2000

Nikki gives us this report on REG’s appearance on Shooting Stars.

Shooting Stars is a comedy quiz show hosted by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. Richard is on Ulrika Jonsson’s team with Bobby Ball. The other team are Mark Lamarr, Tommy Cannon and Samantha Beckinsdale.

Richard’s first line is “What now you fucker?” When Bob calls his name to get his attention for the first question. Richard and Ulrika are staring at each other. At the beginning Ulrika’s says something about realising that she is “sitting between a dick and a ball”, Bob responds with “and what does that make you Ulrika?”.

Richard’s first question is a “True or False”. “Weasels are the only mammals that produce offspring that are larger at birth than when they are adults?” Richard’s response is “True” to which the answer is actually “False”!

When for Mark Lamarr’s team they show some Jerry Springer footage and asked what is she about to tell him (in connection with the footage), it’s Richard who buzz his buzzer and gives an answer “She’s about to tell him, she used to be a man” – this turns out to be true.

Vic then talks to Richard about Swaziland –

Vic – “Richard – you’re from Switerland aren’t you”

REG – “Swaziland”

Vic – “No – I think you’ll find it’s pronounced Switerland, no really, really you lived there long enough, you should have learnt to pronounce it”

Bob – The flights go there from Gatwick – Switerland”

Vic & Bob – both then take the piss out of Swaziland/Switerland…..and Vic teases him about the way he probably pronounces London!

The “Dove From Above” – Richard chooses the “Knockers” question:

The lovely Liz Hurley keeps her breasts prim and proper by rubbing what on them?

(a) Linseed Oil
(b) Dobin
(c) Standing in the wind in the right direction

Richard replies (c) to which he is correct!

Ulrika’s team win, so Ulrika chooses Richard for the end part…..the “Barrel of the plum” – they put him in a barrel and roll him down a small slope in order to try and knock plums etc off a bench and into some bowls.

Richard gets £10 for each fruit in a bowl. He only gets 2 = £20!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Nikki for these.

The list was getting a little long, so I’ve collated all the fan sightings into this one section. If you are lucky enough to meet him, please be considerate and courteous, and don’t forget to mention The REG Temple. Hehe : )

– 11 year old Laura Pearson tells us this: it was the beginning of February this year at about 3pm he just came in and out like any other normal person it wasn’t ’til after I had saw him it was for definite that it was confirmed by shop owner he visited regularly he lived around Richmond area and travels on the London 65 bus

– Beth met Mr Grant himself in Harrods, he asked her if she could see the bree! She could. Lucky thing! Hehe.

– Lucky Jamie bumped into REG in HMV Queen Street in Brisbane Australia. He was listening to a CD on headphones. When he first saw him, Jamie thought “NAH, can’t be”, but he approached him and spoke to the man himself. REG told Jamie he was working on a film (Hildegarde) at Coolangatta, which is on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

– M. Riley met Richard E. Grant whilst he was filming the new series of The Scarlet Pimpernel at Ragley Hall (Blakeney Hall) as they were staying there at the time.

– Jacki saw the famous old advert for Schweppes tonic starring REG and Elizabeth Hurley. It was made around ’87. She thinks it stands the test of time and is quite cool really.

– Renee, from Toronto Canada was recently visiting London and on her first ride on the underground, was overwhelmed by the number of people getting on the trains at Knightsbridge Station, but across the crowd spotted the lovely REG waiting for a train.

– Lucky Darren reports that he almost walked right into REG in Richmond Train Station. “I was taking a short cut through the unusually quiet station and he was right in front of me. He looked at him without realising who he was and he looked at me, probably wondering why I was about to walk into him! We passed and after I went down the steps I though, ‘Hang on, that was Richard E. Grant!’

Having told some work colleagues about this I was informed that he had been spotted a number of times in Richmond including the Waitress supermarket!

