The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock

Author:Sheila Hancock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2009-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

22 January

Very scary State of the Union address by Bush about the axis of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. What is he building up to? He probably, understandably, feels he has to wreak revenge for the American people for September 11th. Please God he is restrained by calmer voices.

Germaine has a lot to answer for. Sally, John’s ex-wife, was more active than I was. She ended up in a police cell, having thrown flour at Bob Hope during a Miss World contest and stubbed her fag out on a policeman’s hand. When she was arrested she phoned John, and he supported her but must have wondered, when he also read some of my polemic in the newspapers, why he fell in love with such troublesome women. My new credo scuppered my comedy career with the BBC. Analysing my well-meaning sitcom roles, I realised all of them conformed to the comforting stereotype of dizzy blonde desperate for a man. At a grand BBC party, I loudly demanded to be taken more seriously by the powers that be, in those days mainly retired admirals and certainly all white, male and middle class. I nagged them to distraction, so to shut me up, they gave me a series, to go out very late at night, called But Seriously – It’s Sheila Hancock. I devised it with Barry Took, and we used clever clogs from university to write it, including John Cleese, Peter Cook and Graham Chapman. In one sketch, by Ken Hoare, I portrayed a malevolent landlady, mad with prejudice against everyone: Jews, Irish, black, pink, fat people, thin people. It was deemed from on high that it would shock people and spoil my image. I fought every inch of the way and did it. It was a success, I was proved right, but it was ten years before I worked for the BBC again.

With women like Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Victoria Wood leading the way and writing their own material, there’s nothing now that women can’t say or do, but in those days we were only allowed to be funny as long as we stayed charming and didn’t rock the men’s boat. In Seriously I had a guest star to chat with each week. One of them was Germaine Greer. I have met many eminent people. All our prime ministers since the sixties (I always preferred their wives), other important politicians, barristers, most of the royals, writers, surgeons, you name ’em, I’ve come across ’em. Of them all, Germaine has never disappointed. She has remained true to herself, even to the extent of admitting she is wrong, an invaluable virtue. She took – and still takes – ill-thought-out, vicious criticism and rises above it all with wisdom and strength.

To fill the void in my life I got involved with more and more causes, some worthy, some daft. My new humanist approach demanded I relinquish hope of divine intervention and do it myself. My messiah complex, as John later called it.

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