Fathomless Riches: Or How I Went From Pop to Pulpit by Richard Coles

Author:Richard Coles [Coles, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780297870319
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2014-10-15T23:00:00+00:00

17. Not Raving but Drowning

I was at the end of my twenties, I had more money than I could count, the fine-grained Filofax, for the first time since 1984, was empty; but I was not entirely idle. I started reviewing films for a late-night programme on London Weekend Television, where I showed my mettle by interviewing Kiefer Sutherland and not asking him a single question about his father. I made three good friends there: Emma Freud, whose interviews with celebrities, conducted in bed, would have been grist to her great-grandfather’s mill; Rowland Rivron, the comedian and drummer, who once fell off my piano attempting an act of congress with a famous starlet; and one of the production assistants, Rosie Thornton, who came from Kettering and was eccentric even by the standards of Kettering. She and I were to become close friends and housemates.

But what really diverted my attention in these days of fading glory was ecstasy. I had encountered it before, in New York, but during the summer of 1990 it became a staple. It was the second Summer of Love, and all over London, especially on the gay scene, little white and yellow pills were suddenly available in clubs. I went out one night with some friends and we bought some and took some and it was like an explosion of delight going off in our heads, and we all ended up entwined, chastely, on the floor stroking each other’s faces and pledging undying love until morning gilt the skies.

The next year of my life was taken over by E. I had the opportunity – money and leisure and Access All Areas; and I had the motive – yet in spite of these privileges I was wretchedly unhappy, my self-pity boundless, the dreadful onward march of AIDS pitiless, but these little white and yellow pills could dispel troubles like dawn dispels the night.

Every quickly generated its own subculture, because it made being with other people such a fantastically enjoyable experience. Pumping serotonin into your system would have made the trenches of Passchendaele an enjoyable experience, but we had clubs and the arrival of the drug precipitated a whole new scene, peopled by what Time Out described as a ‘Day-Glo fun-loving crowd’. I discovered Troll, a club that happened on a Saturday night in the Soundshaft in Charing Cross, a smaller sibling of Heaven, to which it was joined, but accessed differently, down an alleyway behind the station, which looked like something from Dickens. There was nothing Dickensian about the club itself, a pleasure dome, throbbing with the beat of Acid House, jumping with creatures of the night dressed as fantastically as King Lear in his mad flowers.

In its short life Troll became famous, the hottest club in London. Those of us who were regulars were a tight little gang, but every week, as its reputation grew, celebrities would loom out of its unearthly black light; Imran Khan, Rupert Everett, and once an unlikely appearance from the man who played René in ’Allo ’Allo.

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