Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 2005 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. This week is an entertainer. He's the man, or one of them anyway, who brought camp out of the closet and onto mainstream television. With his full make-up, garish costumes... And endless innuendos. There's nothing he likes better, he says, than a warm hand on his entrance. Success with, among others, his show Sticky Moments on Channel 4. He had a conventional upbringing in south-west London but was teased at school for being effeminate. He enjoyed

Success as a drag artist, worked the alternative comedy circuit and then glittered into television. Over the last ten years or so, his career has moved via his one-man show and appearances in 'Pantomime' to his present-day role as family favourite in all sorts of different shows, not least 'Strictly Come Dancing', in which he reached the final. Last year. If I never went on stage again, he says, maybe I'd miss it, but I don't think I really would. He is Julian Clary. I can't believe, Julian, that you could do without an audience. I mean, it's what you do, isn't it? Strut your stuff, flaunt yourself. You need it. I quite like it, but I think when I said that I was responding to someone else who'd said that, you know, they could absolutely wither and die if they didn't appear on stage, that it was the meaning of life to them. It's not the most important thing in my life, you know. I would get by. But what used to be important was shocking people, but you're not so shocking now. Now we've moved into mainstream, as it were.

No, I'm not so bothered about that. I mean things evolved. You kind of grow out of it. I mean I never set out to shock at all. I wasn't shocking to myself. Weren't you? I don't think so. I think it was how things are perceived. It was pretty shocking. I mean going back to your first big show at the Hackney Empire, which was... What late 80s wasn't it? You were on stage there and I mean, you know, we can't repeat it. But I mean-- First of all, I mean to set the tone you would enter through curtains as if through a man's legs. I came through in some flies. Yes. That's what you're saying. I see. No, it wasn't, but it set the tone because after that what you then said was completely explicit. Well, I wanted to demystify gay sex and be very specific. I see. But you demystified it in fairly explicit terms. Yes, I think so. In front of your mum and dad and your Auntie Tess and your Uncle Ken on the first night.

Yes, well, that was the act I'd written and that's what, you know, if I didn't talk about that, there wouldn't be much else left, you know, a few impressions from the dog. Then we'd all go home. - But it took courage, hmm? - I didn't think of it that way. They understand my sense of humor. I find old ladies like me a lot and they like to come and sit in the front row and they know exactly what I'm talking about. They don't need demystifying. No. Let's have a first record. What's it to be? Oh, Danica Lesby, who is, I've been a fan of hers since I was about 14. This is her, in her kind of boogie guise. This is a song that I play a lot and it's, I think I'm right in saying the song they used to play in the old bordellos while they, if the ladies were all occupied, to keep the gentlemen busy while they were waiting their turn to go upstairs for a good seeing to.

They play something like this on the piano to get them in the mood. Donna Gillespie and Big Fat Mommas are back in style again. It shouldn't go any other way. Further Julian Clary without talking about Fanny the Wonder Dog, who used to be very much part of your act. Is she no longer with us? Gone to doggy heaven?

passed away to the great behind. She was my co-star, a small mongrel that came from a dog's home. Her first ever appearance was when I was doing a club where there was no dressing room and I told her to sit quietly by the side and she was started to get laughs and upstage me. But she did seem to have comic timing and she did seem to, night after night. Deliver the goods so what can you say? But what did she do? Describe what she did. Hard to describe. She used to do impressions. She would do a very convincing Sarah Ferguson and... The Queen Mother. How did she do them? She wore a wig for Sarah. For the Queen Mother, you would just lift her gums up and she had rather brown teeth.

Facial hair. But her main gift was giving withering looks to the audience if I was playing a rough club and people would heckle. I suppose it was she was protecting it. But she would just stare people out. She was also upstaging you a lot of the time, of course. You were mad to allow it, but then you're mad, I suppose. I've never been called mad before. Well, crazy, I mean, off the wall about these things. I mean, was that always part of your makeup? Is that what you're like? Is that what it was like at home? - It was, there was a lot of sort of comedy. Home and a lot of sort of silly, silly things like walking into the room with a pair of knickers on her head my mother would do sort of once a week and ask a very bland question like do you fancy a hot cross bun?