– The 11 o’clock show has some chap on called Peter Piper and he interviews famous people (or tries to take the piss). Who should he interview tonight but REG and it was just before he went into the theatre at W4W he asked him:

PP: What got you into acting in the first place?

REG: Oh I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything else to do, it was the only thing I was any good at.

PP: Sir Laurence Olivier once said I was the greatest actor he had ever seen. (At this point REG realises it is a wind-up)

REG: What are you doing here then?

And as the chap tries to answer REG smiles politely and walks off into the theatre leaving the chap looking a bit of a prat :) good old REG.

Sorry just thought I’d share this REG spotting moment with you.
Chin chin
Neil “To much time on my hands” Pawley

– I remember REG on GMTV a long time ago “performing” Shakespeare to a dance beat. There was a video that went with it with our REG sat on some kind of throne thingy reciting the bard, and two chaps pretending to be DJ’s mixing the music. Well funny!! I remember when he was miming along to it on GMTV they cut him off before the end. How dare they!! Jacki x

– Polly spotted a REG reference on a recent episode of Victoria Woods’, sitcom ‘Dinner Ladies’.

Julie Walters, made another splendid appearance, playing, ‘Bareness’ decrepit and slightly mad mother ‘Petula’. Petula, is in her wheelchair and rambling on about the benefits of living in a nursing home. She soon starts to talk about sex, and if she will get any with the other pensioners. Then she says, ‘Well, after you have had sex with, Richard E Grant, why would you want to make do with a pensioner?’.

– It appears Kevin Spacey has had some not-so-nice things to say about REG recently. It’s certainly clear that REG upset him! For those interested, the interview is online here.

Click on Our Man’s highlighted name for the section in question. You’ll need RealPlayer.

– Polly watched a recent Victoria Spice interview and REG had a small interview with her, over dinner. It was quite interesting, and he looked really good. She loved the new hair style, and said it really suits him.

– Nikki found this info: PALLIS (UK only) Channel 4, 13 Episodes – 6 @ 10 mins, 4 @ 5 mins, 3 @ 25 mins. Shown: 24 – 27 Dec 1991, 22 – 24 Dec 1992

It appears that Richard narrated it, and it was one of those news clips programmes where actors and such do comical voiceovers.

– Chris was watching Ali G on channel 4 and during the break heard REG’s wonderful voice doing a voice over for Bendick (?) Chocolate Mints!! As Ali G would say. “He’s the main man”

– Lucky Paula recounts seeing REG on stage:

The first time I saw Richard E. Grant was in 1993 onstage at the Aldwych Theatre in London. He was starring as Algernon Moncrieff in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” That play had to be one of the funniest and best performances that I’ve ever seen.

Not only was Mr. Grant phenomenal, but it also starred Maggie Smith as Lady Bracknall. The cast was too perfect. Mr Grant played an ideal portrayal of the conceited, pompous and conniving Algie. After watching him onstage, I knew that I wanted to see all of the films that he’d been in that were listed in the program notes.

– Karen tells of a lucky friend’s sighting

A friend told me that he came to UCD (University College Dublin) recently and gave an interview with Dave Fanning (a well known Irish DJ and TV presenter who is arrogant and speaks about 2000 words a minute and doesn’t give people a chance to speak) in the main lecture hall so they were all allowed to sit in and watch. She said REG was just coolness itself and that…wait for it…he had a leather jacket and leather trousers on and he looked divine !!! She said he was really down to earth despite the interviewer being an idiot and he was well able for everything he was asked. He took quite a bit of stick from the lads over the Spice Girls movie too but apparently he gave back twice as good as he got whilst still remaining the perfect gentleman. Sigh…..

She was very impressed with him and has been a fan of him ever since so needless to say I have introduced her to the REG Temple.

REGiment Unite !!!

– Lucky Steven reports on his recent REG sighting:

“I was on the same train as REG yesterday (12 July). Me standing up in the doorway, him sitting in the seat facing. I got on at Kew Gardens, and was on the same carriage as him until Richmond, where he got off and went into the town while I changed trains and went elsewhere. Nobody else seemed to recognise him.

