[Red Moon]

Queen of the luvvie jungle: How Christopher Biggens can wave goodbye to years of z-list pantos

Joan Collins, Cilla... even Lord Bragg is fawning over him. And after winning I'm A Celebrity, Christopher Biggins is about to put years of debt and Z-list panto behind him...

Maybe if you were fighting for professional survival against Basil Brush, you'd take your chances in the jungle, too.

This time last year, when Christopher Biggins was invited to tread the boards in Aladdin at Nottingham - indeed, to direct the whole shebang - he was told by those who held the purse strings that the number one star of the show would be Claire Sweeney, the former Brookside actress.

She was young, pretty and in the news, and since Biggins was a rotund, middle-aged man with a mortgage to pay, he accepted that such is showbiz.

It was a different matter, however, when he learned that Basil Brush would be joining them.

To have to share billing with a fox was beyond the pale.

"For the record, when we opened it was Claire Sweeney, me, then Basil Brush," he points out.

"But for a while it was a worry, yes. I had to fight for that billing."

He tells it all in a very jolly manner, but it was clearly wearisome.

So much so that he did the unthinkable.

He bowed out of panto this year, choosing instead to put his career - and more - up for the public vote in I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

As he puts it, what did he have to lose?

"I could sit back and watch my name slide down the billings, or I could get out there and prove to everyone that I was capable of more.

"It was high risk, of course it was. My worst fear was being voted out first, and being utterly humiliated."

But he wasn't.

He positively triumphed. Last weekend he was crowned King, or should that be Queen, of the jungle, flew home to the UK and promptly pitched up at the Ivy restaurant in London, spiritual home of luvvies everywhere, to bask in the glory.

"I walked in and I got a standing ovation," he shrieks.

"The place just came to a halt. Everyone was shouting and cheering. It was quite, quite mad.

"I was with Joan Collins and even when we were at the table, people were throwing roses. My God, it was amazing.

"Then on Wednesday I was at the comedy awards. Jonathan Ross was telling me how much he loved watching me. Everyone was clapping me on the back. It was quite exhausting.

"At the end of the night, my partner Neil was talking to these two ladies and I went up to drag him home, and guess who one of them was?

"J.K. Rowling! She said I'd been absolutely splendid. Imagine!"

He rattles through everyone who has been in touch to say well done. It seems the showbiz establishment has nothing better to do of an evening than watch other celebs eat bugs.

"Anthony Andrews, who is a very dear friend of mine, said I came across brilliantly. I got a text from Tim Rice. And Angela Rippon, dear Angela.

"I had 200 texts, and the same number of e-mails. Oh, aren't people just divine."

He's now on the brink of tears.

"I really mustn't start. These people are (sniff) my peers. And (sniff) I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to know that they (sniff) are behind me."

Actually, Biggins, today they are in front of you. Mostly fawning.

He is back at the Ivy for this interview. His table, wouldn't you just know it, is the first one you see as you walk into the inner sanctum of the restaurant.

That means he can clock every film producer, TV bigwig and fellow thespian who walks in - and open his arms for their inevitable embrace.

It is quite extraordinary because one person in four - all of whom, strangely enough, are called "darling" - does find themselves in his arms.

Melvyn Bragg - Lord Bragg, no less - does a strange little jig to his table and pinches his cheek, like you would a baby.

"You did us proud, Biggins, you did us proud," he says.

Us? Since when were Bragg and Biggins, Mr High and Low of British culture, on the same team?

It is quite confusing, and makes a mockery of Biggins's claim that he is not doing panto this year. This is pantomime, for goodness sake.

He genuinely isn't given to what-if reflections, but Christopher Biggins does sometimes allow himself to ask what might have been had he taken a different career path 25 years ago.

Back then, he was at his happiest, on prime-time TV on a Saturday night, at Cilla Black's side in the schmaltz-fest that was Surprise, Surprise.

He had proved himself in the business of serious acting - he enjoyed critical acclaim in series such as Poldark, Porridge and I, Claudius - and was now indulging his own ego with a spot of playing Christopher Biggins.

Unsurprisingly, he found he loved it.

"Remember, it was Surprise, Surprise with Cilla Black and Christopher Biggins," he says.

Sadly, few do remember that, which is why we are sitting here talking about careers and doldrums.

Anyway, when the programme was being rejigged, Biggins was asked to relinquish his studio spot, and instead take to the road meeting "real people".

He was furious.

"Cilla's husband Bobby - who was also her manager - was obviously just doing his job, wanting the best for her, but I felt they were freezing me out," he says.

"Looking back, I was probably badly advised, but I left. It was a terrible decision.

"I walked away from a primetime, extremely well-paid job. If I'd stayed, who knows? I could have been a millionaire. Things could have gone in a different direction."

Instead, he muddled along for a few years with bit parts on and off screen.

But when he was first offered panto, he was insulted.

"I was a SERIOUS AC-TOR," he pronounces, tongue in cheek.

