He may have been small, but he knew how to edge himself into the best place on every shot while filming. You'd be standing on your mark, ready for the off, and you'd be vaguely aware of this presence down by your left elbow gently pushing you out of the way. It would be Mike. Such was the rapport we built up between ourselves, I still laugh when I recall Danny on one such occasion turning to Mike and saying, "Shift, you little git."
The first few days of rehearsal were really just a chance to get to know everyone and make misjudged first impressions. Besides Kate, I met Mark Billingham, David Lloyd, Forbes Collins, Mike Edmonds, Howard Lew Lewis and last but by no means least, Danny John-Jules. I also 'met' Catherine Zeta-Jones (what is it with actors and double-barrelled surnames? Illegitimacy, if you ask me...) She stood in front of me at the queue for lunch in the BBC canteen - very nice, too much make-up - along with loads of other well known faces. It was very funny to see the black cashiers serve Russ Abbott or Steven Fry or Bob Monkhouse with the same world-weary nonchalance as if they were serving...well, me, holding their hands out for the money with mild impatience while catching up with the latest gossip from the guy on the sandwiches.
It was fantastic to sit there in the canteen and have your lunch with all these stars of stage and screen. You began to feel as though it was possible to become a member of this exclusive band of thesps and comics yourself. People would glance over to our table and wonder who the hell we were. A couple of our lot, though, had been in long-running series for the BBC before and all this was just a chance to say hello to their mates. Lew (Howard Lew Lewis) had been in Brush Strokes for years and was famous enough to have people in the street shout at him - something he loathed with a passion; Danny was in Red Dwarf, a cult Sci-fi series - he would have been upset if people didn't shout. The rest of us would watch with envy as this celebrity couple wandered off to other tables to catch up, leaving us feeling vulnerable and with no-one to network with. Occasionally, one of our group of Billy Nomates would see someone they vaguely knew and virtually leap from our sinking table and pounce on them. The rest of us would look at each other with shock and wonder how on earth they knew these famous strangers, making mental notes and changing our opinions. Even with all this insecurity flying about, I think we all knew we were the new act in town and that, we may be on an outside table, but this table was where the funny stuff was being made.
I think it would be fair to say that the acting in the first series was a little hysterical. We'd been set a pitch to work with and struggled to maintain the high level of energy without shouting every line. Lew and Danny, the old-hands, sailed through without overdoing anything. Danny was the master at under-cutting and came across as cool as a cucumber in the midst of the screaming - perfect for the part. I suppose he'd done his fair share of over-acting in Red Dwarf and Maid Marian was a chance for him to calm down.
The best work of the series was done by the guys from BBC Bristol who made all the props and built the village and castle. So much thought and humour had gone into it, the results were spectacular.
Every Sunday evening, I'd scream down the M4 in my new car, usually with Danny cadging a lift. He had a car, but didn't like using it too much and waste the rubber on the tyres. It wasn't really practical, anyway. It was a metallic blue beach buggy. He'd driven it down to Somerset at the beginning of the shoot and kept it there in someone's garage until the end, only bringing it out to cruise the sea-front. They say "A fool and his money are soon parted". Well, Danny was certainly no fool and a foul rumour swept the cast hotel that while we were downstairs in the restaurant, Danny was staying in his room and eating the free Kelloggs Cornflakes to avoid buying a round. In fact, I don't ever remember seeing Danny with money in his hand, unless it was someone else's.
He had fun in Minehead. Not only was he the only black face for miles, but he also had had dreadlocks weaved into his own hair for the part. Stick him in a beach buggy, plonk him in the York pub - a well-known haunt for Minehead's disillusioned youth - and it was only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the police.
As they were throwing him into the back of the van, Danny tried to explain that he was actually an actor working for the BBC. "Yes, Sir, and I'm Laurence Olivier. Get in the fucking back..."
He eventually got back to the hotel at four in the morning, prejudices intact, and spent the rest of the time in Minehead loud and proud, daring them to arrest him again. He gave the story to The News of the World and they ran a centre page spread. ("BBC actor wrongly arrested!" Shock, horror, probe.)
I seem to remember the officer in charge was done for some irregularity or other a couple of years later. Danny couldn't wipe the smile off his face for days.
I had a little controversy myself. We had all been staying in The Kildare Lodge for a few weeks quite happily. Forbes would bark at the staff, ordering them around, complaining about the sandwiches and generally be fairly demanding. The rest of us were pretty accomodating and kept ourselves to ourselves. One week-end, Jo came up to stay. While we were there, the extractor fan in the room wouldn't turn itself off and the lead to the little kettle was missing and I went down twice to ask if it would be possible to have the lead replaced and the fan switched off. Danny took us out to experience the local night club, "BJ's" , a natty little dive in Minehead where he was on first-name terms with all the staff. We left Danny to it after an hour or so of "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and got back to the hotel around eleven. I politely asked if it were possible to have a sandwich made for us. The sandwich was made and I thought nothing more of it.
