it on the BBC website after the initial broadcast, if you miss it.


The Wooden Overcoat
Saturday 22 December
2.30-3.30pm BBC RADIO 4

David Tennant and Julia Davis star in this macabre and hilarious drama set in London in 1951 and dramatised by Mark Gatiss. Benji has murdered his mistress and, much to his surprise, he has got away with it.

At a loss as to what to do after his acquittal, Benji discovers the Asterisk Club, founded by Clifford Flush. The Club is for those who have strayed beyond the pale, but not paid the ultimate price. To join, qualified prospective members must name the Club as the beneficiary of their will to enjoy its comforts and unique benefits.

However, with the Club full, Benji finds himself lodging in a rat-infested house next door with a young bohemian couple, Fan and Peter. Retired rat catcher Mr Alfred L Beesum arrives but, suddenly, Benji is found dead.

Set in the pre-chic Chelsea of rat-infested boarding houses and tattered ration books, The Wooden Overcoat stars Tom Allen as Benji, Julia Davis as Fan, David Tennant as Peter and Alan David as Mr Beesum.

Producer/Kate McAll

Here are the dates for my tour-ette of the show I put together for Salisbury Playhouse last year - a Bensonian Christmas entertainment in which I am accompanied by my esteemed colleague ('Conspiracy Cabaret') and friend Alex Silverman at the piano.

Among the delights we offer, besides the seasonal songs and patter, are the original Pauper's Christmas (''Twas Christmas Day in the workhouse...'), The Signalman by Charles Dickens, Mr. Brindley's Christmas Assembly and a rousing Panto Finale.

Review of last year's show below.

Hope you can make it!

Love

David


Thurs 13-Dec The Plough, Wood Street, Walthamstow London
8.30pm
020 8503 7419 www.theploughinne17.co.uk


Sat 15-Dec Old Town Hall Hemel Hempstead
8pm

01442 228091
http://www.oldtownhall.co.uk


Tues 18-Dec Bloomsbury Theatre London
8pm
020 7388 8822
http://www.thebloomsbury.com


Thurs 20-Dec Plough Arts Great Torrington, North Devon
2pm & 7.30pm
01805 624624 http://www.plough-arts.org


Sat 22-Dec Christmas Party Selby Town Hall Selby
8pm
01757 213758
http://www.selbytownhall.co.uk



Salisbury Journal review

'A great celebratory night'

JOKES, jests, jolly tunes, and a scary rendition of a 19th Century ghost story inspired by Charles Dickens.

These are only a glimpse into the pot pourri which is David Benson's Christmas Party, currently delighting patrons in the Salberg Studio.

Mr Benson... with his remarkable versatility, offers guests a real taste of personal hospitality and a beano prepared, as it were, exclusively for the visitor and a few friends.

Clearly well versed in the art of the one-man show, David Benson moves easily from popular song to verse and to sketch.

Many of the more outgoing guests are encouraged to produce their own party pieces, a popular feature this, which resulted in a surprise taste of The Ballad of Sam Hall, from Salisbury's Peter Padwick and even an extract from The Green Eye, from this writer.

But the star of the show is David Benson, whether as crotchety old Birmingham schoolmaster, pantomime dame Foxy Trot, or splendid raconteur.

And tales of Christmas Day in the workhouse and The Signalman of Hugby Junction set the seal on a night of spine-chilling escapism, much of which began life in Charles Dickens' first-hand experience of a rail crash in June 1865.