"I was only 27 then, and a director I was working with offered me a role. I thought: 'How dare he?'

Still, he came to love panto.

He genuinely fizzes when he talks about it, but admits it was hurtful when other job offers started drying up and panto was all that was left.

Unfortunately, Biggins was still spending. His fall, when it came, was spectacular and he opted for voluntary bankruptcy.

"One day I was flashing the cash. I had an account at Coutts. The bank manager used to take me to lunch.

"Then he left, someone else came in, my career took a dive. One day I got a phone call saying, did you realise you are in the red by thousands and thousands? I didn't. I genuinely didn't."

Once, the VAT man, puzzled at his erratic earning pattern, asked Biggins how he managed in the lean times that all actors have.

"I told him: 'I rely on the kindness of others,' which he thought was very funny, but it was true.

"When I had been at my peak, I thought nothing of paying for ten people at dinner. I threw money about.

"When I got into difficulties, well, those people had to help me out, and they did. There really wasn't as much embarrassment as you might think. People understand. To a point."

Yet he admits he was humiliated.

He went cap in hand to one of his closest friends and asked to borrow money.

How much?

"£50,000," he says.

"I was ashamed, but I didn't feel I had any other choice.

"He gave me a hard time. He wanted to know how I had got myself in this mess, and whether I was going to be sensible from then on."

Has he paid his friend back? It seems not.

"The agreement was that I would pay him back when I could, and I will.

"Recently, though, he came to me and said that he'd been discussing it with his accountant, and he was going to gift me the money. Still, some day I am going to buy him something worth £60,000 or £70,000."

So is he good with money now? He explodes in giggles. Of course he isn't.

I ask who picks up the bill when he dines out with Joanie or Cilla.

"Oh, they are all getting better at going Dutch now. We tend to split it, but it's taken Cilla a while to get to this stage. When we used to go out for dinner when Bobby was alive, he would always insist on paying.

"When he died, she wanted that to continue, but thought it vulgar to pay herself, so she would give me her card and I would go and sort out the bill."

He's quite up front about the fact that he accepts free holidays, gifts, trips on luxury yachts. He jokes loudly that one of the good things about being with his partner, BA steward Neil Sinclair, is that he can fly round the world on 10pc fares.

Biggins doesn't do softly spoken. I am reminded of the fact that he is a classically trained actor, able to project his voice, when he launches into an anecdote involving the words "libido" and "masturbate".

Heads swivel, and he loves it. Perhaps because he has not always been such an outrageous success.

For many years he didn't know who he really was.

As a young man he pretended he was straight, and married "a very nice girl who didn't deserve any of that".

He and Beatrice are still in touch. She called him after he came out of the jungle, which pleased him as much as that text from Tim Rice.

To this day, he has never told his parents, who are still alive, that he is gay.

"I think they knew. Parents do.

"Or if they don't, they are pretending they don't.

"The wonderful thing about my mum and dad is they never made an issue of anything.

"When one of the papers asked them about it, my dad said: 'The thing with Christopher is that you never know what he will be doing.' I loved that."

He and Neil first got together 24 years ago, after meeting in a Glasgow club, but their fling didn't amount to anything. Fourteen years ago, however, they were reintroduced by a friend, and have been together ever since.

In some ways they are like an old married couple. He rails about how long it takes Neil to get ready: "He has dry skin, from all the flying. It takes him hours to get out of the house because he's busy rubbing in creams."

Do he and Neil have a monogamous relationship?

Clearly not.

"We've never needed to talk about it. It's not something we've sat down and discussed."

In truth, he thinks sex complicates relationships.

"I'd like to see it being reduced to a commodity. It would be so much simpler.

"You could walk into Waitrose, choose what type of sex you want, have it, then go home to your partner. Simple and effective."

Last year, Biggins and Neil tied the knot in a civil partnership ceremony but, hand on heart, he doesn't like to call it marriage.

"I prefer to say civil partnership. It is about the security -- knowing that if one of us dies, the other will be financially safe. Marriage is a heterosexual institution.

"Why apply it to gays? We have gay friends who call themselves husband and wife, but that isn't my thing at all.

"I'm camp, but not that camp!"

I'd say he's much more canny than he is camp. His eyes scan the restaurant during our entire interview. He doesn't miss a thing.

"They say: 'Camp old Biggins, he'll go to the opening of a vein.'

"But what happens if you sit at home?' he asks. 'I'll tell you. You don't meet people.

"You don't get that call the next day when someone rings to say: 'I've got this part and I just thought of you when I heard your laugh last night.'

"You just sit at home, and they forget you ever existed in the first place."

After his triumph in the jungle, there's no danger of that happening any time soon.

Source and Pictures: Daily Mail

[Jackie]

I didn't like him before he entered the jungle but i must say that he's an okay guy really.

[aj2463]

I didn't like Him before He entered the jungle and guess what... I still don't like Him