pair of knickers on their heads. This is your mother who was a probation officer, I understand. Yes, I am the product of a probation officer and a policeman, which sounds very staid and it was a very proper, very moral upbringing, but they did have a laugh. Was your dad equally capable of being daft? A kind of fall guy. My mother and I were a bit of a double act, you know, we were very sort of queeny really and would refuse to, if we were in on holiday, we would refuse to put up the tent. My father and my sisters would do that and we'd sit there in the car and shout out instructions. So you, I mean we get the picture, you're a very sort of precious little boy who was

besotted with his guinea pig called Hildebrand. Who died of cystitis unfortunately. But your father must have been bemused by what he produced. He was bemused. I don't think, you know, if you have an only son and you have certain expectations that you might play football together. You might have joined in the decorating or tinkering with the car and I was very adamant From a very young age, I'm afraid that that wasn't an interest of mine. Didn't he try to get you to join the army later on? When I was 16 and I didn't know whether to stay and do A levels at school. He did foolishly... That I joined the army. But it wasn't going to happen was it? Well, it quite appeals in retrospect but I didn't take him up on it. Anyway, you got a, was it a scholarship you got? Yes.

I got a scholarship to St Benedict's School in Ealing. Which is very posh. Very posh Catholic school run by Benedictine monks. All boys. All boys. But you didn't get on too well there, as we shall hear, but let's pause for record number two. What is it? Aretha Franklin, of course, can do no wrong and that's... The name of the song but Aretha Franklin can do no wrong and I've been listening to her forever and this is from I think it was her last album or the one before last it's the title track called So Damn Happy ♪ What you want ♪

Franklin and so damn happy. So what kind of figure would you have cut then when you got to St Benedict's School in Ealing, Julian? I was quite a chatty 11 year old. I was quite into my guinea pigs. Quite extrovert, pre-adolescence, quite friendly and I used to like it. Like them there was one monk in particular Father G and very religious I used to go to Mass a lot and I used to pray a lot so that's what I that's what I was like until it all went horribly wrong. When did it all go horribly wrong and how? Well, I was suddenly disillusioned by this favourite monk of mine because he used to beat naughty boys. That was part of the rule of St Benedict. Never me because I never did anything wrong and I one day forgot my swimming things.

I forgot them so he used to get up to my office and he beat me very hard with his strap and I was terribly shocked by the the violence of it really and the humiliation and the transformation of this rather holy man into something strap wielding and his whole face changed you know he was very very cross. That's something that I hadn't done it deliberately. I quite liked swimming. It was my loss. - And you suggest that that changed everything for you? Um, the... Yes, my religious fervour rather evaporated, probably not overnight, but...

And then the onset of adolescence, and then I had to go to the upper school. And then I met my, I'm skipping through my life here, but then I met my friend Nick, and the two of us became increasingly theatrical and deliberately provocative, reading Quentin Crisp and Mural Spark and wanting to be La Creme de la Creme. And we rather enjoyed. Provoking people but... And they responded because you were called all sorts of names, weren't you? Yes, it was a sort of fame with... The school. I mean obviously we were bullied but I don't like to portray it as being a total victim because... We enjoyed our celebrity status. You brought it on yourselves in a sense, didn't you? That's what someone said in my school report, you bring it on yourself. Really? and We certainly didn't want to be rugby playing public school boys.

Want to be like them. But you went to the other extreme. We certainly did. And it was a time of David Bowie and Mark Bolen and... There seemed to be some life, a glimpse of a life outside of St Benedict's that rather attracted us. I think we were so sure of ourselves, we were so sure that we were going to be terribly famous pop stars. And we were amusing ourselves 'cause it was a very boring life. And we'll see you next time. Were highly amused by each other. - Tell me about the next record. - Oh, this is Mark Boleyn, the aforementioned lovely Mark Boleyn. Every morning, either this or yodeling, this is what wakes me up and puts me in a good mood.

T-rex and 20th Century Boy music to wake up by you went to go Smith's University of London to read English and drama Julian and you did lots of plays Twelfth Night and As You Like It and some you wrote yourself. What did you write yourself? I've been writing plays since I was at school and we took some shows to the Edinburgh Festival.

