The Observer – Sunday 29th October, 2000

The following passage is from an article about Steve Martin written by Vanessa Thorpe, which appeared in The Observer.

Steve Martin has a problem with “hellos”. He doesn’t quite know whether to gush or to play them for laughs. When Richard E. Grant, the English actor who is now one of Martin’s closest friends, arrived in Hollywood to start working with him on the film LA Story, their first encounter got off to a stuttering start.

“We are so thrilled you are able to do this movie,” said Martin, his face wreathed in the magnanimous smiles of the superstar.
” Believe me, the thrill’s all mine,’ matched Grant.

Then, as a long afternoon of exchanging sugary pleasantries stretched out before them, Martin suddenly switched tactics and went into a comic “bit” that Grant has come to know as his “all-purpose Showbiz Schlockmeister routine” and which involves showering the visitor with an intentionally ludicrous stream of stock insincerities.

His pose as a gracious and civil host had lasted less than 30 seconds. This turns out, however, to be longer than many strangers get. Even the printed cards that Martin once handed out to autograph hunters did not take the idea of celebrity very seriously. They read: “This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny.”

Georgina emailed me to inform people that there is a Yahoo club called Fantasy Island which is an ongoing story site, filled with lots of scrummy men – Anton Meyer (Holby City), Patrick Stewart in various forms (Jean-Luc Picard, Professor Xavier from X-Men) Alan Rickman, Michael York, Sir Percy Blakeney etc. The Blakeney storyline is one that she’s been developing at the moment with a couple of other writers. Input is welcomed for those interested and the URL is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/fantasyislanduk/.

Here’s Richard with Elaine Page at the Calton Awards 2000 “Women in Film and TV.

The Guardian Unlimited – Thursday 26th October, 2000

There was a line in this week’s Scarlet Pimpernel (BBC1), “Knowing where you have been is as important as knowing where you are going”, which explains the whole why and wherefore of A History Of Britain.

Sir Percy’s cry of “Gunpowder, treason and plot!” and a lavish firework display made this Pimpernel an unusually topical frolic.

The leg-pulling, educated script by Alan Whiting – in which William Turner had a small part and Isaac Newton a friendly mention – turned on the invention of a hand-grenade by the heroine. By happy chance, she was the world’s greatest living scientist, and pretty chippy about it too. “Surely you are not suggesting that that a woman doesn’t have the mental capacity to grasp the subject of chemistry?” Sir Percy, who had been playing with his balls all evening and had developed a useful yorker, bowled her bomb over Robespierre’s railings. The heroine had urged him to try an unorthodox overarm delivery. Being French, she did not know that in the 18th century, underarm bowling was de rigueur.

The bomb not only demolished the guillotine (“Well bowled, sir!”) but blew off Robespierre’s wig. Robespierre seems to be a proxy Sheriff of Nottingham in these stories, regularly getting it in the neck in the last reel. That both the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robespierre are French gives the whole thing a cheerier frisson.

The Pimpernel’s immediate adversary, in this episode, was General La Forge, a trying visitor who always knocks the door down with a battering ram. You could tell them apart because the Pimpernel (Richard E Grant) wore his hat east and west, and La Forge (Jim Cartwright) wore his north and south. Very like the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, only vice versa, if you follow me. Half the secret of costume drama is the ability to wear silly hats with insouciance.

Why do I keep talking French? It’s not catching, is it?

The Guardian Unlimited – Sunday 26th October, 2000

“I am transformed into a six-foot-two Mint Imperial” – Richard E. Grant has a facial

By Jason Deans.

Richard Branson, Richard E. Grant, and Irek Mukhamedov indulge in treatments no longer reserved for the girls. Real men need looking after too, say Kathy Phillips and Nicola Formby. Photographed by Jake Chessum.

Wednesday morning at the Neville Daniel Salon. Asked by Tatler to have a beauty treatment and write about it (how could any grown man resist?). I arrive on the appointed day and am wheeled into the salon, opposite the back entrance of Harrods. Viki Nash, my therapist for the day, decides that seaweed is not ‘on’ and that a facial with gelatine verbena thermic mask and eye treatment is. Why no seaweed? ‘It’s not on offer to men,’ is the cryptic reply (and I have visions of hormonal havoc wreaked when the weed is dolloped down below).

So, trussed like a papoose, I have a headband strapped round my face by Viki, who is busily applying witch-hazel cleansing milk with such amazing fingerwork that thoughts of an impromptu marriage proposal float through my mind. That is, until I catch sight of my chops in the photographer’s lens and spy an elongated Norma Desmond reflecting back.

Viki now begins to alternate creams and lotions that feel warm then cool, then transformed menthol-perfumed and, right now, I am ready to take up permanent residence, such is the unalloyed pleasure of being stroked by professional stranger. I am transformed into a six-foot-two Mint Imperial.

Next, something like soft, scratchy sand is massaged in. Viki says it’s ‘to remove all those dead skin cells’. Once these blighters are given the short shrift, pads are placed upon the eyes and a warm gelatine verbena mask is speedily painted all over, not unlike being toffee-appled or layered in lemon curd. After which I am left to dry and set for 20 perfume-filled minutes, alone with the darkness of my own head.

When I come out of the Gloria Swanson-like coma, the verdigris mask is peeled off and abandoned, looking like something from The Exorcist. I, however, emerge as if from a chrysalis, transformed into a butterfly for the rest of the day.

How many men come for this kind of treatment? ‘More than you’d imagine,’ was Viki’s enigmatic reply.

Thalgo Spa at Neville Daniel, 25a Basil Street SW3 (tel: 0171 245 6151). Richard E. Grant’, treatment cost £35.