I Am What I Am John Barrowman (books that read to you txt) 📖

since we’d arrived, and then I went off to a script reading with the two other judges and the show’s producers. We were about twenty minutes into the meeting and still no one had asked the question that was looming like a big fat elephant in the room. I gave them a couple more minutes before I said, ‘Um … did you all hear that Simon’s in jail?’

You’d have thought I’d just announced the Pope was gay or I was having Tom Cruise’s baby. Jaws dropped. Coffee spilled. The producers were then forced to explain to the other judges that Simon had been arrested and he would not be available for either the semi-final or the finale of the show.9

I’m a good guy and my parents raised me well, but, honestly, can you blame me for not biting my tongue? I looked at the producers and at my fellow judges, I shrugged, and then I said (all together now), ‘I told you so.’

The remaining Marias felt terribly let down. Simon had not only disappointed them, but he’d also let the programme down. In the end, his ‘accuser’ did not show up in court to press charges and the Canadian court exonerated Simon of all the charges against him.

‘But where’s John?’

‘He’s being gay, blunt, and gloating a teeny tiny bit in Canadaland.’

TABLE TALK #7

‘Oh No, You Didn’t!’

Oh yes, I did see my life flash before me during an evening performance of Robin Hood at the Birmingham Hippodrome in 2008, and all I kept repeating to myself was, ‘Please don’t let me die in tights.’

I’ve heard all the criticism about pantomimes before, and I hear it all over again from friends or colleagues when the announcement is made that, once more, I’ve agreed to perform in pantomime again at Christmas. I hear all about how panto is theatre at its lowest common denominator; about how panto is cheesy and outdated; and about how it’s beneath a performer of my range; blah, blah, blah. This is usually my response: come see one of mine and I dare you not to have a good time. Can’t be done.

Paul Elliot wrote my panto scripts for Aladdin and Robin Hood. He has a unique gift for appealing to the mums, dads, grans, uncles and aunties in the audience who are nostalgic for the pantos of their youth, but at the same time he’s enough of a student of theatre and a whizz with a one-liner that his scripts also appeal to the wide range of children and young adults sitting next to those mums, dads, grans, uncles and aunties. Let’s not forget that even Shakespeare was not above playing with cross-gender high jinks, mistaken identities and the theatrics of fools and fops.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved to dress up and perform. As you know, that tradition continued when Clare and Turner were children and we would all dress up for our family performances at Christmas and the Barrowman New Year party. I’ve always adored working with children and for children. I enjoy seeing them laugh … and maybe even scaring them a little. On a whim, I did both to a whole crew of kids and their parents last year, when I stopped by the Doctor Who Up Close exhibition in the Red Dragon Centre at Cardiff Bay.

The exhibit is one of the best of its kind in the country. For a small fee, you can walk through the history of the Doctor and his companions – including yours truly as Captain Jack – checking out a lot of the costumes and props from across the series and from a number of recent episodes. You can also meet many of the Doctor’s most famous enemies. On top of all of this, the exhibition has loads of details about how episodes were produced and images created. For any fan of the show, it’s a treat.1

The Red Dragon Centre also houses my local cinema. One evening, when the movie Scott and I planned to see was sold out, we had about an hour to kill before the next showing. Since I didn’t fancy heading home and coming back again, I suggested we take a peek at the Doctor Who attraction.2 Poor Scott. In these situations, he usually rolls his eyes and wanders off to the nearest newspaper stand or bookstore.

As is often the case, a number of families were working their way round the displays when I entered, answering the trivia questions connected to each of the exhibits. No one paid much attention to the man in the baby-blue polo shirt who looked an awful lot like Captain Jack, as he snuck past the display of K9 …

I ducked round a dark corner to one of my favourite parts of the museum, where an evil Dalek was displayed in all its glory – with motion-sensored sound effects. On this day, the Dalek was presented in such a way that when visitors came round the curve from the first section of the exhibit, they’re a bit taken aback, sometimes even freaked out by what confronts them. I figured, why not make this even scarier and more exciting for the unsuspecting families about to turn the corner?

I climbed up onto the display, and posed myself as if the Dalek was menacing Captain Jack. The first family who turned the corner didn’t even bat an eyelid on seeing Captain Jack dressed in baby blue without his coat, never mind that he was even in this particular exhibit. As the unsuspecting family leaned forward to take a closer look, I reached out and grabbed the mum’s hand. She screamed so loud she scared the hell out of me and I screamed even louder. Her son, who was probably about ten, darted back round the corner, while his dad collapsed in hysterical laughter. I had barely enough time to assure them that, yes, indeed, I really was John Barrowman, before I had to hustle them onwards. I wanted to get