I thought about saying something to him, having made eye contact, but figured that he wouldn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy. I sort of regret it though. It would have been my smaller equivalent of ‘REG meets Barbara Streisand’.

For those who care about these things, he was wearing a white linen shirt open to the navel, blue & white pin-stripe trousers, and blue deck shoes.

Looked pretty suave.”

– Lydia Pritchard wrote to say that she didn’t sight REG herself, but has a very honest decent and true friend who did. It was on the bus from Oxford to London in England (obviously), and REG went and asked this friend if there was anyone sitting next to him!!! He said no and REG sat next to him and chatted all the way to London. He was really warm and friendly. Would we expect anything less? Nice to know REG still catches the bus.

– Two more REG sightings…Nikki’s mum spotted REG in a “PEP bank account” advert on ITV and lucky Steve met up with REG, skiing in Flaine in the French Alps…some people get all the luck!

– I’m still awaiting confirmation, but it seems REG has been spotted in a French advert for the Renault Laguna…I’ll keep you posted, thanks to JM for this sighting.

– REG was also at Dillons Bookstore in Birmingham on the 24th of September 1998, where he gave a reading of “By Design” and signed books. Wish I could have been there *sigh*.

– Apparently REG was a guest speaker, as part of the 1998 International Literary Festival, at the Arthur Miller Centre for American Studies. The reading was held in the University of East Anglia in Norwich on Wednesday, 23 September 1998. Was anyone lucky enough to see him? Let me know.

– REG was on the BBC 1 tribute to Julie Walters on 2nd June 1999, for his film “Killing Dad” which she also starred in :)

– Yet another sighting….This time in South Africa! Joan writes to tell me:

One of my colleagues in work, went out to lunch today with a friend of her’s who has just returned to the UK from South Africa – she shared the following with me.

“The girl I had lunch with has just returned from South Africa and guess who she sat next to in a restaurant there – Yes, you’ve guessed it – REG himself! I told her that you were a bit of a fan!” (It made my day I can tell you – it was nice of her to share it)

I then asked would she ask her friend to give me some more info and this is what her friend reported as she thought it was nice that she could pass it on to us:

“I saw him in Hermanus (one hour ish from Cape Town) in the restaurant of the Marine Hotel – so he was probably staying there. It is a seafood restaurant with a fix price menu of 120 Rand (16 Rand to the pound). He was with a man and a woman. They were talking about the countries in the Middle East – in particular Beirut !! He was not drinking at all only water and looked really tall and thin.”

I thought this snippet great so would like to share it with everyone.
JR (Joan)

The list was getting a little long, so I’ve collated all the fan sightings into this one section. If you are lucky enough to meet him, please be considerate and courteous, and don’t forget to mention The REG Temple.
Hehe : )

– 11 year old Laura Pearson tells us this: it was the beginning of February this year at about 3pm he just came in and out like any other normal person it wasn’t ’til after I had saw him it was for definite that it was confirmed by shop owner he visited regularly he lived around Richmond area and travels on the London 65 bus

– Beth met Mr Grant himself in Harrods, he asked her if she could see the bree! She could. Lucky thing! Hehe.

– Lucky Jamie bumped into REG in HMV Queen Street in Brisbane Australia. He was listening to a CD on headphones. When he first saw him, Jamie thought “NAH, can’t be”, but he approached him and spoke to the man himself. REG told Jamie he was working on a film (Hildegarde) at Coolangatta, which is on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

– M. Riley met Richard E. Grant whilst he was filming the new series of The Scarlet Pimpernel at Ragley Hall (Blakeney Hall) as they were staying there at the time.

– Jacki saw the famous old advert for Schweppes tonic starring REG and Elizabeth Hurley. It was made around `87. She thinks it stands the test of time and is quite cool really.