One slot left in our venue, so I put one of my plays on in there, The Axe and Victims, which is a sort of peculiar black comedy. The Axe and Victims? That's what I called it, yes. Was it as nasty as it sounds? It was about, I'm embarrassed to say what it was about really, it was about a rapist, but it was a comedy. There was an old lady and one of her lines was, He broke in halfway Through Charlie's angels and I'll never know what happened in the end. And what you loved, as I understand it, was the dressing up and the being on stage. I mean, you were just hooked by all of that, right? I was. After this sort of oppressive life at St Benedict's, when I arrived at Goldsmith's, I just seemed to flourish and suddenly you're encouraged to be an individual and you're allowed to grow your hair and wear makeup and put on shows. And I just did it all. I was constantly.

Acting in plays and putting on cabarets in the lunchtime. And you invented a double act with a friend called Gladden May. What did Gladden May do? Well, my friend Linda... And I, we were two char ladies and the highlight of our act was a handbag competition where we'd both grab a girl's handbag from the audience and empty out the contents. I still do it now from time to time. I've got my eye on your handbag. I wouldn't mind to tell you what you can find in there. Then there was Gillian Pieface who looked like She sounded presumably, but all of these female inventions of yours were precursors to the Joan Collins fan club. Come to you as it were, how did she find her moment? Well Gillian Pieface was a sort of mother earth figure, she wore a caftan and wooden beads and plimpsails and she was kept in a hold all which was stolen from the back

My van, I was doing singing telegrams and balloon deliveries at the time. So Gillian gone and I did actually stop and think what did I want to look like and I loved the makeup and the glamour but I didn't really want to be a female impersonator so I thought right rubber then, black rubber would be good and it doesn't crease and you rinse it under the tap and Joan Collins was everywhere at that time. So I call myself the Joan Collins Fan And suddenly felt much more comfortable being a glamorous man rather than called Gillian or Gladore May. It was a bit of a breakthrough for me. But you had a girlfriend, didn't you? Didn't you? When you got to university you had a Sexual affair, do you think? Yes, I did, and very successful it was too. I wasn't just dabbling, I was quite accomplished at heterosexual goings on.

I have you now. - You're not suggesting that she ruined you for all time, for all women. - No, I'm not. - It was a bit pat. - I'm not. But there was something sacred. That in my mind you know that was that was very special thing and so yeah then I did them as we know going the other direction. Go on next piece of music. I can only apologise, it's Mary Schneider. I don't know why I'm apologising, I'm a huge fan of Mary Schneider and yodelling in general. It makes me laugh and it's much cleverer than you might think.

Here she is yodeling the William Tell overture. There we are, Mary Schneider, Jodling, Rossini's, William Tell, Overture, well there's a first. Um, 1980 7 it was, your big break, Julian Clary, because you were picked up and put on Friday night or Saturday night live. You can't remember. Which and so it all happened did it as a result of that experience that that that break

One, yeah, it seemed to me fairly overnight, you know, one seven minute slot on that show and a whole different world opened up because I was perfectly happy on the cabaret circuit. My self-sufficient life of, you know, writing my own... Act and negotiating my own fees and taking the dog and getting on the train and going to do gigs was a very pleasant life. As it turned out that slot led to me having my own show on Channel Or sticky moments. And then one thing just leads on from another. Suddenly you find you're in a different world. And you were, as I was suggesting earlier on, beginning to find... A new way of presenting a camp act from the kinds of camp that had gone before. You must have analysed it over the years. How does what you did then differ from... Say Larry Grayson before you, who was also obviously gay and could be outrageous, or Kenneth Williams. What was different about your act?

It's transferred my comedy club act to television. I didn't think, oh, I better tone this down or anything. I suppose what has changed is that I was allowed to be an out gay man and Larry Grayson wasn't, you know. Wasn't he? No, he did everything but. But I don't think he could say I'm... I'm a gay man and carry on working. I didn't feel I was on any great crusade. I mean, it wasn't all about gay sex, was it? I mean, my act was, but the sticky moments wasn't. That was just a parody of a game show. Obviously I was a gay man, and so there was no point in, no one's that stupid, no point in saying I wasn't gay, and no point in...