The following morning, I went into the breakfast room to ask if it would be at all possible to have a bowl of Weetabix - Danny had eaten all the Cornflakes - as it was five past ten and, officially, they stopped serving at ten. The landlord's wife, who had been sweetness itself our entire stay and had served us every night in the hotel bar making small talk and being generally chatty, was in there with a loud Hoover. She switched the vacuum cleaner off and launched into a tirade of abuse that stopped me in my tracks. The venom spewed from her. "You bloody actors! You think you can just march in here and have anything you want! Bloody sandwiches in the middle of the night! Bloody itemised phone-bill! (I'd asked for one at the beginning of my stay) You just march around the back of the reception after I'd told the staff you weren't allowed there! (I'd gone round to the other side of the desk to help the girl find my phone records a couple of weeks before) You think you own the place!" I was speechless, shocked and offended at the same time. They'd been fawning over Forbes the entire time and we'd all been groaning at his behaviour watching them bend themselves double to fulfill his every whim, and all I wanted was a bowl of Weetabix! I'm surprised she didn't come out with "You and your London ways".
Actors are generally thought of as the scum of the earth, unless you've been on the TV in which case, you're everyone's best mate. You'll be talked at for hours if you were on the telly the night before, but, if you used to be on telly, you may as well have leprosy. And if you've never been on the telly, you may as well be syphilitic.
During the "Cabaret" tour, a group of us got back to the farm we were staying at a bit late. (midnight?). We'd lost the key to our part of the building so knocked on the front door. The guy who owned the place opened it in his pyjamas in a foul mood and dismissed us as "Bloody actors..." I felt like telling him to go fuck himself. I'm sure if any one of us had been in the least bit well-known, he'd have smiled his face off as he hunted eagerly for the key, dropped his trousers and offered us his arse.
Jo and I left the Kildare Lodge within the hour. I withheld 10% of my bill and suggested they were in the wrong job. Unlike Danny, I didn't call the newspapers ("She called me an actor!" Shock, horror, probe.)
Mike Edmonds who played Little Ron was great, a sort of Jim Davidson Mini-Me. I'd found a beautiful alternative to "The Kildare Splodge" in Dunster. The Castle Hotel was right in the middle of this impossibly attractive market village and very near to the Forresters' Arms, where we Mike, Lew and the rest of our merry gang would meet up for a pint and a game of pool. Unlike the "Splodge", the couple who ran it and the guys who drank in it weren't full of shit and we'd go there most nights. I'd have a pint of lager and gammon and chips, Lew a pint of Coke and two gammon and chips and Mike a half of shandy and a bag of nuts - being four foot six meant he'd be legless on a pint and obese on anything more than a raisin. He may have been small, but he knew how to edge himself into the best place on every shot while filming. You'd be standing on your mark, ready for the off, and you'd be vaguely aware of this presence down by your left elbow gently pushing you out of the way. It would be Mike. Such was the rapport we built up between ourselves, I still laugh when I recall Danny on one such occasion turning to Mike and saying, "Shift, you little git."
As you can probably guess from the pics, the shoot was one long holiday. The sun shone almost every day and the crew enjoyed themselves as much as the actors, if not more so. David Bell's biggest problem was trying to remain calm and focused in the midst of complete naughtiness. I blame Danny. He made me laugh constantly. He was just too funny. Priceless. Luckily, David had spent years on "Grange Hill" so he'd had plenty of experience with kids. We were just bigger ones. The costumes were made and looked after by Maggie and her gang, one of whom was a quiet, mysteriously self-contained, Naomi look-a-like called Marion. I became transfixed by this enigma of a woman. Her aloofness just served to fan the flames more than was necessary. I wrote about my little crush in my diary. After filming had finished, and I was back in London, Jo found the diary in my room and read it. That was that, then. Hoisted. The seeds of doubt were sown, and there was nothing I could do to convince her otherwise. Sometimes, I just wish I kept things to myself bit more. It would save a lot of aggro. As Robin Askwith would tell me later, "Take it to the grave..."
The show first aired in the November of 1989 and was an instant hit. It won a Bafta award, a Royal Television Society award and the Prix Jeunesse and ran for four years. We weren't invited to any of the ceremonies..."Bloody actors..."