– Renee, from Toronto Canada was recently visiting London and on her first ride on the underground, was overwhelmed by the number of people getting on the trains at Knightsbridge Station, but across the crowd spotted the lovely REG waiting for a train.

– Lucky Darren reports that he almost walked right into REG in Richmond Train Station. “I was taking a short cut through the unusually quiet station and he was right in front of me. He looked at him without realising who he was and he looked at me, probably wondering why I was about to walk into him! We passed and after I went down the steps I though, ‘Hang on, that was Richard E. Grant!’

Having told some work colleagues about this I was informed that he had been spotted a number of times in Richmond including the Waitress supermarket!

– The 11 o’clock show has some chap on called Peter Piper and he interviews famous people (or tries to take the piss). Who should he interview tonight but REG and it was just before he went into the theatre at W4W he asked him:

PP: What got you into acting in the first place?

REG: Oh I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything else to do, it was the only thing I was any good at.

PP: Sir Laurence Olivier once said I was the greatest actor he had ever seen. (At this point REG realises it is a wind-up)

REG: What are you doing here then?

And as the chap tries to answer REG smiles politely and walks off into the theatre leaving the chap looking a bit of a prat :) good old REG.

Sorry just thought I’d share this REG spotting moment with you.
Chin chin
Neil “To much time on my hands” Pawley

– I remember REG on GMTV a long time ago “performing” Shakespeare to a dance beat. There was a video that went with it with our REG sat on some kind of throne thingy reciting the bard, and two chaps pretending to be DJ’s mixing the music. Well funny!! I remember when he was miming along to it on GMTV they cut him off before the end. How dare they!! Jacki x

– Polly spotted a REG reference on a recent episode of Victoria Woods’, sitcom ‘Dinner Ladies’.

Julie Walters, made another splendid appearance, playing, ‘Bareness’ decrepit and slightly mad mother ‘Petula’. Petula, is in her wheelchair and rambling on about the benefits of living in a nursing home. She soon starts to talk about sex, and if she will get any with the other pensioners. Then she says, ‘Well, after you have had sex with, Richard E Grant, why would you want to make do with a pensioner?’.

– It appears Kevin Spacey has had some not-so-nice things to say about REG recently. It’s certainly clear that REG upset him! For those interested, the interview is online here

Click on Our Man’s highlighted name for the section in question. You’ll need RealPlayer.

– Polly watched a recent Victoria Spice interview and REG had a small interview with her, over dinner. It was quite interesting, and he looked really good. She loved the new hair style, and said it really suits him.

– Nikki found this info: PALLIS (UK only) Channel 4, 13 Episodes – 6 @ 10 mins, 4 @ 5 mins, 3 @ 25 mins. Shown: 24 – 27 Dec 1991, 22 – 24 Dec 1992

It appears that Richard narrated it, and it was one of those news clips programmes where actors and such do comical voiceovers.

– Chris was watching Ali G on channel 4 and during the break heard REG’s wonderful voice doing a voice over for Bendick (?) Chocolate Mints!! As Ali G would say. “He’s the main man”

– Lucky Paula recounts seeing REG on stage:

The first time I saw Richard E. Grant was in 1993 onstage at the Aldwych Theatre in London. He was starring as Algernon Moncrieff in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” That play had to be one of the funniest and best performances that I’ve ever seen.

Not only was Mr. Grant phenomenal, but it also starred Maggie Smith as Lady Bracknall. The cast was too perfect. Mr Grant played an ideal portrayal of the conceited, pompous and conniving Algie. After watching him onstage, I knew that I wanted to see all of the films that he’d been in that were listed in the program notes.

– Karen tells of a lucky friend’s sighting

A friend told me that he came to UCD (University College Dublin) recently and gave an interview with Dave Fanning (a well known Irish DJ and TV presenter who is arrogant and speaks about 2000 words a minute and doesn’t give people a chance to speak) in the main lecture hall so they were all allowed to sit in and watch. She said REG was just coolness itself and that…wait for it…he had a leather jacket and leather trousers on and he looked divine !!! She said he was really down to earth despite the interviewer being an idiot and he was well able for everything he was asked. He took quite a bit of stick from the lads over the Spice Girls movie too but apparently he gave back twice as good as he got whilst still remaining the perfect gentleman. Sigh…..

