Rekindling the laughter

By BRONWYN SELL

It's been a long time since Michael Barrymore was in a creative mood. While his assistant works out the logistics of next month's New Zealand tour, Barrymore is preparing his comedy routine.

He wants to know if Jenny Shipley is still Prime Minister and if Holmes is still going. I tell him that not only is Holmes the programme still going, but that Holmes the man is taking to the stage in Auckland about the same time as Barrymore.

"Really? Holmes? What, playing Fagin? On stage? I'll do my impression of Holmes doing Fagin. We'll have an interview show in the middle of it, 'Good evening, welcome to Holmes, and what's your name, what's your name? Oliver, you were saying? No, no, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. I'm Fagin, I'm Fagin.' Well that's good. I'm glad we met today. That'll give me 20 minutes. I'll do Oliver, the Holmes version. That's brilliant. Holmes playing Fagin. Perfect for parody, isn't it?"

His assistant and long-time friend, Mike Browne, whose dining room we're sitting in, gets a pad and notes it down.

Not that Barrymore is likely to stick to his plans. Blocking, which is to theatre what a sketch is to painting, is just a rough guide, he says. Last time he performed in Auckland, in 1999, he came off stage thinking, "I've run over [time] a little bit." He'd talked an extra hour and 20 minutes.

"I know what I'm like, I tend to see something, wander off, and then 20 minutes later I think, 'Oh, where was I?' It also makes it just for that night, just for that crowd. I don't go out with too many preconceptions."

Parallels can be drawn here. It's not just Barrymore's comedy routines that run on tangents. His life has been a maze of dramatic twists and turns. He hopes New Zealand will be the start of his first positive career move since he became embroiled in sex and drugs allegations that might have destroyed his career in Britain.

Barrymore hasn't been on stage since his last tour to New Zealand. And May 15, when he goes on stage in the Aotea Centre in Auckland, will be his first day of work since a man was found dead in his swimming pool after a party in March 2001.

It's still not clear exactly what happened to the man, 31-year-old butcher Stuart Lubbock, but the ruthless British tabloids pointed an accusing finger at Barrymore and he was blacklisted from working in Britain. The man who, year after year, had been voted Britain's most popular entertainer for his television variety shows, could not get a job.

Barrymore goes on to perform in Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington and Christchurch before touring Australia. And on the day I meet him he has just secured a spot in the West End in September, and he's chuffed about it.

It's not so much that he's chosen New Zealand to relaunch his career. This is no great comeback strategy. It's more that New Zealand chose to give him a chance.

When I ask, "Why New Zealand?" he answers quickly. "Because they asked."

He's not great at promoting himself, he explains. "As much as I haven't liked the quietness [of the past two years], I've never said, well, I'm going to do something about it by running around to everybody saying, 'Please use me, you've got to use me.' I think that's dangerous. It's their choice. Things just start to slot back together in their own time."

I suggest that makes him the opposite of a control freak. "Well, I had a control freak running me for 18 years, but I got away from that."

He's vitriolic about his ex-wife and manager, Cheryl, who tightly controlled his on- and off-stage lives even after their marriage break-up.

He says his career went quiet with a bang after Lubbock's death and he struggled mentally. "It wasn't long ago I was sat on the edge of the bed and I thought I'd be better off out of this. And then I thought, no, come on, just get yourself up and get yourself showered and ... " He pauses. "That brick wall I hit was solid."

I ask if the past two years have changed him. "Yeah, I've changed."

"You're a lot calmer," says Browne.

"Am I? Yeah, I think so. Before, everything had to happen yesterday, because it was all a muddle. I'm much more at ease with myself ... And comedy is something that matures. I can talk about things because I've experienced them. I've never been frightened to show my vulnerability on stage."

But don't expect him to make light of his recent difficulties in his New Zealand routine. There's nothing to be gained from that, he says.

BARRYMORE hadn't even met Lubbock before the night he died. He was partying at a club in northeast London one night and impulsively invited 10 friends and strangers back to his $6 million Roydon home. Lubbock was among them.

As it had so often in the past, Barrymore's life became newspaper headline fodder. He still winces about the headlines: "Barrymore in pool death probe." "A huge blow to an already fragile man." "Barrymore flees to a clinic." "Tragedy is blackest hour of crazy life." "Drowned guest may have been sex victim." "Haunted Michael selling up." "Barrymore gave me cocaine, says party guest." "Barrymore was too drunk to do anything." "Barrymore arrested." "Barrymore's series axed from schedule."

But when I ask if he is bitter about the tabloids, he says no. "I have to pray for them. It's them who are sick."

Barrymore says one of the worst things about the past two years was the death of his mother during the tabloid onslaught. "Even when I was coming out of the church, they stuck a camera straight in my face and I was in the middle of grieving, and they whacked that across the front page, and what they thought was to be gained out of that, I don't know," he says in his non-stop patter.

At an inquest into Lubbock's death, the coroner declared the death a mystery. Barrymore was arrested and cautioned over drug use. Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder, but no charges were brought.

The stories in the tabloids shrouded the case in sordid innuendo, suggesting Lubbock died after a gay orgy and a sexual assault. A witness said Barrymore had rubbed cocaine into Lubbock's gums.

Browne and Barrymore insist that's not how it was, and they say the weighty inquest transcript bears them out.

"It's quite heavy reading," says Barrymore. "And if you sat down to write it as a piece of fiction, some would say you're going too far."

