I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [43]
I won’t have been the first British chat show host to kill a man on air, and I won’t be the last. But I make no excuse for what happened. I accept complete responsibility and you’ll not find me making mealy-mouthed excuses for what was a truly tragic event.
What I will say is this. Forbes McAllister had led a long and full life, but with a diet rich in cholesterol and alcoholic booze, it’s very probable that his health was failing. We can only speculate as to how badly his health would have deteriorated or how painfully drawn out his eventual death would have been – because I ended his life in episode six of my chat show.
Forbes, who may or may not have had a violent temper, was to be the final guest on my show. I remember in the green room before the show that he had incredibly sweaty hands. It’s rare that I notice another’s man palm-piss because my own inner-hands tend to work up a torrent of clamminess straight after towelling, one of the many reasons why I often greet new acquaintances with a curt nod or a wave. But I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, now they’re wet.’
This should have rung an alarm bell, because although I didn’t know it at the time, our perspiration would soon create a lethal lubricative effect, which when combined with studio lights and a hair-trigger pistol would blast a man’s chest into kingdom come. (Note that this in no way tallies with the findings of the coroner. These are my findings, not the Crown’s.)
The show had been quite a strong one. It was certainly a little fruity. Of the six people on the sofa, 50% were gay. (Two lesbians and a gayman – although the gayman, Scott Maclean, was only ten at the time and probably unaware of his sexual trajectory.)102
Not on the sofa, but undeniably on the show were Joe Beasley and Cheeky Monkey. Having Joe appear was my one big regret in this episode.103 I’d seen him at Bournemouth Hoseasons way back in 1979, before so-called ‘alternative’ so-called ‘comedy’ had been foisted upon the world. Joe was streets ahead of his time, writing his own material and bringing a fresh perspective to the art of stand-up comedy. Unlike ‘alternative’ ‘comedians’, Joe’s act – classy ventriloquism mixed with snappy one-liners – was mercifully unencumbered by the need to provide ‘social commentary’, unless he represented the Tories and the monkey whose rectum he forced his hand up represented coal miners or something.104
At Hoseasons, he’d raised the roof. I saw members of the audience doubled over, desperately trying not to wet themselves. Afterwards, Joe modestly suggested this was more to do with their age than his act, but I know good comedy when I see it. So I promised him I’d remember his name and give him a TV break as soon as I could. I honoured that promise on 21 October 1994.
I don’t feel that Joe prepared properly for the show, and his act suffered as a result. I happen to believe that his joke about a Swedish Fred Flintstone105 is a quite beautiful piece of writing, but he struggled to remember its precise mechanics and it slithered out of his mouth like a bad oyster. I stepped in to put him out of his misery106 after about 90 seconds.
It had been an experience best forgotten but shamefully, in the years that followed, Joe did his best to trade on his disastrous TV appearance – he even attempted (unsuccessfully) to claim legal ownership of the sobriquet ‘troubled TV funnyman’ when the whole Barrymore thing blew up. Lesson learnt, Alan! I’ve never given anyone a break since then. It’s just not worth it. Joe never bothered to apologise, not even through the medium of the monkey.
But ignore that. This chapter is about Forbes McAllister. And I’d hate for my guests’ unprofessionalism or sexual peccadillos to detract from the solemn death of a good107 man.
To be fair to myself for a change, Forbes had been a pretty awkward guest and had brought the pistols on to the show himself and had very sweaty hands and was making sudden movements and saying some pretty off-putting