Talking about anything else really. But so you weren't on a mission it was just that comedy should be dangerous and it was dangerous to be outrageous. And it was very daring of Channel 4 to commission a show my My show at that time I think. You'd have still been delivering singing telegrams? Yes, quite happily. It toughened me up, it certainly helped me with the act I think and you had to be fearless. And you've always been fearless Julian? Oh well, I don't know about always. Next piece of music. Oh what's next? Oh, well when I extended my act for me,

a sort of 20 minute act on the circuit to playing bigger venues and playing for longer. I've ran out of material and I thought I really ought to pad this out with some songs. So I got a pianist Russell and I got a backing singer Barb Younger to carry the tune. And Barb is a very dear friend and a very wonderful singer and he... Here's Barb's version of Peace in the Valley. ♪ Oh, well, the morning was so bright ♪ ♪ Well, Milan is the light ♪ ♪ The night is as fair as the sun ♪ as ♪ The day ♪ ♪ Then there's gonna be peace ♪ The valley, yeah, peace Bob Younger and Peace in the Valley

So you were having great success Julian through the late 80s and into the 90s but behind the scenes life was going pear-shaped wasn't it? Your live-in lover Christopher was dying of AIDS. He obviously meant a lot to you. How long were you together? About two or three years. And you nursed him until he died? Yeah. And after that things only got worse? Well, after Christopher died... I was very busy, I was in the middle of writing a show and recording a show and I didn't, I don't think I, in retrospect, I don't think I dealt with that bereavement very well and I carried on. On working and then I had another relationship which went horribly wrong and then everything seemed to conspire to turn around and bite me. Oh, everything just kind of spiralled

My control. And you ended up going on live television while you were feeling like this. This was 1993 British Comedy Awards. Yes. And you were... Going to open an envelope like you do, and you decided to make a joke at the expense of the former Chancellor Norman Lamont, which we can't repeat but it was... Can we say it was an obscure reference to a particular sexual act performed by what? Sadomasochistic gaze, huh? God bless the BBC. Did we like that? Beautifully put. I mean, I didn't, I know it was a rude joke, but I didn't expect it to get the reaction it did. And I'm still a bit bemused. It was alright in the hall, wasn't it? I mean, it seemed to go down well with the audience, but there was a kind of hoo-ha afterwards. The tabloids. Moral outrage. Mmm. That infamous joke haunted...

Me still. But I was very depressed and drugged at the time. I was on Valium and it sort of mixture of Valium and Alcohol, which makes you reckless. And probably if I'd had any, if I'd been sober, I'd have had some self restraint and. Thought that through. But anyway I said it. It was a kind of misjudgment in the moment but it did do for you really, isn't it? I know but I can't regret it, you know, I can't regret it. Well what would be the point? You can't regret it. But it was a kind of... That you shouldn't be allowed out on live television again. Yes, a sort of fat-toi. That still holds, actually, it's still on LWT, I think. Allowed. You're allowed on BBC, you've done the National Lottery. I know, but I think maybe I'm forgiven these days. But you were in big trouble. Decline. You went home to mum and dad, didn't you? Yes, I did, and then I went to Australia and did a big tour of Australia, because they didn't know what all the fuss was about.

They loved all that. They were all for it. I got myself together eventually and had some counseling. And I just had to then be very tenacious really and start all over again. Record number six. This is a very dreamy song produced by Andrew Thomas Wilson and if you're on a desert island this is probably. How I'd pass the time just staring out at the horizon, listening to an alternative rendition of Nesendorm.

Divaria's version of Nissen Dorma from Petini's Turandot and the soprano was Karen Cummings. You did bounce back to your... And obviously and here you are and it's all happening and you've got a career and so on but it it did get pretty bad i read somewhere that you did contemplate suicide is that right oh where did you read that probably in your book we all contemplate all the time of things don't we? But did you seriously or was it just, is this just a line? Oh yes.

Yes I did, but you know, I didn't follow through. Why not? What stopped you? I'm very fickle, you know, I think depression doesn't last very long. I get very depressed for sort of 20 minutes and then I think, oh, I'm over that now, I feel fine. And you had panic attacks, so? I did, yes, I haven't had one of those for a while. The whole thing of being recognised, I did find difficult and it was all related to that. Yourself off from the reality of you? Yes, the anxiety was related to that. I think anxiety is sort of very close relative of depression so when when that was all going on that that's probably why I don't have those panic attacks anymore. The funny thing is I found I could make very unreasonable demands and people would go along with it. For example, I decided I couldn't possibly... Travel in a maroon car and so I said to my agent I can't travel

in maroon cars and rather than say, Don't be so stupid, they say, Of course, we quite understand. And it becomes a vital requisite of transporting me anywhere that I'm not I can't have a maroon car. But panicking at the idea of fame is just such a contradiction because, you know, you are an arch exhibitionist. Not really, I'm quite introverted. I mean, if I'm on stage and I'm being paid to be, you know, an exhibitionist, as you call it, then that's fine. But most comedians are actually quite introspective and busy observing people. Record number seven. I was in the Boy George musical Taboo for a while playing the part of Lee Barry. Without giving the plot away I had to die on a nightly basis and I would lay on my deathbed a very sort of sad part of the show and uh... Gail McKinnon would sing this song, this beautiful song