Browne takes over, with a well-worn explanation. He's obviously told it countless times since January, when new testimony came to light.

"There were two people in one room with Michael at Michael's house. One left the room to get a soft drink. He saw Stuart swimming up and down in the pool. He returned, and was in the room for probably just under an hour with Michael and this other person.

"The three of them decide to then leave the room and rejoin the party. [They walk] down the hallway towards the swimming pool area. It's at that point that Michael looked down and found Stuart face upwards."

Barrymore interjects: "Not face-down as the tabloids said. Also the tabloids conveniently left out the fact that there were three girls there."

Browne continues: "One of the two people dived in to recover Stuart from the bottom of the pool. Everything was done to open up his airways, there was no more that basically could be done.

"The body's taken from Michael's house. The paramedics removed it, saw no injuries, no blood. He's taken to A and E. He's worked on for two hours. Six medical statements all say no blood, no injury. One of the medical staff was taking the core temperature for that two hours, through the anal passage, with a small thermometer ... This nurse inserts this probe 16 times, he sees no injuries, no blood, no dilation, no bruising, no nothing, just a normal, healthy anal passage.

"He's then pronounced dead, they take the body away, they all do their paperwork - no injuries, no blood, no nothing."

Barrymore and Browne finally feel they're getting somewhere. Essex police announced in January they were launching a new investigation into Lubbock's death, looking at the suggestions the dead man suffered the internal injuries at Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Newspapers have started to print their side of the story.

THE traumatic past two years and Barrymore's long battle with alcoholism seem to have wearied him. He's had many demons in his life, but alcohol has been the most destructive. After 10 years of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and stints in rehab, he finally feels that he's got it licked. He's been sober for two years.

It's two years almost to the day since Lubbock's death. Barrymore, now 50, has the drawn look of someone who has smoked too many cigarettes. He's thoughtful and serious - unrecognisable from his bubbly stage persona - and has the depth of self-analysis of someone who's been through a lot of therapy.

He talks in tangents and many lead back to the death of Lubbock. The promoters of the New Zealand tour suggested before the interview that he wouldn't want to discuss the subject, but I can't shut him up.

Barrymore has survived largely through the support of the public, AA and Browne, who has been his right-hand man for 17 years and has seen him through the marriage breakup, the alcoholism, his coming out and now this. He seems to be a bit of a caregiver as well as an assistant. It obviously pains Browne to see his friend so low.

Barrymore swears by AA. He goes to meetings four or five times a week and has just been when I arrive to interview him. It was near Browne's house, which is why we've met here, in Brentwood, Essex, a short drive from Barrymore's bungalow in Harlow.

"I'm secretary," he says. "All secretary means is that you just run it - when you've had a fair bit under your belt you have to do service. I dunno whether it's supposed to be humbling or not. I do teas and coffees on Sundees."

His physical cravings for alcohol are subsiding, but it's been difficult mentally to throw away his life's crutch when he needed it most.

He says it was a blessing he wasn't in the habit of drinking before a show. "I know it looks as if I'm off my head, but I was always in control. And it's amazing that I had that discipline for my work, and yet outside of my work ... " he trails off.

"It's quite sad, really. If you put me on stage with an audience, especially live, I can cope with life. But I can't live my life 24 hours up there, and I can't take the audience home with me."

He's looking forward to being in New Zealand and says he finally feels that the worst is over. "I had such a good time last time. I felt very comfortable, they made me feel very at home.

"And if anyone asked me after that, I'd say it was one of the best-kept secrets in the world. There's just something magic about it."

His partner of five years, Shaun Davis, has relatives in New Zealand, spends a lot of time here and is going to pop over from London for a visit or two, but Barrymore says he's too busy at medical school to stay too long. The pair married in a gay ceremony in Hawaii in 1999, although they split up for a while just before Lubbock's death.

Barrymore is keen to catch up with Suzanne Prentice, who toured with him in 1999 and is joining him again.

"She's got a new body, apparently," he says. I suggest that might have been due in part to him - Prentice has remarked on his inspirational influence.

"What, not that way?" interrupts Browne, faking bemusement, his hands miming a pregnant belly.

"Oh, that could be arranged," says Barrymore. "Oh, yeah, that's good, I'll use that. Write that down."

Barrymore arrived in Auckland a couple of weeks ago to start rehearsing his show. But he says he won't give too much away to his guest stars.

"I tell them some things, then everybody has to guess what happens. I'm not going to give too much away to Suzanne, that's for sure. I look forward to surprising her."

He's relishing the prospect of standup comedy. "I'm going back to my roots, because I started with standup. That's the place where I'm most comfortable. Telly came long after. I started off, I got a cult following and it built up from there."

I ask how confident he is of getting a good reception. "Well, I've never been confident of that in my life. It won't be any different now."

After the tour there's talk of resurrecting an autobiography deal with the BBC. "As for TV, I think it's a time thing. I've got a huge support and a following out there. And I have to take a day at a time and that's as far as I am in my life at the moment. I mean, if I let my head race into next week, even tomorrow, it's a dangerous place for me to go."

Barrymore feels that at last he can get on with life and work. "The reason I go out there is for what it did for me as a kid. It's so that people for those few hours when they come and see me forget their own problems. And that's all my job is. That's what I've done all my life. They get lost in it. And I get lost in it as well."

* Michael Barrymore performs in Auckland on May 15, Hamilton on May 17, Palmerston North May 18, Wellington May 19 and Christchurch May 21.