Beautiful People
31 August

As I started to write this entry, news came in of the death of Simon Dee.

You would probably need to be of my generation for that name to mean anything to you. I think that he was one of the original Radio Caroline DJs who moved to Radio One alongside the likes of Tony Blackburn and Kenny Everett. He is most indelibly imprinted on my memory as a talk show host and as someone who epitomised the Swinging 60s and London at its most fab.

He was everywhere for a short time and then he fell from grace. Big Time.

He was in his 70s when he died. Of cancer. But he had been far from the public gaze for a very long time. Every so often there would be a news piece about his appearing in front of magistrates for non-payment of bills. It's all very sad. An early example of the Jade Goody trajectory. Those who fly high towards fame may get blistered by the heat.

I seem to be going through a phase of being in touch with people. I'm not sure if this is an indication that I'm bobbing out of a depression or if it is an indication that people are tired of waiting for me to poke my head out of my shell.

Anyhow, Phil and I met up recently. Luckily, I travelled up to Southport by train. In the space of three or four hours together, the two of us managed to polish off two bottles of wine. That's more alcohol than I've had in one sitting for a very long time indeed. Still, it fueled four hours of non-stop chat and catching up and gossip sat out in Phil's back garden in the welcome sunshine.

And he introduced me to Beautiful People.

Now, this was on television last year. And, somehow, it slipped under my radar completely.

How foolish I have been. It is absolutely wonderful and marvellous and gets an immediate four stars.

The inspiration is a book by Simon Doonan which I shall read later but, apart from the fact that both centre on the idea of growing up gay in Reading, I don't know that there is an awful lot of overlap. The TV series has been brought into the 90s and includes full-on fantasy song and dance routines and chirpy dialogue. The characters also appear to have been reduced in number and compiled to produce something more concentrated.

The script is by Jonathan Harvey. He's most famous for writing Beautiful Thing which I saw back in 1996 sometime with Fred of all people. As a consequence, it has some very strong writing for the female characters, some cracking non-PC jokes and the ability to spin from high farce to deep emotion in seconds.

The lead character, Simon, is played by Luke Ward-Wilkinson who does a fine job of playing (rather than being) an emergent camp queen. You see the difference with Layton Williams who plays his side-kick Kylie - just a little too much natural swish there I felt. Olivia Colman as mum, Debbie, Aidan McArdle as dad, Andy, and Meera Syal as blind Auntie Hayley all offer exceptional support.

The older Simon is played by Samuel Barnett was on television in Desperate Romantics earlier this summer and was also in The History Boys a while back. At the very end of the final episode, there is a scene where older Simon meets younger Simon in a fantasy sequence and whispers to him "Don't worry. It will all be alright." I think that we can all get emotional about that idea.

I started the Bank Holiday Weekend by having a meal out at Colin's - who is someone else who I have not seen for a very long while. His friend Brendan was there. Normally, the two of them become impossibly grumpy together. This occasion was altogether more affable.

Brendan was saying that he doesn't know anyone who has not been hit by the credit crunch. I told him that I didn't know anyone who had. Brendan's work is almost exclusively at the luxury end of the arts and leisure market. No wonder then that he has direct experience of rich people retrenching. In my world, currently anyway, it's mostly been about trimming your sails rather than a full-scale life change.