This month sees Julian Clary, born in Surbiton, publish his first children’s book, The Bolds. Miranda Jessop finds that the comedian’s formative years were not always happy
Sitting by my phone in Twickenham waiting for Julian Clary to ring, I can’t quite believe that I am about to have a private audience with such a brilliant comedian. Although I am hoping for a few giggles along the way, Clary’s aim today is not to make me laugh but to tell me about his new children’s book, The Bolds, in which a family of hyenas rather bizarrely take up residence in a suburban street uncannily similar to my own.
Julian Clary was born in Surbiton and grew up in a 1930s semi in St Mark’s Road in Teddington with his parents and two older sisters.
“We had cats and guinea pigs and I remember a very happy environment. We were a close family and we used to laugh and mess around together. My mother would put knickers on her head and silly things like that.”
His father was a policeman, his mother a probation officer and Clary remembers them working long hours.
“When my mother arrived home from work, she would be peeling potatoes before she had even taken her coat off and my father often worked night shifts so we had to creep around during the day if he was sleeping.”
While he attended Sacred Heart Primary School, Clary just had to cross the road to go to school but, at secondary level, he left Teddington each day to take three buses to St Benedict’s School in Ealing.
“I was badly bullied by the other children, it was really quite extreme. The monks turned a blind eye to what was going on and all of us boys were regularly beaten by them, it was part of the rules of St Benedict’s. It was a very dubious set up and one of those monks is in prison now.”
So affected is Clary by his time there, he still avoids driving through Ealing.
“I couldn’t bring himself to tell my parents at the time as it was too difficult to talk about, but I was glad school was a long way from home because it felt like a safe haven when I returned.”
It was on these long bus journeys to and from Ealing that Clary inadvertently stumbled across his first comedy material.
“I always stayed downstairs because that’s where the little old ladies were sitting, and I’d listen to them talking about their ailments and other funny things. I would save up these anecdotes for dinner time and my family were my first audience.”
I ask Clary if he always wanted a career on the stage.
“When I was younger I wanted to be a vet but I soon realised that I wasn’t good enough at the subjects I needed so I became theatrical and dreamed of becoming a pop star or an actor.”
After school, Clary studied drama and English at Goldsmiths, University of London and, when he graduated in the early 1980s, he began performing on the cabaret circuit, calling himself The Joan Collins Fan Club.
“By a process of elimination, I ended up as a comedian because I couldn’t really sing and I couldn’t really act. At that time the alternative comedy circuit was just beginning and it was much more appealing to create my own persona and write my own material.”
His big break came when The Joan Collins Fan Club was invited to appear on the television show, Saturday Night Live, hosted by Ben Elton. Clary became an overnight success and Channel 4 offered him his own show, Sticky Moments, in 1990.
“My parents were quite bemused by my sudden fame, I think they thought I would do it for a while and then go back to something sensible... which is probably what I thought,” he adds.
As his career took off, Clary made sure he stayed close to his family.
“Although I had known I was gay since I was a young boy, I never actually came out to them at any stage. It didn’t really seem necessary. But they didn’t mind at all about my homosexuality, they just wanted me to be happy. When you’ve been badly bullied for being an effeminate child, to turn oneself into a renowned homosexual and make an asset of things that were difficult as a child, it seems to make sense in retrospect. It also explains the need to be liked and loved and the reassurance you feel from getting a laugh every few seconds.”
As Clary continued to get more laughs, his career went from strength to strength and today, at the age of 56, his popularity has endured three decades in show business. He is not only a comedian but a presenter and established pantomime star. His colourful career has seen him win Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 and he continues to tour the UK and Australia with his one man shows. With so many highs in his career, I wonder if there have been any low points.
“I have had my moments of being infamous and disgracing myself. I also had a period of depression in the 1990s when people were dying of Aids all around me, but I am pretty tenacious and I picked myself back up.”
Ten years ago, Clary started writing and he has had four adult books published including his early memoirs, A Young Man’s Passage and Briefs Encountered, a fictional tale involving Noel Coward inspired by Clary’s 16th-century home in Kent. Up until the 1950s, the house belonged to Coward and Clary believes it is haunted by his spirit. By coincidence the playwright also spent his early life in Teddington.
“Yes, I used to cycle past his house in Waldegrave Road all the time, it’s just one of those curious things.”
The Bolds is Clary’s first foray into children’s literature. For kids aged eight and above, the book is about a hilarious family of hyenas who impersonate humans, using elaborate disguises to hide their secret lives from their neighbours, while living in a very ordinary house in Teddington. Packed with jokes, eccentric characters, cunning plots and flamboyant outfits, the family is brought to life by award-winning illustrator, David Roberts. I ask Clary how he came up with the idea.
“There was a family who lived in St Mark’s Road who were quite hairy. I decided that they must be hyenas and would watch for signs, if they laughed a lot, that sort of thing. It was all in my head,” he says, adding mischievously, “But I won’t name them!”
Clary has dedicated the book to his six great nephews and nieces.
“I would love to have had children – it’s a nice thought, but I enjoy spending time with my nephews and nieces and their children. It’s amazing watching them all grow up and seeing how their sense of humour develops.”
Although Clary also has a home in North London, he now spends most of his time in Kent with his partner and a number of dogs and chickens.
“I love it. Within an hour of getting here, I completely de-stress and relax. I had my wild decades where I would be out every night but you grow out of that eventually ... and just in the the nick of time before it becomes undignified!”
I ask Clary how he feels about getting older.
“It’s a difficult one. It has its compensations. I am happier, wiser and less anxious. You do the best you can, sort of try and look alright and don’t go to seed too much, but it’s probably all downhill from now I expect!”
He clearly still relishes fame.
“I like it when people come up and say nice things to me. Sometimes, when I’m abroad I think, ‘Oh, no one’s recognised me for days, I must go home soon’.”
As our interview ends and Clary bids me farewell, I have no doubt that, in both his personal and professional life, this talented man will continue to have the last laugh.
Clary appears at the Radio Times Festival which runs Sept 24-27 at Hampton Court
The Bolds was published earlier this year by Andersen Press