Elatabow. ♪ Swear and it's swelling ♪ ♪ Never blue ♪ ♪ How could you go and die ♪ What a lonely thing to do - Gail McKinnon and Ila Dorr from the cast recording of the musical Taboo in which Julian Clary played Lee Bowery, the Australian performance artist. Art on legs, he called himself. - He did. Well, no, I think other people called him Art on legs. - Amazing character. So you've done that and you had your own show in the West End, you've done a stint on the Lottery Live as we say and you've done Strictly Bawlroom right up your street, all that frocks and flaunting. I think so. Yes, yes.

I wonder if underneath, and a lot of people who've written about you have suggested this, there isn't... Really a very conventional man trying to get out. I mean, you've talked about wanting to have children. In fact, you've tried, haven't you? Well, I arranged to have a child with a lesbian friend of mine when we were on tour in Australia. And she worked out her cycle and everything. I did think about such things. You do think about such things. You know, I got sort of 40-ish. And thought, oh, I haven't had a child. How am I going to preserve my genes for humanity? And then you decide that obviously you're not going to go down that path. - But you thought about adopting as well, didn't you? I still do, you know, I've got a spare room and I give some child a very nice life I think. So you do...

Want to be conventional now in other ways too. I think you've taken to gardening. Marvellous thing. Do you garden? I don't garden, no. Window box? No, I don't even window box. I basil plant on the window ledge. Ah. And you want... A nice little house with geraniums in the garden, I read. I've got that, yes. You've got it? Yes, I've got geraniums. A nice little house. And what do you want to do ultimately? I mean, if you did turn away from the... What would you like to do? Well, I've started writing a novel, which is a very different kettle of fish from a memoir because you can do what you like. People off last night, getting on my nerves. So perhaps that, perhaps I'll go and live in Nicaragua and write books. So it's Julian Cleary, the reclusive novelist next, is it? Well, I'm only fantasising, I'm sure I'll do none of those things. I'll probably just carry on with tired old innuendos and playing some of those.

Smaller and smaller venues. - Last record. - Last record, we're going back to. Where we started with Danny Gillespie. And I was imagining being on this desert island and needing to keep my spirits up really. And this is a devotional Indian song that you might hear in any temple if you went there. I can't even pronounce the time. You do it because you're... imagine a reading the news. Not sure I can do it either but Guru Nanaka ji ki ji ka. What about that?

And the Indian peace I pronounced earlier. Peace and salutation. Peace and salutation, that'll do. You're going to be alright on this island, are you Julian? You're going to fend for yourself, you're not going to get into a terrible state. Are you on your own on this island? - Of course you are. - That's the idea. I'd absolutely hate it. I'd absolutely hate being isolated. And that's why I chose these songs quite specifically like the last one, Danica Lesby. I'd need to do a bit of meditation and... and

would stop yourself going mad, you'd go mad wouldn't you? - You would be mad. - I think so. - Finally you would be mad. - Yes, I'd give into it. - If you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take? - I think it would be that last track. - Okay, Peace and Salutations. And your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare. - This is, it's all about my mental health, using my mental wellbeing. A book I'm always banging on about, but it's Stop Thinking and Start Living by Richard Carlson. And it's a-- I can't-- I've contemplated poetry in Sylvia Plath and Jane Austen, but really, if I am seriously stuck on an island by myself, I'll need to look after myself. This stops you thinking negatively. - And your luxury. I did a show recently where the sound man had a prosthetic arm and instead of...

And he had this sort of multi-purpose tool thing, which I thought would be very useful for cracking open shellfish and things. To do with trees that you might want to do. - Peeling the bark off palm trees. - Building things. And it would glint in the sunshine if passing shit might come and rescue me. - An all-purpose prosthetic arm. I see, okay. Julie and Clary, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Peace and salutations. listening to a podcast from the desert island discs archive for more podcasts please visit BBC

Go to www.co.uk/radio4

You