The Last Flannelled Fool by Michael Simkins

Author:Michael Simkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409005704
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

9

Freddie and The Dreamers

One of the more pleasurable by-products of a life spent hanging about with other actors is that you occasionally get to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Whether it’s sharing a lift with Carol Vorderman or a Tardis with David Tennant, or merely asking the chairman of the BBC if he’d like red or white, you’ll eventually find yourself interfacing with the odd showbiz celebrity.

Over time you get immune to it. An occupational hazard, I suppose. And while my own career is not so much Who’s Who as ‘Who’s He?’, I’ve still managed to cut a fair few notches on my celebrity belt, from meeting Björn and Benny to sharing a dressing room with Les Dennis.

Occasionally these showbiz encounters even extend to a game of cricket. Nothing opens up people’s wallets quicker than the chance of rubbing shoulders with someone off the telly. You can hardly stroll across a village green these days without blundering into some high-profile cricketing fund-raiser involving actors and entertainers strutting their stuff in aid of a deserving cause.

Thus if you are both a luvvie and a fan of the game, chances are you’ll be asked along to make up the numbers. I’ve played in a fair few in my time, and they’ve provided some piquant experiences, including batting against Henry Kelly, bowling to Nicholas Parsons, running out Mick Jagger’s younger brother, and being wrongly given out caught behind by Mick McManus.

But playing alongside professional cricketers in such encounters is something quite different. They’ve done something you could never do. They’ve walked out to bat with six needed in the final over in a Pro40 final, or caught a vital catch at Melbourne when a hundred thousand Australians are baying for them to drop it. Portraying King Lear at the National Theatre is one thing. Coming in as night watchman against Brett Lee is quite another. And while I’m sure it must be lovely to be granted an audience with Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi, a true cricket fan would swap it in a moment for the chance to have a beer with Gary Pratt and ask him to relive his run-out of Ricky Ponting at Trent Bridge in 2005.

I’d intended to use Sunday 4 July by going to see some more T20, this time at Chelmsford. Today of all days it was essential I keep busy as the Baldwins were playing at Arundel Castle, a ground once allegedly described by the great Australian batsman and journalist Jack Fingleton as ‘the most beautiful in England’, and very much the jewel in the crown of Chris Buckle’s fixture list. With a shirtfront batting track, a rustic pavilion and the magnificent castle itself just across the boundary rope, I knew that missing this fixture would hurt more than any other. Spend the day moping around at home and sooner or later I’d only open the fridge and hit the cheese strings.

But then came the phone call that changed everything. It was from cricket journalist and all-round bon viveur Peter Hayter.

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