She was very impressed with him and has been a fan of him ever since so needless to say I have introduced her to the REG Temple.
REGiment Unite !!!

– Lucky Steven reports on his recent REG sighting:

“I was on the same train as REG yesterday (12 July). Me standing up in the doorway, him sitting in the seat facing. I got on at Kew Gardens, and was on the same carriage as him until Richmond, where he got off and went into the town while I changed trains and went elsewhere. Nobody else seemed to recognise him.

I thought about saying something to him, having made eye contact, but figured that he wouldn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy. I sort of regret it though. It would have been my smaller equivalent of ‘REG meets Barbara Streisand’.

For those who care about these things, he was wearing a white linen shirt open to the navel, blue & white pin-stripe trousers, and blue deck shoes. Looked pretty suave.”

– Lydia Pritchard wrote to say that she didn’t sight REG herself, but has a very honest decent and true friend who did. It was on the bus from Oxford to London in England (obviously), and REG went and asked this friend if there was anyone sitting next to him!!! He said no and REG sat next to him and chatted all the way to London. He was really warm and friendly. Would we expect anything less? Nice to know REG still catches the bus.

– Two more REG sightings…Nikki’s mum spotted REG in a “PEP bank account” advert on ITV and lucky Steve met up with REG, skiing in Flaine in the French Alps…some people get all the luck!

– I’m still awaiting confirmation, but it seems REG has been spotted in a French advert for the Renault Laguna…I’ll keep you posted, thanks to JM for this sighting.

– REG was also at Dillons Bookstore in Birmingham on the 24th of September 1998, where he gave a reading of “By Design” and signed books. Wish I could have been there *sigh*.

– Apparently REG was a guest speaker, as part of the 1998 International Literary Festival, at the Arthur Miller Centre for American Studies. The reading was held in the University of East Anglia in Norwich on Wednesday, 23 September 1998. Was anyone lucky enough to see him? Let me know.

– REG was on the BBC 1 tribute to Julie Walters on 2nd June 1999, for his film “Killing Dad” which she also starred in :)

– Yet another sighting….This time in South Africa! Joan writes to tell me:

One of my colleagues in work, went out to lunch today with a friend of her’s who has just returned to the UK from South Africa – she shared the following with me.

“The girl I had lunch with has just returned from South Africa and guess who she sat next to in a restaurant there – Yes, you’ve guessed it – REG himself! I told her that you were a bit of a fan!” (It made my day I can tell you – it was nice of her to share it).

I then asked would she ask her friend to give me some more info and this is what her friend reported as she thought it was nice that she could pass it on to us:< "I saw him in Hermanus (one hour ish from Cape Town) in the restaurant of the Marine Hotel - so he was probably staying there. It is a seafood restaurant with a fix price menu of 120 Rand (16 Rand to the pound). He was with a man and a woman. They were talking about the countries in the Middle East - in particular Beirut !! He was not drinking at all only water and looked really tall and thin." I thought this snippet great so would like to share it with everyone. JR (Joan)

REG has been spotted around town looking very dapper. You can see pictures of his on the new Miss Selfridges store, which has a mural of high distinction, click here. He was also spotted looking dashing in a tux at a recent AIDS fundraiser thrown by his good mate Elton John. Click here to see pics. Thanks Nikki, as usual!!

Jo has sent me her first REG masterpiece to post. She writes:

“Thought I’d better come out from under the lurkers couch for a bit, get’s rather stuffy after a while. I am attaching my first REG masterpiece!! Sorry, the file may be a bit large. What d’ya think?? And as my Mum said at least a billion times over the Christmas period: “That film would be better if Richard E Grant was in it”. I couldn’t agree more!!”